Everybody’s got one

I’ve done a news post today (and as Chopper points out, David Healy’s gone now too), so here’s something you weren’t expecting.

Exhibit A

What is it? Well, let me explain. On Julianahatfield.com is a messageboard. It’s like the Fulham boards except about music, and you don’t get nearly as many posts because there’s less to talk about. I sometimes go there for news of tours, albums, etc.

Anyway, today someone put up a poll. There’s a new album out, and, for whatever reason, this person wanted to know what everyone’s favourite songs off it are. I’m not sure where you can go with that information, but that’s what they asked. So a number (106) people filled it in. And the results are above.

Here you have 10 songs, and all of them get at least four votes. None get more than 21 votes. These votes have all come from people who have listened to the new album several times, over and over. So they’re all listening to the same thing before voting.

Perhaps you know where I’m going with this.

In football we seem to spend a lot of time arguing about the merits of players. Recently it’s been pretty incredible. Everyone has an opinion, everyone seems to think they are right. It’s quite weird and sometimes you lose the will to visit the message boards. But still you return, knowing full well that the latest nugget could be just around the corner, and you really don’t want to miss that.

But these arguments are largely based on someone seeing a player, having an opinion, and someone else disagreeing. Everyone’s watched the same player, but still people disagree. My view in all these is that nobody’s got any business being as certain as they are, but why trust me? I see good in all the players, even the bad ones. I like to think that by knowing my limitations I am somehow operating on a higher evaluative plateau, but knowing you’re usually wrong is not really much more useful than not knowing you’re usually wrong in the final analysis, is it?

Perhaps none of this really matters. If 106 Juliana Hatfield fanatics can all take an album, an album they all love, and judge its contents differently, well maybe we’re all the same with football. Maybe we all have our own taste in footballers, and we want to see more of that sort of player, regardless of how good that player actually is. Me, I like players with something to prove, players who get booed, players who aren’t quite established. I’ll cheer on Andy Johnson because he cost a lot of money, and that’s his vulnerability, but there needs to be something to latch onto.

I like Mark Schwarzer because he chose to take a new direction with his football and move from a club where he could happily have stayed. That took guts but also showed an inclination to experiment perhaps. It also, one way or another, said “I like Fulham”, which is a boon for us because he’s pretty good.

I like John Paintsil because he thrilled Jamie and everyone else up at Hull, because he’s the nearest thing to Josimar we’ll ever see in a Fulham shirt, and because he seems to have something about him. He’s also, apparantly, prone to random acts of terribleness, which also endears him to me.

Paul Konchesky has shaved his hair off. I don’t know why, but he’s a quietly effective left back who gets on with doing a good job. I like that.

I like Aaron Hughes because he’s never been booked, which probably means he’s a good, unassuming, quiet lad. Nice one.

Brede Hangeland is probably the player I’d have been if I’d had about 400 times as much talent. Also he has read Don DeLillo. Which is impressive. He reads at all! Bonus. Good man.

Simon Davies is another quietly effective, unassuming footballer. Great asset to the side, seems to be a nice man.

I’m not so sure about Jimmy Bullard. Where’s the vulnerability? He’s very sure of himself. The crowd overrate him. It makes him harder for me to warm to. But he’s an all-action hero and gives everything and his enthusiam’s infectious, so I love him anyway.

Danny Murphy had his doubters, but I loved his hunched over style, his articulate manner, his receding hairline, his tidy passing, his lack of pace, his WINNING GOAL AT PORTSMOUTH.

Zoltan Gera has the best name in football.

Bobby Zamora scored goals all over the place in Brighton. I hear he’s a good solid squad member, and I want him to do well to prove the doubters wrong, to show that the good years were what his real talent is, not the bad ones.

I like Seol because everyone’s so negative towards him. He doesn’t have the body language of your typical British Bulldog, but why would he have? I don’t believe for a minute that he doesn’t try, I just think that he perhaps finds it hard to get into some games. It happens. There’s ability there, as we’ve seen. He’s set up or scored all of our last three goals. Now, I don’t think he’s a great player, or a particularly good one, but there’s enough there for me to want him to do well.

And so on. I haven’t even got to Andreasen and Dempsey, my favourite Fulham players. There’s no need. Maybe this is just the issue. We all watch football like we all listen to music. We can see the same thing in different ways, and just as there’s no right or wrong in music (well there is, as I’ve tried to tell countless Coldplay fans down the years: IT’S VERY BAD, I say), then opinions of footballers will differ. And maybe not for rational reasons.

So next time someone (everyone) has a go at Seol I’ll just try not to worry. Four people like “Now I’m Gone” off the new Juliana Hatfield album. I can’t see how they can say that – it’s pure filler – but there we are. And incidentally, Hatfield has selected “This Lonely Love” as her comeback single, which is surely the same thing as Roy selecting Seol up front in the first place, if fan choice is considered.

Whatever. It is all about opinions, but they don’t have to be good ones, and they might not be based on anything worthwhile. I just wish we could be a bit more positive towards our team sometimes…