Like a fuzzy montage in a romantic film, my thoughts this
week have centered on the sugar-coated come bitter-marmite highlights of a recent
love-affair, or rather the end of one. Bitch. I saw it coming of course, I
always do – but it didn’t stop me clinging on to the hope that differences
could be resolved, that things might just work out and the magic would reappear,
blinded by faith, a big heart and memories of better times.
‘Twas the 27 th of January, 2007, when I first caught a glance of my true love - a Saturday to be precise. Beyond the hills of Mordor and terraced streets of Luton, Bedfordshire, there the object of my future affections stood: Six-foot-four-inches of dark muscle shimmering like leather, as tall as the floodlights, a true thoroughbred, a real black beauty, a real beast. If Nietzsche’s Übermensch had evolved onto a football pitch, then it was stood before me now. Cupid had peppered me with arrows, the thunderbolt had struck, there was no turning back - it was love at first sight; Samba: the big black man.
As I gaze back on rose-tinted memories of picnic baskets and rowing boats on the Leeds-Liverpool canal, a last-minute curler at White Hart Lane, skipping hand-in-hand through Witton Park on glorious December afternoons, standing in the Upton Park goalmouth, banging his staff repeatedly on the pitch and screaming ‘YOU SHALL NOT PASS!’, candlelight suppers at the top of Darwen Tower and that big beaming bugger of a smile, oh, the smile – I can do little to stop the salty tears from forming in the corners of my eyes. Why did it have to end this way Samba, WHY?
In truth, I already know the answer to that question – we all do. In modern football: money talks. Contract renewals, increased wages, signing-on fees and loans for home improvements had become a regular occurrence. Each and every transfer window, the hand that taketh was open once more, never satisfied, never settled and always with a wandering eye on tabloid interest from a suitor with a bigger bank balance and a bigger boat.
Samba, like most footballers, had become Rod Tidwell at the beginning of Jerry Maguire, like Willie Beamen in Any Given Sunday; pay-check players, an agent in one ear and a diamond-encrusted headphone in the other.
Big fishes are sometimes best advised to stick to their little pond, if only to avoid being eaten by even bigger fish in larger surroundings. For all his talent and obvious adulation from the Ewood faithful, there was always a creeping doubt that Samba was never really good enough to play for a top-four club.
Footballers don’t think that way of course, nor would I expect them to – their ambition to perform at the highest level is what drives them to succeed, week in, week out. Matt Le-Tissier is often cited as one of the last dying breed of one-club men, but he couldn’t be arsed most of the time.
Alas, if Spurs had found the surplus funds for another addition to their subs bench, or Arsenal had been prepared to lavish millions on a player not still in puberty, I remain convinced that the big man would have been found out. Careering runs through the middle of the park were often met with much amusement and surprise, by both fans and opponents alike – and then there was the stint when he masqueraded as a lone-striker, galloping around the frontline like a supporter who’d won a competition to play up front for the day.
Like most players of middle and lower order teams, he was susceptible to the occasional error of course, such as being out-jumped by Nani, setting up Bolton’s first goal in December and tripping over himself with Peter Crouch lurking behind him, a personal battle that he rarely won.
We forgave him of course, and rightfully so – because in his finest hour, he could be an absolute colossus, battering defences, blocking everything that moved and providing an invaluable weapon from every set-piece, well, the ones where Pedersen managed to clear the first-man anyway.
Ewood Park was Samba’s arena, he was our most-prized gladiator, not without his flaws, but ultimately – a true warrior, a reassuring name on the team-sheet: ‘We’re alright today, Samba’s back’. Supporters of other clubs, bigger clubs, wouldn’t have had the same relationship, the same affection. Like so many before him: Dunn, Duff, Bentley, Santa-Cruz, to name but a few, he would never have received the same level of complete worship from the stands above.
When deadline day had passed, with only survival rivals QPR and former mentor Hughes willing to offer degrading sums, it appeared that the love-affair would live to fight another day, and yet there was still no sight of our hero.
Yes, he’s behaved appalling by our own ‘working-class’ standards – texting in sick, kicking his heels, sulking into his Rolex, pondering over his future in his gold-plated Range Rover, something like that.
We’ve suffered and seethed at the Venky’s regime, and on the level that he’d been lied to about ambition and broken-promises, we can certainly all empathise. Yet, while the sight of an ex, parading around with an ugly new interest can at first be amusing, when it all sinks in – it will no doubt make us feel even more worthless inside.
Not all the blame can be levelled at Kean and Venky’s door, Samba has wanted away for some time now, dating back to Allardyce and the Walker’s Trust. The day will always come when our best players are sold the dream of Champions League football, only to end up in the Championship – that’s football, but Russia? Pull the other one Chris.
The only comfort about Samba’s ‘big’ move to Anzhi Makhachkalalakalakakala (I’m pretty sure that’s how you pronounce it) is that we won’t be bumping into each other in our usual romantic spots, casting green-eyed glances as he gives Roberto Carlos a piggy back in the park; some comfort at least. That said, in four months, when he’s ran out of films on his solid gold iPad for the 1,250 mile round-trip for home games, grown stagnant in the shadow of the limelight, the ramshackle stadium and grown tired of having to pass to Eto’o and Eto’o only, then I wouldn’t be surprised to see the headline: ‘HUGHES READY TO END SAMBA’S RUSSIAN HELL’.
