HALF-and-half Boro/Brazil bobble hat.... check. Portuguese phrase book... check. Laptop.... check. Carnival sized bag of latin football cliches.... check. Let the Samba beat begin.
The club had called an impromtu Riverside carnival to unveil the £12.7m new Boy From Brazil and Boro fans obliged. The faithful had a rummage around the loft to find their old Brazil scarves and join the hastily recruited samba band and flambuoyant carnival queens to welcome Afonso Alves. With bunches of balloons in clumped in red and blue and yellow and green molecules of hope and ambition and half-and-half paper flags flapped by an army of excited schoolkids there was a colourful and noisy backdrop to the arrival of our latest latin superstar and a crowd of maybe 2,000 in the West Stand lower.
And if "the Fonz" is as dedicated and persistent on the pitch as he is in pressing the flesh then we really can stand by for Happy Days. Afonso seemed to have made it his personal mission to shake hands with every single person gathered in the West Stand. Posing for every camera phone, puckering up for the lasses, thumbs up for the lads, he worked his way along the throng shaking and signing for everyone that asked. Long after the camera crews had moved upstairs for the main press conference, long after the samba band departed on the bus back to school, long after the bulk of the crowd had drifted away he was still down there pitchside scribbling away in books and programmes and on shirts with impressive industry.
So much so that he held up the main press conference and Gareth Southgate was cajoled by impatient hacks to start without him, doing the usual routine Fulham pre-match fitness and signficance lines for the local media first. After a few minutes the star attraction ghosted in unmarked at the back and siddled up to his interpreter quietly trying to avoid attention like a schoolboy sneaking in late for assembly. He stood arms crossed watching intently wearing casual jeans and an away shirt, a shrewd move ticking all the marketing boxes as he had spent the last hour wearing full home kit for his meet and greet and keepy-up session on the pitch.
One of the first questions he was asked by the cliche hungry scribes was if the two colourful carnival dancers and the chaotically but enthusiatic primary school percussion backbeat had made him feel right at home and via his interpreter he agreed that yes, it did. So he is very polite and incredibly diplomatic as well as blessed with incredible patience.
It is hard to believe he really thought that two women dressed in garishly coloured and overly elaborate costumes straight out of a pantomime and thirty kids eagerly bashing out a rhythm on maracas, triangles, tambourines and various other bits from the back of the music room cupboard bore any relation to Mardi Gras on Copacobana but it is the thought that counts.
And what the cacophonous welcome lacked in authenticity it made up for with sincerity and warmth. The kids were excellent, they never waned in their music making for the best part of an hour as the excitement built before Alves appeared from the tunnel and they redoubled their efforts to keep the samba beat going through the entire hour he mingled with the crowds.
These things are always bizarre. On the pitch there were a battery of TV cameras and a posse of snappers from all the nationals, the Gazette and the news agencies. Then there were the carnival queens moothing about and on the running track the band and Roary.
In the stands were the expectant crowd: in the south big gangs of uniformed kids bussed in from nearby schools - they are all currently working with Boro's training centre and education programmes so need for tut-tutting or grumpy types ringing up the truant bobbies - and to the north a thousand or so regular fans spread right across the Riverside's regular age and class profile. And right across the emotional spectrum too, from over-excitable ra-ra types who possibly spend most of their spare time and money in the club shop and who see the attending the event as an article of faith to the maybe more cynical and curious on-lookers, the fat and forty self-employed who could easily swing an afternoon off, smaller groups of older teenagers from the estates and a lot of parent and toddler combinations, often in matching replica shirts.
There were plenty of replica shirts on show, including some older ones, and possibly a few antiques that had survived from the similar unveiling of Juninho almost 13 years ago. A lot of the crowd had clearly passed by the club shop on the way in because among the vintage Juninhobilia there were shiny new scarves and flags and scattered through there was a sprinkling of box fresh home shirts revelling in first-on-the-block credibility and embazoned with the number 12 and lengthy pound a letter full name of Afonso Alves.
It was a strange atmosphere. Some supporters were clearly buzzing at the prospect of seeing the new boy in the flesh first but there was also a more cynical element that maybe we have seen this all before, that it could never be like Juninho and that maybe it was all a bit contrived. There were plenty stood back and looking on in silence and refusing steadfastly to be sucked into the ersatz emotion... although it was noticeable that many of them relented and drifted down to get their own autographs later on.
