When a transfer window closes, a door opens; Andy Carroll’s landmark £35m move from Newcastle to Liverpool, broke not only the transfer record for a British player, but also racial boundaries. The date of Wednesday 2 February shall ring through the ages, as this was the day when James Lawton of the Independent chose to describe the striker as “raw”, a new era of equality and understanding between races dawned, as the young Carroll became the first white player to be described in these vaunted terms.
“This is the day that we thought we would never see” said a trembling Trevor Phillips, chair of the European Human Rights Commission. An impromptu street party had roared into life outside Anfield, the crowd moving as one with their uncoordinated, wildly flailing limbs. Stepping up to address the crowd, Phillips announced that “a whole generation of technically deficient young white professionals will now have someone to admire”.
Amid the celebrations, Carroll remained humble. “This isn’t just about me,” conceded the young striker. “It’s for all the trailblazers who went before me, paving the way but never getting the true recognition that they deserved. Darren Huckerby. Darren Eadie. Neil Shipperley. Gary Doherty. Let their names ring out” .
“It’s a great example for any children out there that I might have” added Carroll. “I can now tell them that they can achieve anything. Perhaps one day they too can grow up to be tactically naive?”.
Despite seeing history unfolding in front of him, Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish was typically stoic. “When it comes to my signings, I don’t see colour, or technical ability. Andy proves that having no technical ability whatsoever should not be a barrier to playing at the highest level. Despite what you might read, top-level football is not just about technique. That’s an actual thing that I said”.
Meanwhile, outside Anfield Phillips and Carroll lead the crowd in a stirring call and response chant on the steps of Anfield.
“YES WE CAN!…fail to control a ball and fire wildly into the side netting!”
“YES WE CAN!…sprint headlong into an offside position”
“YES WE CAN!…needlessly fire one long when we could have kept it simple!”
what a load of fucking bullshit…… who ever writes this shit is a fucking wanker…… standard
This is my second favourite comment about Fisted Away, just nestling behind: “They don’t really go into detail about this or is it meant to be tongue-in-cheek”
Hang on…Darren…is this the actual Darren Huckerby?
Oh, the ancient prophecy has come true.
I have a dream….that the white, technically deficient England team will one day break down the race barrier by showing that Anglo-Saxons can not qualify for the World Cup.
Everyone knows football has been the leader in “saying no to racism” since 2006. Monkey-noises notwithstanding, obviously.
I think Kenny’s right in that more than just “technique” plays a role in a player’s success at the highest level (which isn’t exactly an earth-shattering observation) (and which also requires that the player in question isn’t Messi), but I guess the last thing the England team need is someone justifying their relative lack of control and creativity.
Hi Doug,
I’m totally with you, football IS much improved on race. But attitudes persist even at the most public and pervasive level which is, depressingly, commentary and punditry. Calling a young black player “raw”, “tactically naive” or “not having a football brain” is not just loaded, but an extraordinarily narrow set of learned, lazy responses.
Equally, none of these things mean anything in a technical sense. Which is where Dalglish and Carroll fit in: I’d actually been chewing over this “raw” article for a good year before the right player came along. But to also have a manager who thinks technique is just keepy-uppies on a street corner?
As well as things have gone so far at Liverpool for Dalglish, worshipping the golden cow of brute physicality runs alarmingly contrary to one of the clearest footballing development lessons the UK has eventually learned.
Not necessarily.
Players in many sports who rely on superior size, skill, speed (think the 6th grader who had a growth spurt) often tend to be lazier because they can easily dominate on physical traits alone. As the differences become smaller (or the athletes plateaus) between players, raw talent isnt alone.
Ive seen it happen in track throughout the years as well as football.
There are many, many raw players out there, who never learned maturity and discipline… who were always coddled and allowed to get away with things. Thats universal. Not every player has emotional maturity to make the jumps to the pros even though they have physical.
You see racism in that statement but I think what I said crosses racial boundaries.
Haha, I was being sarcastic about football’s racial progress. That Mario Balotelli was racially abused by Italian fans while playing for the national team says it all to me, but racist fans are an easy target. I’m totally with you on pundits’ reliance on stereotypes to characterize black players as being in some way “undisciplined.” I’m spared most UK-commentary as I live in the States and confine myself almost entirely to watching Liverpool games and the highlights-sections of MotD, but we get precisely the same kind of thing in coverage of NBA basketball.
Being a completely biased pro-Kenny partisan, he’s always right about everything to me. So, naturally, his comment about ball-jugglers was taken completely out of context. In his own article. We’ll be showing Barcelona how to play by the end of the season.
[...] Carroll is breaking down barriers. (Fisted Away) [...]
Hi,
I read your article and some of the words really jumped out at me but despite how many times I read and reread key sentences I still couldnt figure out what you meant by “raw”?
Why does Andy sound like such a numpty in this articles? While at the same time being praised?
Aaa, I’m confused. Anyway if you could explain it to me I’d be really grateful. ^^