How To Speak Fookin

Mark Crossley

It's a bit more than, 'I've won this, I've won that, I've won this.' To be honest, I didn't really win a lot anyway, in trophies. It’s more about the characters in the game. What happens in the dressing room, and things like that. But mainly it's about the person I am, the characters I've played with and the managers I've played under. All twenty one of them. That’s right. I had the gaffer's last six years in management, which were my first six years. I speak quite a bit about it. Then obviously I move on to the era where Platt came, and I didn't see eye to eye with him. So I'll speak a little bit about that. And I speak about, obviously, being in bother with the law, and growing up. Things like that really. Well, it's written by Ray Yeomans, who’s worked for the Evening Post for years. So he knows a lot about me – including some things written or said about me I didn't know about. I've not held anything back; I've spoken about my own divorce, what a career in football cost me, and been upfront about things that fans wouldn’t know, like what happens when you go in to sign a contract. How you negotiate a contract. I've spoke about the money that was around at the time, what money I could earn at the time, what money people are earning now... I've just completely gone for it and told the truth about the lot. Yeah, I'm funding it all myself. Everything's coming out of my pocket. Basically, I've got Ray, I've got another guy who’ll print the book, and we're going to go to an independent bookbinder. If I make any money at the end of it, I intend to make a donation to a grass-roots football charity or a children's charity.   Not good. I didn't go out in town after an off-game, put it that way. I basically came into the team really young, and you’re always going to make mistakes at that age.

Dogwash: They don't speak proper anymore, innit?

All good stuff, though I have to admit that I've resorted to this particular Americanism myself occasionally and it doesn't really bother me that much. Mostly used in "Can I get a glass for that?" when some spotty teenaged bar associate assumes that everybody has succumbed to the tiresome affectation of swigging beer straight from the bottle rather than from a glass in a civilized fashion. Look, Kiddies, if I wanted to neck my beer straight out of the effin' bottle, I'd buy it in the bleedin' offie for half the price and drink it in the street, innit? Awright? OK, it's an Italian word and you really really want to demonstrate that you know that it's a foreign word and you're relaxed with it, don't you? Well the Italian pronunciation is something more like latt-teh with a short 'a', but we'll forgive you not attempting the geminated 't' and that short 'e' sound which doesn't normally occur word-finally in English.

Edwin Greenwood is the nom de souris of a Mancunian early baby-boomer, now living in London, who like so many of his cohort has made the transition from cuddly inclusive soft-left liberal into a grumpy old git who is quite prepared to call a spade a black bastard. (The previous sentence may cause consternation to the Righteous. If this is you, read this before exploding with indignation.

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