Gold-plated failure gives England no escape from the boo-boys
The fate of the Frank Lampard iPod proves that the country has still not forgiven the national team
Absorb enough tabloidese and eventually it owns your neurons. A friend recently recalled a conversation he'd once had with a former Republic of Ireland international about an awkward spell at one club. Without a shred of sarcasm, the player had reflected: "I suppose I became a target for the boo-boys." It is sadly not on record whether the chap in question described himself routinely as "wantaway", or used the styling canoodle in favour of kiss.
But our business today is with the aforementioned boo-boys, whom many expect to be out in force next week when England meet Hungary at Wembley in a friendly. Indeed, England will have to hope that the Hungary players are very friendly, as the diminished crowd is rather less likely to recreate the atmosphere of a convivial afternoon in Central Perk for the disappointed World Cup squad. Or "misfiring millionaires", if you prefer the technical term.
The FA is so worried about the possible reception that it has issued a statement apparently drafted by a marriage-guidance counsellor, declaring: "We accept it is going to take time to rebuild the trust with the fans."
And yet, does it? The thing about the England of recent years is that even when you think you have seen it all, they always find a way of disappointing you further. Only days ago, the sheer scale of the trust-building task was once again underscored by the tale of the gold-plated Frank Lampard iPods. Have you heard this one? Let me summarise: 5,000 gold-plated iPods bearing Frank Lampard's lasered signature are to be melted down after demand for the £599 product failed to materialise in the wake of the World Cup. Do take a moment to digest those details.
Writing in this space before the tournament, I recalled all those dementedly self-regarding autobiographies that followed the 2006 World Cup tournament, of which Frank's was such a standout example. Yet at no stage, not even in my most grimly cynical moments, did I suspect that the once-bitten Frank was at that very moment lending his lasered imprimatur to something that even in a crowded marketplace would manage to redefine early 21st century tosserage.
If you had to distil the very essence of hubris into a single product, you would surely be left with a gold-plated Frank Lampard iPod. The fact that the brainwave was created in association with a firm backed on Dragon's Den merely crystallises the cloth-brained, soul-sapping nullity of the age in which we are doomed to live.
Oddly, though, that isn't the slogan the manufacturers have gone for. "We may have over-ordered due to World Cup hopes," trills a company spokesman, "but that's no reflection on Frank's popularity."
I think you'll find it is, dear. But it's also a reflection on so much more than that, not least the ongoing commitment by Premier League megastars to live their commercial lives as such obvious parables of pride before a fall that a child of six could understand them.
And so it is that the gold from the remaindered Lampard iPods is to be recovered and melted down to make Hello Kitty ones (genuinely). While the literary stars of 2006 might have shrugged off their journey to the bargain bin, there are few more sledgehammer metaphors for failure than having to be literally melted down. It happens at Madame Tussauds, where waxen celebrities deemed to be passé are stripped for parts to create more vogueish stars. Terry Wogan claims to have been melted down to make Ant and Dec (A colleague doing an article about the museum once saw Richard Branson's head in a sink, though that might have just been for maintenance).
I should point out that in the event of the Lampard iPods selling like hot cakes, Frank's agent claims he was to donate royalties to charity. But that event clearly didn't come to pass. As things stand, Lampard is arguably the world's worst alchemist, his influence contriving to turn actual gold into worthless tat.
He is also emblematic of the FA's difficulties in heading off the so-called boo-boys. The "Club England" senior executives can insist all they like that the players aren't arrogant and that they do care – and I suspect they are mostly right, and that some complex psychological meltdown befalls perfectly decent footballers whenever they don the England shirt. But when even the man who is always so flatteringly assumed to be the cleverest among them is bunging his signature on gold-plated iPods, why on earth should England's dwindling band of paying customers be expected to make the distinction?
I thought this was a windup when I first read it
