A World Cup-sized waste of plastic

The bottle

On most working days, I like to step outside the office and take the air, sipping a peppermint tisane outside the delightful Albertini, which is just off Euston Road.

On Fridays, the Chalton Street market provides additional people-watching possibilities.

A stall that is set up almost directly next to where I tend to be sitting sells a variety of curtains and cushion covers and various similar items, but I’m always most amused by the handwritten notice in one crate, proclaiming that the contents are “‘Genuine’ plastic tablecloths”.

Does the use of single quote marks around the “genuine” mean that we should take the claim with a pinch of salt? Has someone invented a type of ‘fake’ plastic? Is it a costermonger’s joke based on the common conflation of ‘fake’ and ‘plastic’?

I don’t know the answer to these questions, but it remains amusing.

Plastic tablecloths – red and white check, of course – have a place. Nothing else is acceptable or appropriate when consuming proper fish and chips in a proper northern chippy that knows how to do them properly.

White mugs of tea – complete with a chip on the side – are also obligatory, as are proper mushy peas, Sarsons vinegar and plates piled high with thick slices of factory bread.

There is a possibility that such a table adornment would be appropriate in a down-to-earth Italian restaurant too, on which could stand a bottle of white, a bottle of red, perhaps a bottle of rose instead …

There are, indeed, myriad uses for plastic that range from the plastic as tacky to the plastic as high-quality material.

It’s a versatile material without which it would be difficult to contemplate modern life as we know it.

But given that substantial amounts of plastics are derived from petrochemicals, which are not an infinite resource, and given that many plastics are not particularly good at biodegrading, one might be forgiven for thinking that it would be sensible to be ... well, sensible about how you use it.

Recycling is sensible too – and not just in terms of sticking things in a bag or crate for collection once a week, but also by using a plastic object more than once.

Yes – even that plastic cutlery that gets divvied out in sandwich shops can be washed and used for more than a single lunch.

Similarly, I doubt I’m the only person who has a bag full of plastic bags in the kitchen. Some are used over and over again, but all have at least a second use, while if I know I’m going shopping, I take a bag or bags with me.

But there are times when you look at something and find yourself musing on the utter stupidity of it – and the absolute waste of resources.

A particular example occurred the other day, when my shopping order included, as expected, a bottle of Listerine mouth wash.

This time, however, something was different.

The cup

It usually involves a plastic top on a plastic bottle – the former of which can be used as a cup. This is sealed in place by, err, plastic.

A spanking new ‘limited edition’ version still sees that – but with the addition of the extra plastic cup, that is then held in place by a further plastic seal.

And by way of explanation, the extra little plastic cup bears the legend “Official oral care sponsor – FIFA World Cup Brasil [sic]”.

Come on brand owner Johnson & Johnson – is this doubling up of a cup (and seals to hold the extra one in place over the usual one) really a responsible use of a resource?

But that little plastic cup actually tells another story that is, in it’s way, just as depressing or soul destroying.

Someone, somewhere, is paid to come up with promotional ideas such as this.

And someone, somewhere, is paid to design such things.

Is that really productive work?

Well presumably it is – in terms of creating profit for the companies in question, but that begs questions about what constitutes productive work and how we add value to society as a whole.

Now I understand the need to design and produce containers for, say, mouth wash. And I understand that design can both be about aesthetics and for rather more utilitarian reasons. And that design can, for instance, reduce the amount of plastic used and thereby save money and resources.

But this little ‘freebie’ has nothing to do with any of that.

To some free market fundamentalists, designing something like this would be more valuable – assuming it increases units sold – than someone who is a nurse in a public health system.

Yet it reflects something that it’s hard not conclude isn’t downright bonkers.

And that bonkersness extends to anyone who might buy a bottle of Listerine simply because it’s got a “limited edition” World Cup cup strapped to it.

For goodness sake – who in all hell is impressed by a company proclaiming that it’s the “official oral care sponsor” of a sports tournament?

Yes – I know how advertising works: I know that even major brands spend fortunes in order to maintain levels of brand awareness, for instance.

