Not exactly a parable, but surely an allegory of something or other
Set your videos for March 4th, 2009 at 1945 GMT, when Manchester United (sponsored by AIG, ie the American government) travel to Newcastle United (sponsored by Northern Rock, ie the British government) for a football match.
A relegation battle, one hopes.
ReplyDeleteWell we know which side the Eustonites will be on.
ReplyDeleteThat's a while away: who knows what will have happened by March?
ReplyDeleteToday, though, we did have Newcastle playing West Ham, who are no longer sponsored by the bankrupt XL Leisure, and were thus wearing iron-on numbers to cover the logos on the front of their shirts.
I went to a game at Farnborough just after they'd played Arsenal in the Cup, which game, you may recall, was switched to Highbury in order to make more revenue for the club. Or, as it turned out, not for the club, since having banked the cash, the manager/owner promptly buggered off elsewhere. As it was his company (naturally) which was their sponsor, there were covered-up logos on players' and supporters' shirts alike. I can even recall that some were torn out, like Romanian flags during the Revolution, but I suspect that that's not a wholly trustworthy recollection.
ReplyDeleteAh. I remember the last time Keighley RLFC went bust; at the last, Bradford Metropolitan Council (which subsidises Bradford Northern (yes, yes, the Bulls - hey, it beats "Bradford Northern RLFC (1963) Ltd") refused the club a similar deal.
ReplyDeleteThe last game of that season saw the Keighley side take the field with the Bradford Council logos cut out of their shirts, and a hoarding with the same logo had also been mutilated.