Anatomy of an atrocity
Thatcher thuggery analysed again, and again Manchester City’s blind scrote of a left-back, Ben Thatcher, was thrust into disgrace on Wednesday night, after clattering Portsmouth midfielder Pedro Mendes in an ‘X-rated’ elbow-and-body clean-out. Mendes needed hospital treatment, during which time the moral opprobrium was ratcheted up big time within the soccer community. Initial response from City was taciturn: “I think the disciplinary measures may come from elsewhere than here,” Stuart Pearce, the City manager, acknowledged when asked if he would impose his own punishment. “Ben was going at 110mph and I just hope it was an accident. It looks like the tackle was a bit mistimed.”
“Mistimed?” Come on ‘Psycho’. We are reminded that Stuart Pearce himself was a '’hard tackling left back’ (masked technical weakness with the threat of violent assault) himself, of course, so will want to sympathise with the snarling pick who assaulted Mendes. Maybe Ben was trying to impress the Boss. Tut tut tut. There is absolutely no place anywhere, none whatsoever in any location, for that sort of thing in the game. Let's just watch it again to make sure that we really don't approve.
Luckily, by 11:37am someone had put the BBC footage up on YouTube
so we could all grieve at the horrificity of this attack (while condemning it outright). Surfers were urged to watch it five times to really get to grips with the full atrocity, in the process becoming Gary Lin-aker and buying Microsoft Moral Unction Lite v2 from the pharmacist, to ensure responses were less equivocal. Some City fans took on the burden of blame. “Thatcher's a walking disgraceathon. I'm not sponsoring him anything,” said Silas, while Frank from Gorton yelped “I speak to you as a friend of football and as a City fan – I am appalled.”
To which Jeff in Milton Keynes replied: “I am glad that you have issued this reassurance. Any attempt to excuse this morally unacceptable action would have been crushed under the wheels of progress and the video of the crushing repeated every 15 minutes on all news Channels (and some non-news channels) to really taxi that message home.”
Buoyed by this new support network, concerned City leaders sprang into action. By 4.07pm an association of due response had been set up from an East Manchester bunker: “The community of City fans and friends (COCFAF) condemn last night's outrage and wish Mr Mendes a speedy recovery. We are reminded that this is a beautiful game, even on Wednesday night in the rain in East Manchester with loads of empty seats. Remember – Keep it clean.” Frank Botch, Repeat? Never. Lancs
Replies were manifold: the words of “I have just prayed to the Lord Gulliver Trinket, grovelling my thanks for this accord. I am not yours,” from Jenny Sputes of Maladjustor, Severanceshire, was just one of these.
But this wasn’t enough to quell the angry chimes of Portsmouth.
The News hung ‘the brute’ Thatcher figuratively out to dry for his ‘sickening’ challenge. But still aiming to mend fences again, COCFAF observed with please the denigratory language, and farted with relief.
So with the threat of police action hanging over their left back’s head and rumours that it was going to make the ITN News (it did), by late afternoon City decided to help with the grief counseling by
putting out a statement.
Further apologies filtered out: "I can assure everybody that this has hit the player very hard. There is no bravado about him. He has gone home, turned on the TV and seen the challenge. The more you watch it, the worse it gets."
Well that makes it all ok then. Christ cakes, this is bloody ridiculous. It makes any knuckledragger out there think that as long as you apologise to someone after you've given them a right tonking, it makes it alright to have had a rush of testosterone and committed an act that could so easily end someone's life. As long as you reconcile your actions you’re ok by us and welcome to buy a mortgage any time.
