[John Whitworth]

I suppose there was no escaping this. And in bloody prose. Anyone who doesn't include biting is disqualified. Nabokov might by nice. He DID play soccer in Cambridge.

No. 2856: soccer lesson


Phil Neville has been given a mauling on Twitter on account of his less than scintillating commentary on the World Cup. You are invited to recruit a well-known author of your choice (living or dead but please specify) to show him how it should be done (prose only and 150 words max). Please email entries to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 9 July.

[Adrian Fry]

I'm going to be disqualified: I have not included biting in my Amisian (Martin) entry. Anyone who can do Camus is facing an open goal.

[Rob Stuart]

Gosh, isn’t this terribly exciting??? It seems that all you ‘footie’ fans thought Phil Neville was just a teensy bit yawnsome (sorry, Phil!!!) so the darling BBC have decided to give little old me a try instead!!! They must be desperate!!! Only joking!!!??? Gosh, look at Gerrard’s ball control there! And I’m not talking about the football, either!!! Or am I??? Naughty Jilly, spank my bottom! I do apologise, you must all think me terribly wicked! A simply blissful cross to Lampard now… oooh, isn’t he scrummy too? Swoonorama!!! Lampard passes to Rooney, looking absolutely super in those tight little shorts (Smack botty again, Jilly!!! Won’t you ever learn???) Oh my goodness, he’s been tackled!!!! What utterly beastly behaviour from that swarthy, masculine, muscly foreign player with his matted, sweaty hair and his glistening thighs pumping up and down like pistons as he powers towards the England goal line…!!!

[Rob Stuart]

Algeria lost today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I can’t be sure. I doubt that a single player wept at the result, for they all appear to be quite beyond caring. The national side’s apathetic performance, milling around in a state of ennui, staring at the sun, staring at the grass, surely indicates that they have been suddenly overwhelmed by the sheer absurdity of competitive football, struck perhaps by the similarities between their kicking a ball back and forth across a field, year in, year out, and the torment suffered by Sisyphus, eternally pushing a rock up a hill only to have it roll down again. Strictly speaking, of course, they are right. Scoring goals, conceding goals, both are essentially meaningless activities, but one must derive one’s own meanings from them and thus resist the descent into nihilism. Those who do not play the game are condemned to lose.