Hopefully, time will have healed the wounds by then – and Samba shall remain in our hearts and memories, as he always was – a true Rovers legend. Good luck Chris, you might need it. It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.
‘Twas the 27 th of January, 2007, when I first caught a glance of my true love - a Saturday to be precise. Beyond the hills of Mordor and terraced streets of Luton, Bedfordshire, there the object of my future affections stood: Six-foot-four-inches of dark muscle shimmering like leather, as tall as the floodlights, a true thoroughbred, a real black beauty, a real beast. If Nietzsche’s Übermensch had evolved onto a football pitch, then it was stood before me now. Cupid had peppered me with arrows, the thunderbolt had struck, there was no turning back - it was love at first sight; Samba: the big black man.
As I gaze back on rose-tinted memories of picnic baskets and rowing boats on the Leeds-Liverpool canal, a last-minute curler at White Hart Lane, skipping hand-in-hand through Witton Park on glorious December afternoons, standing in the Upton Park goalmouth, banging his staff repeatedly on the pitch and screaming ‘YOU SHALL NOT PASS!’, candlelight suppers at the top of Darwen Tower and that big beaming bugger of a smile, oh, the smile – I can do little to stop the salty tears from forming in the corners of my eyes. Why did it have to end this way Samba, WHY?
In truth, I already know the answer to that question – we all do. In modern football: money talks. Contract renewals, increased wages, signing-on fees and loans for home improvements had become a regular occurrence. Each and every transfer window, the hand that taketh was open once more, never satisfied, never settled and always with a wandering eye on tabloid interest from a suitor with a bigger bank balance and a bigger boat.
Samba, like most footballers, had become Rod Tidwell at the beginning of Jerry Maguire, like Willie Beamen in Any Given Sunday; pay-check players, an agent in one ear and a diamond-encrusted headphone in the other.
Big fishes are sometimes best advised to stick to their little pond, if only to avoid being eaten by even bigger fish in larger surroundings. For all his talent and obvious adulation from the Ewood faithful, there was always a creeping doubt that Samba was never really good enough to play for a top-four club.
Footballers don’t think that way of course, nor would I expect them to – their ambition to perform at the highest level is what drives them to succeed, week in, week out. Matt Le-Tissier is often cited as one of the last dying breed of one-club men, but he couldn’t be arsed most of the time.
Alas, if Spurs had found the surplus funds for another addition to their subs bench, or Arsenal had been prepared to lavish millions on a player not still in puberty, I remain convinced that the big man would have been found out. Careering runs through the middle of the park were often met with much amusement and surprise, by both fans and opponents alike – and then there was the stint when he masqueraded as a lone-striker, galloping around the frontline like a supporter who’d won a competition to play up front for the day.
Like most players of middle and lower order teams, he was susceptible to the occasional error of course, such as being out-jumped by Nani, setting up Bolton’s first goal in December and tripping over himself with Peter Crouch lurking behind him, a personal battle that he rarely won.
We forgave him of course, and rightfully so – because in his finest hour, he could be an absolute colossus, battering defences, blocking everything that moved and providing an invaluable weapon from every set-piece, well, the ones where Pedersen managed to clear the first-man anyway.
Ewood Park was Samba’s arena, he was our most-prized gladiator, not without his flaws, but ultimately – a true warrior, a reassuring name on the team-sheet: ‘We’re alright today, Samba’s back’. Supporters of other clubs, bigger clubs, wouldn’t have had the same relationship, the same affection. Like so many before him: Dunn, Duff, Bentley, Santa-Cruz, to name but a few, he would never have received the same level of complete worship from the stands above.
When deadline day had passed, with only survival rivals QPR and former mentor Hughes willing to offer degrading sums, it appeared that the love-affair would live to fight another day, and yet there was still no sight of our hero.
Yes, he’s behaved appalling by our own ‘working-class’ standards – texting in sick, kicking his heels, sulking into his Rolex, pondering over his future in his gold-plated Range Rover, something like that.
We’ve suffered and seethed at the Venky’s regime, and on the level that he’d been lied to about ambition and broken-promises, we can certainly all empathise. Yet, while the sight of an ex, parading around with an ugly new interest can at first be amusing, when it all sinks in – it will no doubt make us feel even more worthless inside.
Not all the blame can be levelled at Kean and Venky’s door, Samba has wanted away for some time now, dating back to Allardyce and the Walker’s Trust. The day will always come when our best players are sold the dream of Champions League football, only to end up in the Championship – that’s football, but Russia? Pull the other one Chris.
The only comfort about Samba’s ‘big’ move to Anzhi Makhachkalalakalakakala (I’m pretty sure that’s how you pronounce it) is that we won’t be bumping into each other in our usual romantic spots, casting green-eyed glances as he gives Roberto Carlos a piggy back in the park; some comfort at least. That said, in four months, when he’s ran out of films on his solid gold iPad for the 1,250 mile round-trip for home games, grown stagnant in the shadow of the limelight, the ramshackle stadium and grown tired of having to pass to Eto’o and Eto’o only, then I wouldn’t be surprised to see the headline: ‘HUGHES READY TO END SAMBA’S RUSSIAN HELL’.
Hopefully, time will have healed the wounds by then – and Samba shall remain in our hearts and memories, as he always was – a true Rovers legend. Good luck Chris, you might need it. It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.
Superb.
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