In this weeks column Clarkeonenil’s Monday writer Graeme Garvey gets the shakes.
Course it was a major talking point. Bound to be all over the news. Wayne broken-heart Bridge not shaking hands with John sex-cheat Terry – a sensation! Remember those innocent days when the pre-match routine for footballers consisted of nothing more than a kick around? Now, it seems, what happens before the game is more newsworthy than the match itself but it’s anyone’s guess why all the players have to waddle past each other shaking hands. It certainly has nothing to do with being friendly and probably began as a meaningless gesture, a toothless form of the final handshake in ice hockey where, after beating each other up for an hour, they are basically saying, ‘Kill ya next time yusonafabitch!’
Wayne Bridge, the media trumpeted, was not going to shake the hand of love-rival John Terry. Naturally enough, his Man City team-mates supported his refusal but so, too, did half of Terry’s Chelsea colleagues. It would really have rubbed it in if they had joined on the end of the Man City procession, to NOT shake hands with Terry, either.
The possibility of snubbing a player probably all started when that Chelsea mascot made a fool of Stephen Gerrard in the tunnel as the teams lined up. Watch again on You Tube as the little cockney cocksparra offers his hand to Gerrard and then makes that mocking gesture, thumb to nose, fingers rippling. And if you do, you can hardly miss seeing that John Terry is lurking and smirking nearby. Now he’s been mocked, he’ll be very wary about shaking hands with anyone and that might be the one reason he’ll be glad he is no longer England captain. With all that handshaking, he’d be a nervous wreck.
As it turned out, Bridge did shun Terry’s offered hand and, as the BBC website said, ‘there was an anti-climatic feel to the start of the game’. I think they meant to say ‘anti-climactic’. Either way, it’s no surprise when you have had such an amazing, earth shattering incident as two footballers not shaking hands. Incidentally, straight after, Bridge shook hands with a Chelsea mascot which, knowing what funsters they are, was pretty risky.
Where do we go from here? Well, there will be those who think Bridge’s incredibly plucky nonshake led to his team winning and it might be the start of a new psychological battle to unnerve the opposition. Perhaps a team might all select one player to snub, giving him a complex so he plays badly. Maybe a random number of shakes and non-shakes could lead the other team to spend the first half checking with each other who had most shakes, to see who was the most popular, by which time they could be two goals down. Leaks could be made to the media, tipping them off about all the players who were not going to ‘get a shake’ before an upcoming game. New Zealand rugby has its legendary haka or war dance before the start. It could all come to mean nothing if the wild men then lined up eagerly to see and count how many handshakes they got. And if that is not enough to have the media drooling, what about training up a player to deliver some WWE-strength handshakes, crushing bones and causing immediate substitutions?
For those people actually interested in the match itself, it ended in a surprise 4-2 win for Man City. I also understand that, after the final whistle, players of each side shook hands with whoever they chose to. Not much for the media to get excited about in that.
