Stamford Bridge
The setting:
At face value the game of football is simply a microcosm of the cynics society; its overrun by louts, played by cheats and run by men who have no empathy or understanding of the wants of the common man. Indeed even as an aficionado of the sport it is hard to look past that. Nevertheless football offers a sense of escapism which is unrivalled by most other mainstream cultural phenomenon’s because much like some pilled up wave of euphoria at a rave, people can feel they are part of something.
Entering an arena in which one can unload their life’s frustrations to the sky, vent fury at the trivial, vitriol at the innocent, praise to the guilty, form an inextricable bond with someone with whom they know nothing about, become emotional in a way their partner and family may never experience and do this not on the backdrop of utter bemusement by the masses but to one of admiration and collective affinity, is something that allows it to transcend its bloated corporate shell – well, to those willing and able to participate at least.
Granted society may well be at saturation point with the bombardment of the football media coverage and rhetoric, but much like the industry of interior design, incessant conversing and deliberating over football will continue as long as people exude an aversion to small talk and need conversational common ground.
The Establishment:
Stamford Bridge, the home of Chelsea Football Club is an anomaly in that instead of being situated in the worst street in the worst part of some god awful town, it’s on a road where parking spaces are the cost of villages and surrounding residents are simply in this part of the world to avoid tax and/or political persecution in their oil spewing homelands.
The ground itself has the appearance the same as most football grounds up and down the country i.e. like a supermarket without a roof. For a cacophony of sound, lights, passion and proletariat spirit, you are best off going to Turkey or Argentina. English football grounds are more a testament to the engineering advances in construction health and safety then dilapidated cauldrons emanating a wall of sound. But on the right day, at the right game, in the right part of the ground, you may get an opportunity to relive those 5 minutes at school in the classroom when the teacher was late and all concepts of civility were lost.
The Toilet:
Toilets at the football are barbaric, indecent affairs what with the requirement of 40,000 men needing to dispose of 5 litres of strong lager in a window no longer than 15 minutes, but given that it was only one generation ago that there was no seating in the crowd and the urinal was up against the chap in front of yours leg, I’m assured rather quickly by some old todger ‘Yu dahnt know yur born’.
The great thing is, is that whilst in the scrum for the piss trough one can’t help but notice this is Brits at their best. The bravado in the stands makes way for razor sharp wit, people looking up from their exposed genitals and doing their very best to make light of the otherwise ridiculous scenario. Whilst some of it was standard sexist wife bashing working men’s club humour, most of it was self deprecating remarks about their shrivelled and inept penis, another chap remarked it was the most turned on he had been all year. It’s as if the anonymity of being another squashed pissing cock brings out the humble and hilarious side in everyone. Some writers might allude to this being evidence of stiff upper lip, comedy in the face of aversion – the ‘dunkirk spirit’ but there’s no way I’m going to correlate getting piss on your jeans with such fanfare.
The Porcelain Gentleman:
Its hard to make an overcrowded room with what is in effect a wall mounted bucket sound like anything other than Guatemalan prison conditions but the football ground toilet is more about the transient experience with the people in there than the expectation of marble floors and hand carved golden taps.
That said, may the Lord be with anyone going in there for the conclusion of a bowel movement 4/10.
The Porcelain Gentleman 
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