Football, or soccer to use the American spelling, was invented by the devil with the sole intention of tormenting me personally. The same is true of people who talk about football, books about football and films about football. Nick Hornby wrote a novel called Fever Pitch about this abominable pastime, which, to add insult to injury was then turned into a film. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to interview Mr Hornby and to see how he might go about trying to exonerate himself. Invariably, I always imagine that during the interview both Hornby and I speak in verse (with extra servings of enjambment). Here is one hypothetical encounter:
A.R.: Is the film called Fever Pitch
Because the experience of watching it
Is like having malaria?
N.H.: No,
It is called Fever Pitch
Because it is exciting
And because I did
A pun
On football pitch
Cleverly
A.R.: What is it
About?
N.H.: It is about a man
Who loves football
More than life itself.
A.R.: Why?
N.H.: I didn’t think
About that.
A.R.: Do you love
Football
More than life itself?
N.H.: Sometimes
A.R.: Is that because
Your life is
Pointless
And obscene?
N.H.: No. I live a very
Fulfilled life,
Thank you.
A.R.: Prove it.
N.H.: I can’t
A.R.: What else
Happens in
Fever Pitch?
N.H.: The man
Lets his dog
Starve to death
Because
He is watching
A football game
Absorbedly
A.R.: What else?
N.H.: His team loses
So he shouts
At his mum
Unnecessarily
A.R.: Then what happens?
N.H.: His team wins
So he exclaims ‘Heil Hitler!’
Semi-involuntarily
A.R.: Then what?
N.H.: He finds
A magical football
Shirt that enables him
To play like George
Best. He is Headhunted
by Manchester United.
Much humour
And drama
Arises therefrom.
A.R.: Really?
N.H.: No. I
Made up that last bit
To make the film
Sound more interesting
Than it actually is.
The Agoraphobic Reviewer 
June 16, 2009 at 2:35 am |
I think the most Baptistique thing about the Fever Pitch movie is that the featured sport was changed from football to baseball.
Cricket to baseball would at least be conceivable, but the thorough dissimilarity between soccer and baseball makes it sound more like an Agorophobic fantasy of the ultimate Hollywood adaptation than an actual studio decision. I hope this means we will soon be seeing the untold history of Milk on the big screen.
June 16, 2009 at 8:16 am |
There was an English adaptation too, with old Fitzwilliam Darcy himself playing the deranged principal character. I’m told.
I know what you mean about the dissimilarity. It would have been best if they would have changed it to polo or showjumping and called it ‘Horse Fever’. I’d see a film called ‘Horse Fever’
June 23, 2009 at 9:21 pm |
I have a copy of Horse Fever on DVD that your mum lent me down the boozer last Friday. To be honest there were stains all over the disk and my player struggled with it. Given that the box had an X on it, I can only assume it was exempt from classification and therefore of some sort of educational value.
Also, at the risk of being labeled a pedant, you have confused the plot of Fever Pitch with High Fidelity. An easy mistake to make since Hornby used exactly the same words in the same order for the ‘novels’ and so I imagine the films are remarkably similar. Not that I have read or watched either (or all four)
June 24, 2009 at 8:54 am |
That wasn’t my dear old mum, that was a Norman Bates-esque projection of your own mind. You know, Norman Bates, from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Oi, Old Rope. When are you going to make good on your promise to the readers of this blog and write an entry for it. We’re waiting with baited breath that no amount of Listerine can dissipate.