Rage Against The Machine - How I Could Just Kill A Man & Pistol Grip Pump

COVER NERD!
In the week that England qualify for the World Cup in Brazil, I remembered my own little piece of football memories, and decided to share it with you. If you want to share some memories, football related or not, please click here and we will be delighted to share your thoughts with the world.

Rage Against The Machine - How I Could Just Kill A Man (2000)

I'd been working at the airport for over a year and a good bunch of us always played football over Cranford Park every week. It was proper jumpers for goalposts stuff with scores that took me back to the playground like 33-29 and the like. I miss those days hugely as now the only exercise I seem to get it walking to the bus stop in the car park at work. Maybe I like the football, but another part of the ritual was to play for about 3 hours then head to The White Hart and down a few welcome pints of lager.
We had been playing for a number of weeks when I saw that there was a Five-A-Side tournament coming up soon. The dedicated few amongst us decided that we would enter a team and I arranged a kit for us to wear. The day finally came and we turned up in Egham at the sports centre rairing to go. There were some teams that took themselves far too seriously unlike us who were just out for a good time and if we did well then that was a bonus.
The team was made up of Nick Spanneut in goal, he was our French maestro with legs that go all the way up and down the Champs Elysee. In defence was Mark 'The Schurmanator' Schurman who was and probably still is built like a tank, so the name was pretty apt. I was the other defender, and I guess I would be categorised as solid and reliable if not overly skillful. Our midfield was made up of our very own Flycasual, who as our box-to-box Midfield General was the engine of the team. Nick 'Rinky Dink' Dermott & Faisal Ahmed were our two silky skilled players who both had the skills to pay the bills, unfortunately at times they were final demands !!! Our striker was our very own goal-hanging, Communist sympathising ginger-whinger Stuart Farris. On paper we had a really good team, I think the problem was that at times the paper was a bit soggy and see-through !!! Having earned a grade C in maths at GCSE I realised that 7 into 5 didn't go so I took the honourable decision to leave myself as well as 'Rinky' out of our first game which was a fairly drab nil-nil bore-fest. For the second game I brought myself and 'Rinky' back in and dropped Faisal and Stuart to the bench. This was a good 10 years before the Spanish system of playing without an out and out striker. Hey, maybe I was the inspiration for Pep Guardiola and all of Barcelona's success !!
The first half was a pretty tight affair and was goalless. Then in the second half Mark & I played our way out of defence and found ourselves just outside their penalty area. Neither of us seem to want to shoot and passed it back and forth between us a few times before I took the brave decision to let rip. My trusty left foot wrapped itself around the ball and the next thing I saw was the net rippling and my shot sitting perfectly in the bottom corner. 1-nil.... Get in. As we ran back to our own half to celebrate, I screamed the most manly thing I had ever said. "COME ON LADS. IT'S STILL NIL-NIL !!!" whilst not being factually correct, it was the inspiration that the team needed to go on and win the game. It worked, we won.

Not the best way to celebrate scoring

The rest of the tournament was a non-event as far as progress through to the knock-out stages and the only other memorable event was in another game, when I was clean through on goal with only the goalie to beat I took swipe and when the ball eventually came down it landed smack bang in the face of a girl supporting her boyfriend on the pitch behind. I didn't see it happen as the moment after I shot, I turned away in disgust to continue the game. Unbeknownst to me, the girl's boyfriend ran off the pitch to comfort his lady as she was in floods of tears. Pah, get on with the game mate. Play the game, and see if she's okay after the final whistle. When our game finished, I walked over to their game and said something along the lines of "Errr, sorry about that" that was all I needed to say, it's a bloody man's game after all.

Later that evening we made our way back to The White Hart, to sink a few more pints of heaven. I put a couple of quid in the jukebox. This was one of the jukeboxes that had whole albums on them, so if you were feeling kind of selfish, then you could subject the rest of the pub to a whole album's worth of heaven or hell depending on their preference. On this particular occasion, I decided to use my money on one album. Renegades by Rage Against The Machine. I'd been into RATM ever since I first saw them perform 'Killing In The Name' live on The Word. I went out the next day and bought the record on 12 inch white vinyl. I don't know why it was released like that, but it was a gimmick so I naturally bought it. Back to the pub, and for my 2 quid I could play 7 songs, so I chose my favourites and suffered the wrath of many a regular, but I didn't care. I decided on sharing my 2 absolute faves. Covers of Cypress Hill & Volume 10.... Enjoy

Rage Against The Machine - Pistol Grip Pump (2000)

NERD ALERT - Killings In The Name has been used by interrogators in Guantanamo Bay, as part of the psychological torture process. Probably not what the band intended.

As a bonus, please find both songs by the original artists

Cypress Hill - How I Could Just Kill A Man (1991)

Volume 10 - Pistol Grip Pump (1994)