Fabled Words From My Father

The date is 24 April 2005, my location the decrepit away stand of Fratton Park. The full-time whistle has blown and an embarrassment of a Southampton F.C. side have just lost 4-1 to their arch rivals Portsmouth. With relegation looming large over the heads of a travelling army of Saints supporters, my father as forlorn and despondent as the rest of our brethren turned to me and offered these immortal words of solace, “well at least music doesn’t disappoint you like this.”

This was undoubtedly an utterly woeful attempt at pragmatism, attempting as it did to offset the decline of my beloved football team with my burgeoning fascination towards Pete Doherty and his scamp-rock ilk, as I travel back home from a crushing FA Cup defeat at the hands of the ‘Pompey scum’ now seems as good a time as any for a reassessment of my old man’s immortal offering of wisdom.

Of course the immediate difference between the two past times of my affection lies with loyalty. In sporting terms I have stood steadfast behind Southampton. Even as we plumbed the new depths of Coca Cola League 1 football it never occurred to me to pick a club who might not cause me so much misery.

In music however, I’ve become as promiscuous as the inhabitants of the England locker room. Money that could easily have been appropriated for a copy of Doherty’s Grace/Wastelands has repeatedly gone spent on CDs by Neu!, New Radicals and N.E.R.D. to name but a few purchases of varying quality. Similarly while I will undoubtedly despise the day I stand side by side with a field full of lager louts waiting for a V Festival headline slot by The National, with Southampton I eagerly await the occasion an Arab billionaire decides to flood my beloved team with more money than sense.

If you’re still not following, here comes the grain of similarity in a beach full of arbitrary comparison. The best moments I have spent both in the company of music and football are those which have defied expectation. Just as I’ve mythologized Matt Le Tissier’s sweetly struck scorcher in the final minutes of both his career and The Dell’s existence as the Premier League’s most dilapidated stadium, I’ve poured over the moment trudged on whim across a litter strewn Reading festival campsite to little known redhead by the name of Florence on the tiny Carling Stage for new artists.

Music has disappointed on not quite as many occasions as the Saints, although a tune shy solo concert by Doherty at the Royal Albert hall and a whimper of a last hurrah for a ragged post-Coxon Blur on the last leg of their Think Tank tour do beg to differ. Yet as today’s brief glimmer of hope between a glorious 1-1 equaliser by Ricky Lambert and our eventual 1-4 home drubbing proved it is those moments which defy league positions and musical proficiency which make both past times worthwhile.

Whilst it might seem a perverse concept to take pleasure in successive duff albums by the once imperious Weezer or the jibing “one team in Hampshire” chants from a jubilant collective of ‘skate’ supporters any future returns to form will be all the more jubilant given such suffering. So here’s to sweet revenge and even sweeter records.