Gratuitous picture of Joe Hart

And I get that companies want to have their products associated with success – so you can see the logic of Proctor & Gamble paying Manchester City and England goalkeeper Joe Hart to advertise Head & Shoulders shampoo, just as past generations of men were, presumably, tempted to splash on a bit of Brut by ’enry Cooper.

Those, however, relied on the sportsman promoting an actual product – not offering a ridiculous and inelegantly-branded little plastic cup as an enticement to buy.

Is there really anyone out there who is dozy enough to start using a product or to change the one they use because of such a claim and because of an extra bit of entirely superfluous plastic?

Presumably there must be – but then there are plenty of people out there who have, over the years, fallen for buying one variety of fast food crap over another so that their children can walk away with a bit of plastic tat (which helpfully ties in with marketing a film) or a sugar-laden cereal so that their offspring can have some freebie.

There are, presumably, people who buy a brand because it is advertised that, for every unit sold, a penny will go to some cause or other.

Just buy the product you need/want – and then give 10p to a charitable concern you care about, for goodness sake!

But in Listerine’s single, small marketing scheme, you have an indicator of so much that is wrong in the world today.

And while there’s no guarantee, what’s the betting that the US owners of Listerine, Johnson & Johnson, are far from being particularly interested in Association Football?

Bloody corporate plastic fans.

Singing the Blues (again) and why FFP has nothing to do with fairness

The god that is Vincent lifts the trophy

The domestic football season is almost over, but oh my goodness, what a season it’s been!

More open than any for years, with three teams in with a chance of claiming the Premier League title until only a matter of days before the concluding round of matches.

As a City fan of 40 years (this year!) and counting – I am, of course, utterly delighted: not just with a second title in two years, but a first ever double, having lifted the League Cup in March.

And I got to be there on both occasions and I screamed myself daft – great catharsis – and I’m still feeling the sheer joy. Hey – that’s football for you.

Fortunately too, for health reasons, the final day of the season wasn’t as nerve-shreddingly tense as 2012.

The season was not just about City, though.

Goodness – how I wish I was a betting person and had thought to put money on a Madrid derby for the Champion’s League final.

And no look back at the domestic season would be complete without recognition of David Moyes’s achievement in finally getting Everton above Manchester United in the table.

 Chris Hughton

It was also good to see Arsenal win the FA Cup – not because I have any sort of issue with Hull or Steve Bruce (in my days as a pro sports hackette, I interviewed him, and he’s a decent bloke), but because it helped stuff some of his words back down José Mourinho’s over-sized gob.

Banter is one thing – the utter lack of respect he shows on a regular basis is quite another. And as for his “19th century football”, I’m no fan of Allardici’s style, but Chelsea can hardly claim to be an unrelenting a joy on the eye.

On the subject of respect and talking to managers, I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to all those I seem to have jinxed this term by taking their pictures.

After photographing an event at Westminster for Show Racism the Red Card early last December, Steve Lomas and Chris Hughton have lost their jobs, while Alan Pardew seemed to go into meltdown a short while later.

West Ham fans may – or may not – be interested to know that I also photographed Sam Allardyce.

I should add that, as far as that evening was concerned, all were completely charming, as were all the people I came into contact with.

Ashton-under-Lyne's very own Gordon Taylor

And a special mention for PFA boss Gordon Taylor. Back when I was a sports ed, he’d give me the time of the day and would take my calls, yet I’d never met him face to face. It was a pleasure.

Of course the season also ended with news of UEFA’s sanctions against those European clubs judged to have fallen foul of the new financial fair play (FFP) rules.

The two biggest clubs affected were City and Paris St-Germain – champions in their respective countries for this term just gone.

Now it is, I should point out, entirely coincidental that both clubs are currently owned by swarthy Middle Eastern types. After all, UEFA has frequently illustrated just how seriously it treats racism rearing its ugly head anywhere near the beautiful game.

Indeed, only last February, it fined Atletico Madrid €10,000 euros (£8,270) and ordered a partial stadium closure after fans racially abused Manchester City youth players in a match.

