The Moatygate Tapes

Gazza, tell us about the Raoul Moat you know.

Raoul Moat, a knew um yairz agur. He yowsed to be a boansa in Newcastle. A knew um a lot of yairz since when a was a young kid when a played for Newcastle. He was lake a jettilman. Someone's musta woand him up or done something, rate? All of a sudden a've just listened to the radio, rate? A mean on TV nyowz. Obvisslee he's killed someone, and he's shot two, rate? Which is not naice, really. Obvisslee he musta been on droogz. And he shot two peepil, rate? Now a've heard on the nyowz that obvisslee the droogz a musta worn off. Now he's willing to give in, rate? The Pleece are gonna hold um, rate? He’s a lovelee blurk, a nur that. So, the end the deer, a think he's frightened... erm, he's put his gun doan. A nur for a fact, he's put his gun doan, because a think he’s scared in case the Pleece shoot um and kill um. The droogz have worn off. All he wants to do is surrenda. The end the deer, you shoot someone and kill two othaz, ye might get, what, twelve yairz? Could be about six yairz that he's oat. A nur that he's a good lad.

If he could hear a message from you, Gazza, what would you say to him tonight?

Well, a think that the Pleece got a hurled of um. Listen, a've drurv from Newcastle in a taxi to Rothbury. It’s cost a lot of money. A've brought a dressun goan for um, a big jacket, a've brought some chicken, some bread... a nur you’re gonna laugh at this one: a've brought um a can of lawga... a've brought um a fission rod, cause I heard he was at the rivva, and I’ve got a fission rod too, and fission I’ll have a chat with um, and talk to um, cause a think am the urnly man, I think, I can help um through this. A’ve talked to the Pleece. A sez, “Listen,” a sez, “A nur the guy, he’s a nice guy.” A sez a wanna go through where they had everything cordoned off. I wanna get through there but the Pleece wouldn’t let us. So that was a wairsta tame. Cause they would be frightened in case he’d, lake, shoot me, y’gnaw. But I told um, “He will not shoot me.”

It’s a dangerous situation, though, Gazza, isn’t it?

Lissen. A’ve just been in a car crash, hit a wall at nanety male an owwa. A’ve survaived that. Gnawun may luck he’d probly miss.

So what you’re saying is, you want to go in there, you want to help negotiate?

A’ve got a jacket, a’ve got a dressun goan, a’ve got some chicken, a’ve got some bread, a’ve got a can of lawga, a’ve got a fission rod, a've got my fission rod, and am willun to sit down and dish out, "Moaty! It's Gazza! Whay-aye!” And a guarantee if I shout his name out — “Am heeya!” — we can sit and chat, and me and him can sit and chat, a little bit of fission, and all a’d tell um, ad say, “Moaty, listen....”

So you could sort it out and have a man-to-man chat with him — two pals on the riverbank?

Yeah, two friends on the riverbank from Newcastle… look, listen, A’d be just, ya nur, “Put the gun aware, thruh it in the rivva,” sayun, “Look, Mawty, the worst of the worst, ya might get a twelve-yair stretch. The Pleece are not gonna kill ya.” Cause a nur he’s willun to give in now, cause I think whatever he was on, it’s worn off. A’d say, “The Pleece are not gonna kill ya.” He might do a twelve-yair stretch, obvisslee, for killun someone, which is not very naice, but he did it because obvisslee he was high on drugs probly, rate? For good behaviour he’d get oat after six yairz.

Paul, have you been in touch with him recently?

Naw, because a’ve been in hospital.

When did you last talk to him?

Well, a seen um a suppose a year and a half ago when a was in Newcastle.

When you spoke to him then, how was he?

How was he? Sounza bell. Nowt wrang with um. He’s a boansa, he’s a good lad, he’s a hard guy, he’s a jettilman, but it’s not naice when his girlfriend ran off with anotha guy.

Gazza, thank you very much for talking to us on Real Radio tonight.

Thank you very much, and do us a favour?

Go on....

Send a cheque through the purst, ha ha.... Unnly jerkun.

