A football tale from far away

By Brother Grim

There once was a country on an island very, very far away from here that was called Farganistan. It would take you probably a whole day to get there even with the fastest running trains or airplanes. They had a Queen, a Prime Minister, a Parliament, come to think of it. It could have been England if it wasn’t  Farganistan.

Now in Farganistan they also had a football competition. It was called the Fargan League.  Now these Farganistans are a bit funny in some ways as they are 100% sure they invented football.

Now we know that it was the English who invented football but you will not find any local inhabitant acknowledging this. This all came about because the first Englishman who came to their beautiful island and who explained the rules and taught them how to play the game was then eaten according to the local traditions of those days.

Nowadays they have stopped eating foreign visitors of course but even so, never start an argument about who invented football with a Farganisian.

In the Fargan league you had a few top teams as in most leagues of course. But one team stood out above the rest in the latest 20-30 years. It was the team of Corduroy United. Funny how some part of some names come back all over the world and more evidence of course that football really has an English origin. They won lots of trophies. They had the best players, the best team, the best manager.

But some of the other teams weren’t that happy with Corduroy United winning so many things. And they said that Corduroy United could only win so many things because they were getting some help from the referees. The supporters of Corduroy United said this was rubbish. And pointed at some decisions that went against them.

The head of the referees, a person called Karent Nèf, was always very determined in his denials of anything like that. He said that all his referees where true and honest people and they were not having any bias in favour of any team, let alone Corduroy United. But people who thought otherwise pointed at the fact that Karent Nèf himself in his days as a referee was said to be a ref who gave a lot of decisions in favour of Corduroy United.

One of the teams that really believed the refs weren’t given them an even playing field was Servan FC.  Whenever Servan FC came close to Corduroy United they suddenly saw a lot of strange referee decisions. Decisions against Servan FC and decisions in favour of Corduroy United. This went on for many years.

The press in Farganistan was not really interested in such things. Because of Corduroy being very popular, and thus saying anything against them could reduce their readership or viewing figures and this would result in them making less profit.

Some people tried to bring evidence to prove this and did some research but once again the press really didn’t want to know.

The manager of Servan FC a man called Wanje suffered really badly from this bias among the referees. But he couldn’t do anything about it. When he talked about it the press made fun of him and the decisions from the refs went even more against him and his team. They said that he was a bad loser and told him to shut up. Despite evidence from various sources that Servan FC was getting most of the decisions against them people still didn’t want to know about it.

The manager of Corduroy United was called Fenounomn. And he was very much loved by the fans of his club but the rest of the football world feared him as he was a kind of godfather in football in Farganistan. When things didn’t go his way people who had not done what he liked were sent away to other countries, lost their  jobs, and were given other more menial jobs. And in a way they were lucky. Some 100 years ago they would have ended up in a good stew.  So everybody tried to keep him as a friend. It was very well known that when Fenounomn wanted something, he would get it.

Fenounomn just had to pick up his phone and call Karent Nèf and a ref would be removed from duty for a while. There was clear evidence of this but again the media didn’t want to know about it. Because they knew that if they would report this, Fenounomn would throw them out of the stadium and out of their business.

Fenounomn also wanted always to buy the best players from other clubs. As Corduroy United was a rich club they could pay more money compared to other teams. If he wanted a player, he would get him.  And so he had set his mind on Van Pou Chak the best player of Servan FC.

Servan FC didn’t want to sell him at first. But Van Pou Chak wanted to earn more money and have an easier life. And Van Pou Chak did all he could to force his way out. But still Servan FC didn’t want to sell. Corduroy United offered more money to both Servan FC and Van Pou Chak but it looked as if he would not be sold by Servan FC.

At last Fenounomn called Wanje and asked him: “we want to pay good money for him so why don’t you want to sell him to us?”

And Wanje said to him: “We want something else. Something that money cannot buy”. “

What is it then that you want?”, asked Fenounomn.

And then Wanje said: “I want the refs to stop giving us such an unfair treatment”.

And Fenounomn said: “If you sell him to us, I will see what I can do”.

“Ok”, said Wanje, “I will take your word on it as a gentleman”.

And Fenounomn called Karent Nèf and told him to leave Servan alone a bit more. But not completely.  And Karent Nèf knew what he meant.

And so from that moment on the refs suddenly weren’t that bad any more for Servan FC.  Well they did as long as Servan FC didn’t came too close to Corduroy United of course. Because then one call from Fenounomn to Karent Nèf would be enough.

Nobody got married at the end of this,  but they all lived a happy and a long life….for a while.

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• Woolwich Arsenal: The club that changed football – Arsenal’s early years
• Making the Arsenal – how the modern Arsenal was born in 1910
• The Crowd at Woolwich Arsenal FC: crowd behaviour at the early matches

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