Comparisons with UEFA’s €100,000 fine and a one-match ban for Nicklas Bendtner in 2012, after he sported sponsored undies, are fundamentally flawed.

Steve Lomas, Sir Trevor Brooking and Sam Allardyce

After all: that was about money. Or more importantly, about not upsetting big business when it sponsors the game.

Now the thing about FFP, in theory at least, is that it’s supposed to avoid any more cases of clubs living so far beyond their means that they go bust as a result.

Which is a perfectly laudable aim.

However, neither City nor PSG are living above their means.

You can object all you like to those clubs being owned by foreigners, to those foreigners being Middle Eastern, to owners being richer than Croesus, to the state of football in general or to the moon being made out of cheese, but it doesn’t change the simple fact that the owners of those clubs are wealthy enough that they’re not likely to go broke any time soon, no matter how much they spend, and certainly not as long as the oil is flowing.

Rachel Yankey

Indeed, in City’s case, the entire Etihad Campus project is seeing a massive regeneration of an area of Manchester that has been derelict since the massive deindustrialisation of the 1980s – and not just with facilities for the club, but also for local people, including housing.

And – hardly unimportant – a shed-load of new jobs, with a commitment that close to 100% will go to local people.

All that's without mentioning that it represents a long-term, sustainable model for the club, by creating a world-class academy along the lines of that at Barcelona.

None of this suggests that Sheikh Mansour is about to pull the plug and run away, leaving the club to die because he’s got bored.

The problem with FFP – and casting aside cynicism for a moment, let’s just say that it really was meant to stop another Portsmouth – what it actually does is go a long way to closing the door between an existing European elite and those who might aspire to join it.

It’s a little like the UK and US rabbiting on about protectionist policies – after using the very same approach to initially build their own economies.

Alan Pardew surprises SRTRC’s own Ged Grebby

In terms of domestic UK football, there is not a single winner of the English title for a considerable length of time that has not had to buy players.

If you want to talk of ‘buying titles’, then Blackburn and Jack Walker are a perfect example.

Manchester United and Chelsea have spent considerable sums – as have Liverpool – including on wages (infographic here that might surprise you).

After the ‘golden generation’ of Fergie’s Fledglings, United have frequently brought new talent to the club – and broken the British transfer record in so doing.

And then there’s the idea that Arsenal don’t spend money – that they ‘do it right’ – a rather romantic perception that is actually rubbished by looking at the facts.

Having won the title in 1988-89 and 1990-91 under George Graham, the Gunners then endured a bit of a drought.

Arsène Wenger took over the managerial hot seat in 1996 after the 14-month reign of Bruce Rioch had been followed by the brief caretakerships of Stewart Houston and Pat Rice.

Speaker John Bercow, Rachel Yankey and Gordon Taylor

The previous year, under Rioch, the club had made the marquee signing of Denis Bergkamp for £7.5m. The following year, Patrick Vieira was brought in for £3.5m, and in 1997, Emmanuel Petit joined for £2.5m and Marc Overmars for £5.5.

Adjusting for inflation, that’s £12,581,338.70 for Bergkamp, £5,733,350.00 for Vieira, £3,972,000.00 for Petit and £8,738,400.00 for Overmars.

In 1995, the English record transfer fee was £7m – paid by Manchester United to Newcastle for Andy Cole – until that Bergkamp deal.

Arsenal went on to win the title in 1997-98, 2001-02 and 2003-04. They continued to be both a buying and a selling club in that period, including, in 1999, spending a new club record of £11m to bring Thierry Henry to north London from Juve.

A list of British tranfer records makes for interesting reading, although it’s far from complete.

It doesn’t, for instance, mention the £42m deal that brought Mesut Özil to Arsenal last summer – not least because the British record has been smashed out of sight by the fees paid to English clubs by Real for, first, Ronaldo and then Gareth Bale.