Just turn round, will you? I want to read your shirt

At some point during this World Cup I want to sit bolt upright and go "Who the fuck is that?" I want to cross my fingers hoping a player will turn round in close-up so I can see how his name - which I'd never heard in my life before until the commentator just garbled it - is written on the back of his shirt.

All I ask is to be pleasantly surprised by a player at the World Cup. Is that really such a tall order?

Only three players have managed to squeeze an "ooh" out of me so far, spurring a frisson of excitement every time they got the ball. One of them was Leo Messi, arguably the only player since Maradona who surprises you if he doesn't get you to go "ooh". The other two - with names that would make a cracking pair of competing soap powders, as it happens - were Özil and Elia, playing for Germany and Holland, respectively.

They both impressed me, yes, but did they surprise me? Not really, no. I'd had a good idea of what to expect for several months during all the pre-tournament build-up. (I hardly devour the sports press, but they were hard to miss: both had been touted - along with four hundred and eighty-seven others - as candidates to fill the slot at Barcelona that Thierry Henry is expected to vacate this summer.)

I note with dismay that, apart from the Spanish players who I watch every week (sorry, Jesús Navas, but you've been a known entity for years), only Cristiano Ronaldo plus a supporting cast of ten and Dunga’s notoriously ooh-lite Brazil remain ready to set their wares out on the table for our delectation. It looks increasingly as though - unless the Dear Leader in Pyongyang has something up his cowpat-brown sleeve - my dream of being surprised by a player at this World Cup will be unrealised.

Thanks, YouTube. Thanks a fat lot.

Edward G. Robinson's banana kick

Having watched the first three matches of the World Cup, I've got a "little man inside", like Edward G. Robinson's in Double Indemnity, and he's starting to whisper that there's something here that doesn't square.

It's not the schedule-shredding kick-off times – "No, dear, I'm afraid I can't do the weekly shop; aren't you aware that dark horses Greece are up against ever-unpredictable South Korea?" It's not the aural migraine of the "atmosphere-enhancing" vuvuzelas. It's not even the flying FIFA logo that announces, with all the elegance of an Allied Carpets advert, the eighth ultra-slomo replay of a ball trundling disconsolately into touch three minutes into the first half. No, it's none of that.

Deep, deep breath.

It's the football. It's not very good, is it? In the second half of last night's lifeblood-vacuuming France-Uruguay match I placed my hand over my heart and asked myself a question. Is this really any better than watching Coventry City versus Everton (or, more likely in my case, its equivalent: Mallorca versus Racing Santander)? Unless I could say "Yessiree, Bob!" faster than Thierry Henry falls over clutching a random body part, shouldn’t I be doing something more satisfying, if not productive, with my time?

But I stuck with it to the miserable nil-nilly end. Of course I did.

I'm convinced that we have an image of the World Cup that's not unlike our image of our body shape: burned at some point in the increasingly distant past into non-editable ROM in our brains. For me - someone who'd be pushed to describe himself as even a late-summer chicken - that image consists of a bunch of Thornton's-fudge-coloured men wearing bleedy yellow and blue on an even bleedier Subbuteo-green pitch, strolling rings (running was a development that would only come much later) around an abject shower of lumbering Europeans. What exotic planet did these marvellous creatures come from? What was this strange magic that they wove? Did you see that free kick? It actually curved in the air! Did you see that move? Five passes and the ball never left the ground!

Of course Pele is the greatest player of all time. How could he not be? We only ever saw him play for three weeks every four years. We had to imagine all the rest while we were watching Sunderland in the mud.

Now, the world's half-decent players are so familiar to us we're sick of the sight of most of them. We're terminally over-Tevezed and all Drogba’d out. And, let's face it, not even los supercracks – those inhabitants of football's Mount Olympus who are usually referred to by TV pundits as "the likes of yer Messis and Ronaldos" - are, while playing with a group of semi-strangers, likely to come up with anything that we don't see them doing for their European clubs twice a week.

That's what Edward G's little man inside has been saying, anyway. But he's not alone in there. He has to compete with that little lad and his gaudy, bleedy blues, greens and yellows, like a watercolour in the rain. And that's why, hope against hope, I'll be there for Algeria-Slovenia tomorrow, on the off chance it might unveil, to a world enraptured, a 21st-century equivalent of Rivellino's banana kick.