Getting a kick out of it

Press, 24 June 1986, Page 19

Getting a kick out of it

Wev/eiv

KEN STRONGMAN

There is something less than gripping about this World Cup. Perhaps there is too much of it, or perhaps it is the thought of the 6 a.m. start. In any event, the fever does not seem to be running as hot as it has in the past. It is hard to resist it entirely, however, or indeed to avoid it. Thinking again about its less than special feel, it is probably due to the scrap paper on the pitches, enough to line a

Starlifter. This doesn’t happen at proper soccer matches.

Once having switched it on, the spectacle of firstrate professional soccer is as compelling as ever. A treatise could be written about free kicks alone. Where else could one see a wall of relatively unprotected men willingly stand in front of someone who is going to propel a large fast object at them? As they unaccountably edge closer, they do realise what they are in for, clutching their hands in front of them in what looks like a semaphor message for distressed shipping. They should just turn their backs and have done with it.

For an essentially pedestrian sport, soccer prompts some searching philosophical questions. Think of the significance of the backward pass to the goalkeeper. It can have many meanings, yet the crowd always knows which. Think of that habit of sneaking the ball forward a metre or two to

gain slight advantage at the free kick or throw-in. Why are goalkeepers constantly irritable? What makes a player forget his usual discourtesy and a haul a fallen opponent to his feet? Intriguing matters.

In the end it is the commentators that make the soccer absorbing, their richness of metaphor. “He’s worked a little position here.” “He didn’t like the attention he got from the defender.” “He didn’t have to leave his feet.” Just as well. And then there are those long stretches which give the commentators time to think. The ball goes rapidly from man to man and the commentary merely names them. It sounds like one of those interminable “begat” chapters in the Bible. One habit the commentators definitely should forswear, though, is saying “it’s just academic now” when they mean “meaningless.”

Moving onto another

type of kicking, “Bluebell,” is filling the Sunday cultural hour. It is another of those Beeb series set a few years ago. One day they will have the courage to come right up to date rather than hiding behind the skirts of history. This is Follies Bergere time with Bluebell herself caught between her career and her finance.

As usual, everything looks exactly right — clothes, hairstyles and every other detail. Apart from this, it is "Coronation Street” problems of human frailty interspersed with some high kicking, seen by ground level cameras. There is plenty of colour, curly hair, and vivacity, but it is essentially not very interesting. It relies very much on the contrast between the glamour of the stage and what lies behind it.

Bluebell herself does not quite convince. She has a good mixture of kindness and severity in

her voice, as befits the captain of a dance troup. But she seems a little dumpy, a hint frowsy and, above all, too ordinary. In fact, very little about the programme has any genuine zest or sparkle. Hopefully, people did not have conversations as they are portrayed in “Bluebell.” They are forced and drab. Bluebell herself tries, attempting to put some feeling in by spitting out some good, harsh, flat, Northern vowels every few words. But the only special feature of the series is that it is the women who are adequate and the men who are not. The woman wink, nudge and smoke cigarettes in public. The men slump over their drinks in agonies of indecision or grunt round their pipes in a pretence that their heads harbour thoughts. The only event that relieves the boredom for the dancing girls is when one of their qumber leaves to get married. They soon come back though, their husbands proving to be as inadequate as everyones else’s. Of course, the piano players have more going for them, but even they give the impression that they are only a cigarette away from inadequacy. No, “Bluebell” is a woman’s world as much as the World Cup is a man’s. There is nowhere like the television for the preservation of traditional values.