By 2000, Barça were willing to stump up £32m for Overmars and Petit combined, a week after Luis Figo had left the club for Real for £37.2m. At the time, other top fees in global terms were Hernan Crespo – Parma to Lazio for £36m – and Christian Vieri – £31m to move to  Inter from Lazio.

Those figures also illustrate just where the market was pushing up transfer fees most.

Now none of this is intended as a ‘dig’ at any club.

But it shows quite clearly that the reality is that no club that challenges for domestic titles in the UK – let alone wishes to challenge in European competition – is likely to do so without substantial spending.

It also illustrates one reason why Arsenal have failed to win another title for some years.

If one really wanted to look at financial issues, perhaps one should ask why UEFA has managed not a whisper as a club such as Manchester United was bought in a way that places it in greater risk.

One could, if one were so inclined, consider the role of agents in creating transfer inflation.

My solution to that would – in UK terms at least – to have PFA-appointed reps available to help any player needing help with any form of contract negotiations.

It would go a long way to cutting out the culture of agents shit stirring to make money for themselves off the back of the talents of any players in their stables.

But since that seems unlikely to happen in the near future, remember this: spending money that you have is worth a £50m fine.

Abusing young, black players because of the colour of their skins comes in at £8,270.

Find out more here about Show Racism the Red Card

Never felt more like singin' the Blues

Vincent and the boys enjoy the win

Three days down the line and I’m still singin’ the Blues – the Blues in question being Manchester City, who triumphed in the League Cup final (or the Capital One Cup Final if you insist on the sponsored version) at Wembley on Sunday afternoon.

Yes, I know that it was ‘only’ Sunderland (which is massively unfair on them), but it was a match taken seriously by both teams and by both sets of fans and which, for those reasons alone, brought prestige back to a competition that, in recent years, has suffered because some clubs have treated it as a sideshow to the main events of the title and the FA Cup.

We last won it in 1976 – 2-1 against another North East team, Newcastle, with goals from Peter Barnes and a memorable overhead kick from Denis Tueart: I still have the press cuttings in a scrapbook.

That was a victory that marked the end of the good times, though, followed as it was by a silverware drought that lasted until the FA Cup final of 2011.

With last season’s FA Cup final defeat by Wigan all too fresh in the memory, the Black Cats’ goal on 10 minutes did nothing to soothe nerves.

It’s a good thing that I have short hair because otherwise I’d have been tearing it out for an hour.

‘No, no, no – not again! Please no!’

I arrived in good time and took my time wandering up Wembley Way, sampling the atmosphere. No silly jester hat this time – it was probably why we lost in May.

Superstition plays a role on such days: coffee in my ‘City ’til I die’ match day mug first thing in the morning is an established ritual.

Up in the gods to watch the gods

This time, with yet more rain promised and greyness already evident, I attired myself in navy cords, a hooded sweatshirt and a home shirt (Zabaleta on the back). This is not a particularly fetching look for anyone of my shape, but since I was determined to wear colours and since I’d already tried the shirt underneath a hooded sweatshirt look for the Barcelona game (which we lost) I wasn’t repeating that mistake.

Then for the City dog tags, the earring and the two rings – one of which, a 1970s enamel crest on a stainless steel band – was given to me as a Christmas present by friends at Fairfield High School for Girls, which just happens to be up the road from where the current stadium is.

That one has enormous sentimental value – I refused an offer of a tenner for it some years ago, when a tenner would have been very welcome – and only comes out for the really, really big games.

A baseball cap (Champions’ League) topped off the ensemble – as I said, no wearing that blue and white jester hat again – together with a Capital One Cup Final scarf that I’d picked up at the Etihad a couple of weeks ago, since it was cheaper than anything that the stalls on Wembley Way could offer.

The atmosphere was brilliant – none of the pessimism and doubt that City fans were feeling last May even before we made it into the stadium.

The only real question on people’s lips was whether Manuel Pellegrini was right to opt for Costel Pantilimon in goal rather than Joe Hart – a slightly odd thing to be asking when Roberto Mancini’s dropping of Pants on the morning of the Cup Final (and then sending one of the junior coaching staff to tell him) had almost certainly been one factor in what happened that day.