He finally emerged from the tunnel decked out in a home kit and natty blue boots and after a brief introduction from microphone man Gordon Cox to shrill pre-teen cheering and after a brief stint of vaguely embarrassed waving from the pitch ahe walked over to the crowd and was almost immediately buried in a scrum of well-wishing handshaking. Half-an-hour later he was dragged out of the crowd and whizzed through some stunted pictures with the dancers, and flags, and Gareth and Roary then he did the obligatory ball-juggling - clumbsier than you might expect for the thick end of £13m but we'll be generous and say he lacks match practice - before a second extended session of flesh-pressing.
In all he was shaking hands for well over an hour as people came back two and three times clutching merchandising to be signed (possibly for later flogging on Ebay) so much so that after a while he seemed to be getting on nodding terms with some of them. The Boro press people asked him several times if he wanted to call it a day on the shaking in front rather than risk repetitive strain injury but no, he said he was fine and kept on going.
As the crowd drifted away he remained, shaking and posing until the last few yellow hatted kids left and then went upstairs for the press conference, guided by his slick interpretor he said all the right things: "I want to repay the warm welcome with goals."
The latin set piece worked on almost every level. The wide-eyed kids got up close to the guy who they will soon be emulating in the playground, the older element of the audience got to claim bragging rights in the pub, the TV cameras got wall to wall footage of the whole spectacular and the tabloids got some nice pictures and an open goal of a story... surely that shoudl secure Boro the page pages tomorrow. The press office could rub their hands happily at the samba spin success and the knowledge that the whole operation ran smoothly from the off.
**
NO TO GAME 39.......
The Football Supporters Federation is gathering ideas and numbers before preparing a co-ordinated response to the latest Blatteresque lunacy of taking the game on an ill-concieved and fundamentally unfair money-making roadshow.
You can check out the latest developments here:
I might write something later (although I have been tapping away solidly for what seems a week now and I'm running the risk of RSI). As a taster of what you will read in the tabloids tomorrow here is the Press Association's round up of quotes on the issue:
“We will only go where we are welcome. We will also only do this if it is sanctioned” - Premier League chief Richard Scudamore.
“We look forward to discussing the detail with the League and looking carefully at the implications, to ensure that the proposal fits well alongside the existing fixture list, including our domestic cup and league competitions and our national team games” - the Football Association.
“What disappoints me is David Gill phoned me and said ’keep this quiet, we are going to discuss it’ and then it’s all over the papers this morning. They can’t keep their mouth shut down there” - Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
“I have to say, I think it is great. Change is good sometimes. Obviously, it depends who you are playing in that extra game - if we were playing one of the top four, I might argue then” Sunderland boss Roy Keane.
“It’s good, it’s innovative. We are the prime league in the world at the moment and I heard on the TV this morning that English Premier League football is seen in 200 countries across the world. So we have to do something to keep it in everybody’s eye-line and I can only presume that the world-wide TV contract is up for renewal” Reading manager Steve Coppell.
“This displays a complete disregard not for the proud traditions of the English game as well as a crass lack of consideration for football supporters in general” - Football Supporters’ Federation chairman Malcolm Clarke.
“I intend to meet with the Premier League to discuss these concerns, and I will urge them to listen closely to the views of the FA, players and supporters” - Andy Burnham, secretary of state for culture, media and sport.
“It would be like the Harlem Globetrotters!” - Portsmouth boss Harry Redknapp.
“I think it will be great for the Premier League. It’s one game and gives the opportunity, particularly to smaller clubs, to take your brand and take it global and I find that very exciting” - Birmingham co-owner David Gold.
“Can you imagine going to Fergie (Sir Alex Ferguson) and telling him ‘by the way, you’re not playing at home this week, you are playing in Japan’? I’d like to see it!” - Birmingham manager Steve Bruce.
“We would not be comfortable if we felt one club would be getting more than others. It has to be right for our football club” - Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn.
“Is it April 1? I find it highly unlikely it would happen. I wouldn’t think it would be a realistic proposition” - Middlesbrough manager Gareth Southgate.
“It is obviously a marketing thing. I would have to have a clearer picture of what is behind this marketing idea - I would have to find out more about it” - Fulham boss Roy Hodgson.
“We mustn’t disguise the fact that all clubs have overseas fans, the Premier League is broadcast to 200 countries on a weekly basis and therefore it’s not just the domestic fans we need to think about” - Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy.
“From a player’s point of view, it’s daunting. It will certainly take its toll physically if we are flying halfway around the world and back before starting domestically again” - Derby midfielder Robbie Savage.
“I can understand what the traditionalists may say, but the Premier League is worldwide” - Everton defender Phil Neville.
“I think it’s great. I don’t think it will be a huge problem and the benefits far outweigh the cons” - Bolton manager Gary Megson.
“I think this move is inevitable as clubs look to tap into new markets which have not yet reached their potential” - Dr Simon Chadwick, director of the Birkbeck Sport Business Centre and football business analyst.
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