Men or monsters?
At the high end, there has been some monstrously good football on show this week.
City’s fixtures against Chelsea, PSG and Liverpool have all been hulking examples of the elite game, bulging with quality, stacked with superstars, and amping their players and viewers full of adrenaline.
They reminded me of a tale I was once told about bodybuilding legend Dorian Yates (who I once turned round to find standing right behind me - surreal).
Anyway, Yates was asked at a Q&A whether his physique was in part due to illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
His response went something like this:
Look . . . you come to see a show. Do you want to see men or monsters up there?
I found that refreshingly candid at the time (when such things weren’t so commonly talked about) and beyond that, I thought it hit hard on a truth that many aren’t willing to acknowledge:
The vast majority of us want to see monsters.
We want heavyweight spectacle. We want to see titans flex their muscles, literally and proverbially. And we kind of don’t care about the cost.
It’s widely acknowledged that extreme bodybuilding and the means required for it aren’t doing the participants any favours, yet people watch on anyway.
We know lots of juiced-up bodybuilders die young and have weighty health issues. We know the successful ones can achieve massive fame and fortune and influence young ones to go down similar paths before they have a clue what they’re getting themselves into, but we’re now around 50 years on from the first global bodybuilding star and things show no sign of slowing off.
We have an innate urge to see the exceptional development of seemingly any kind and we’re not well adapted to considering the whole picture.
We watched those games last week, our mouths agape at the perfection of play we witness from these balling goliaths, and we know in the backs of our minds that all is not right.
The game is a freakish bodybuilder. You can’t rip your eyes away from its unnatural aesthetic perfection and proportions but underneath, its blood is clagging and its joints are crumbling.
More small clubs are going to the wall with lifeblood money unable to flow their way as it instead feeds those all important mirror-muscles that are the big clubs, but such has been their thirst for gains on top of gains, we start to see gargantuans like FC Barcelona struggling under their own bulk.
I’ve seen many articles written about the excesses of football. I generally struggle with them, agreeing and feeling preached at in equal measure.
I feel like they don’t take into account our need for growth. The finances of the game, almost inarguably, need dialling in but we (I say we, not because I have any power to do anything about any of this but just because I have a deep love for the game) need to find a way to make coming off our gear of financially-doped football as pain-free as possible.
Like Tesla managed to make a car that’s better for the environment, super-safe and leaves nearly all other cars in the dust, football needs to find a similar solution.
Going back to the bodybuilding analogy, maybe we need to reshape the game into a different sort of impressive body, one that looks powerful and functions well. Maybe less Mr Olympia and more Olympic gymnast.
How exactly we do that, I don’t know, I just know that we want the monster . . . we NEED the monster . . . just not the one that eats all who feed it and then itself.
Speaking of the monstrous, some good news for those of you who read my novel FOUL . . .
the sequel, TARGET MAN: The First Half is out later this week!
Those of you signed up to the newsletter will get a sneak peek ahead of the world.
More from me over the coming days.