If you’re going to operate a squad – and with so many matches in so many competitions in a single season, you have to – then you don’t drop players when they’ve got you to a final.

Anyway, once inside the stadium, a pint of Tetleys was slowly imbibed while gazing outside.

At one point, a Virgin Pendolino sped past in the near distance, on its way north. It reminded me of all those trips I’d made in that direction, glancing to the right as we passed Wembley and uttering a silent prayer that I’d eventually get a chance to see City play there in a final for a proper trophy.

Mike Doyle with the League Cup in 1976

And here I was, on a third visit to the stadium in four years – the second for an actual final.

But however much this is a new incarnation of the Blues, the history remains.

In the fourth minute, in honour of former skipper Mike Doyle, who lifted that last League Cup in ’76, fans stood to applaud the man who died in 2011.

And nicely done by Wembley for putting up a picture of him on the big screens too.

Then, at the end, as I was leaving, people were taking it in turns to ring a very special bell outside.

Helen ‘The Bell’ Turner was a lifelong City fan who sold flowers outside Manchester Royal Infirmary, raised loads of money for charity, and carried a school bell with her to all games, where she rang it with a vengeance.

She stood behind the goal and would chat with ’keeper Joe Corrigan, giving him a sprig of heather before each match.

She was so much a part of the club that she ‘rang out’ the final game at Maine Road and, when she died in 2005, there was a minute’s silence for her.

And back on that League Cup Final day in 1976, memorable pictures attest to her joining the team on their lap of honour with the trophy.

Mike and Helen – just two indicators of how City has ‘no history’, according to some who resent our recent change in fortunes.

Anyway, back to the present – or the rather more recent past, as it is now.

Sunderland’s goal – well taken by Fabio Borini – came six minutes after that tribute, and I spent the following 60 minutes in hair-tearing mode, screaming at the team (and occasionally the ref) and frequently with palms pressed to brow in anguish.

Asa Hartford and Helen the Bell with the trophy in '76

Logic stated that, unlike last season’s FA Cup Final, the opposition had scored early and time was on our side, but logic and emotion are not necessarily the best of bedfellows.

Everything changed, though, inside two second-half minutes.

The Engineer claims not to have said much more at half time than ‘stay calm and patient’, but his charges came out a different team.

And 10 minutes into the second stanza, up stepped Yaya Touré to curl home a miracle shot (at my end of the pitch) from all of 30 yards out.

Then, just a minute later, Samir Nasri gave us the lead with another spectacular strike.

Not, of course, that it was ever going to be comfortable.

Moments of looking fragile at the back were only finally put to bed when Jesús Navas made it 3-1 on 90 minutes.

What a friend we have in Jesús.

Especially on a Sunday.

Now the celebrations could really begin.

Oh, the joy of seeing Vincent Kompany lift a pot at Wembley!

Most of the Sunderland fans stayed for the presentation and afterwards, as we were all slowly trooping out of the stadium, we applauded them and they applauded us.

They’re fantastic fans and helped create a really marvellous atmosphere: a credit to their club and their city.

Not that you’d have got that impression the night before from Tory MP Robert Halfon, who tweeted in disgust that they’d ‘taken over’ Covent Garden and turned it into a “cesspit”.

How dare those dreadful northern oiks come down to the Big Smoke to wreck your night out, eh Bobby?

The public-school educated politician has since apologised for calling Sunderland fans “scumbags”. He, however, remains a plonker.

I joined friends for a spot of post-match partying – although, in ridiculously middle-aged style, I was still home by 9.30pm.

It had been another day of sharp emotions: of dramatic highs and crazy lows.

But goodness: after all the years where what we mostly worried about was whether we could avoid relegation – and goodness, I shed a tear or two in those times – and where, more than once, we rescued defeat from the jaws of victory, how wonderful to be there, at Wembley, to see the Blues lift a serious trophy once again.

And on Wednesday night, I’m pleased to report that my voice has recovered.

Well ... almost.