FOOTBALL’S COMING HOME! RICHARD CURTIS LOOKS FORWARD TO THE 2010 BREWER MORRIS FIVE-A-SIDE TOURNAMENT
By the time you read this, it will be that time again; we will be about to find out what drastic measures need to be taken to ensure success. The thing that we’ve all been waiting for over the past few years. No, not the first Budget of a new government; the football World Cup!
And anyone who has been watching the first few matches will have seen the usual displays of style and individual expression that you can only expect to find on the field of play of a sport which is known, for reasons that must be obvious to all, as 'the beautiful game’.
Sorry, stop, stop – what on earth are you talking about, Rooney’s ball control, the brilliance of Lionel Messi’s footwork, attacking play, dead ball situations, great goalkeeping and defending?
Don’t be daft. I’m not talking about football skills; anyone can kick a ball round a field for an hour and a half! No, I’m talking about the other reason that some of the world’s best soccer players are going to be remembered in the months and years to come: the hairstyles that will be on display during the competition.
I mean, who on earth remembers how Chris Waddle played in the 1990 World Cup? Let’s be honest, no-one; except perhaps his mum. No, what we remember is his haircut: the famous ‘mullet’ – well that and the equally-famous missed penalty, of course.
Perhaps it’s a fact that mullets and penalties don’t mix because now I think of it Roberto Baggio, one of Italy’s most renowned players, was famously sporting a strange beaded version of that particular hairstyle four years later in the 1994 World Cup and, just as famously, also ‘skyed’ a penalty with Italy going out of the competition as a result. Terrible kick, terrible hair.
Five-a-style
If you are reading this then chances are that you, like me, failed to persuade your nearest and dearest to let you cough up the readies for a month-long trip to South Africa and you are now simply hoping to be able to watch as many of the matches as you can.
But followers of style, both on and off the pitch, who want to see some football and haircut action a little closer to home will be interested in this year’s Brewer Morris five-a-side football tournament, sponsored by Taxation.
Following two successful previous competitions, this year’s is also in support of CLIC Sargent – the UK’s leading children’s cancer charity – and Brewer Morris hope that as many teams as possible will join in; details of how to get involved are in the Box.
Now, if you’ve got some style to display on the pitch, either with your feet or your head, you only need to find four other like-minded individuals in your firm and then get your application in.
The Gaffer
Chartered Accountants HW Fisher are on a roll so far in this competition. Their team won against Diageo in the 2008 final and won again – believe it or not – against another HW Fisher team last year.
As the ‘gaffer’, Martin Taylor, explained, ‘this made it the double for HW Fisher’. In fact, it strikes me that this was a ‘double-double’, with consecutive wins in 2008 and 2009 as well as having the top two teams in 2009.
To be fair, perhaps I should emphasise that the firm did not originally enter two teams, but were invited to put up a second when another team was needed at short notice.
Martin – or ‘the José Mourinho of the Brewer Morris competition’ as he likes to be known – was busy planning his team’s tactics with the Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaká of HW Fisher: Martin Smith and team captain David Clouston.
He was also trying on his lucky manager’s jacket (‘freshly washed and ironed’) when I phoned, but confirmed that his and the team’s ambition was to make it a ‘treble’ this year. In fact, the main question in his mind was whether, if successful, the team would be allowed to keep the trophy permanently.
Much as I like Martin, it would be great to see another firm giving his team a run for their money. They promise to only field one team this year, so if you have four colleagues who look like they know one end of a football pitch from the other, please register your team in this year’s competition. In addition to HW Fisher, previous entrants include: Unilever, Paul Hastings, Taylor Wessing, PwC, KPMG, Baker Tilly, Diageo, Smith & Williamson, McGrigors and PKF.
Fab hair
To avoid disappointment among the more fashionable of our readers, I suppose it would be only fair to say that while you may see some great footballing skill, it’s unlikely that you will see any extreme hairstyles in the competition; clients expect a certain standard of appearance. So for the latest hairstyles, you will have to stick with the World Cup; the French defender Sagna seems to be the best I’ve seen so far.
David James apart, the English team hasn’t seen any really radical haircuts recently and my personal view is that the FA deliberately appointed the manager to shake up the team’s ambitions in that direction.
The clue, as they say, is in the name. Footballers are always giving each other nicknames and Fabio does shorten nicely on the field of play when time is of the essence to ‘Fab’ and the Italian speakers among you will know that ‘capello’ is Italian for hair.
Finally, and still on the subject of hair and Italian, I was practising my grammatical ability again the other day. At the water-cooler some of my female colleagues were discussing their holiday hair-care regimes. Perhaps in an attempt to impress them with my language skills, I said: ‘mi lavo i capelli ogni giorno’.
That means ‘I wash my hair every day’, I explained.
‘Which one?’ they asked.
Brewer Morris five-a-side tournament
When: 2pm to 5pm, Friday, 13 August 2010
Where: Powerleague Football Centre, Worship Street, London EC2A 2BA
How: To register a team in this year’s tournament, contact Mo Hanslod on 020 7415 2800 or via email: mohanslod@brewermorris.com
