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Fulham defender
Moritz Volz |
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Someone described the recent weather as “Brass Monkeys” to me last week. I must admit, I didn’t have the foggiest idea what they were on about. Despite being told it was to do with animal genitalia, I’ve since learnt that it’s actually a reference to frozen cannon balls from the Napoleonic War. Whatever your interpretation, it’s certainly been a brass-monkeys start to 2009, and when you earn your living running around in a pair of shorts everyday, that’s not good.
On any normal training morning, I’m usually out there having a kick about a good quarter of an hour before the session is due to start but there’s been none of that lately. If we’re starting at 10.30, I’m not going out until 10.30 — and I’m already jogging before I’ve left the building. And as long as I can still move, I’ll wear whatever I can to keep warm.
I remember when I was a kid, my brother and me used to get these woollen socks for each birthday and Christmas that our grandma made for us. We pretty much loathed them for most of the year because it really wasn’t cool turning up at school wearing grandma’s woolly socks. But come the cold weather, they came straight out for for those after-school games in the midst of a dark German winter.
But while grandma’s socks don’t get an outing these days, the glorified long johns known as “skins” certainly do. If you have not seen them, think football players in tights. You’d never have got away with them in the past, but just because they’re marketed as being these high-tech performance- enhancing invention we’re all loving them — even if they do make you look more like a speed skater.
We’re not allowed to play proper matches in skins but those tight Lycra tops are a must-have under your match shirt in these Arctic conditions. They’re also great for perfecting the ice dancer/Eurovision winner look as you walk down the tunnel at the end of a game.
The growing number of foreign players — particularly those from warmer countries — has meant that all manner of garments are now on display as a means of beating the cold. Imagine a big English centre half trotting out in a pair of gloves 20 years ago — you’d have been hammered for the rest of your career.
But these days everyone’s wearing them. It’s when they come out in the first week in October that you have to laugh.
Now that gloves have become accepted, some players are pushing the envelope even farther and it seems that scarves are no longer just for those on the terraces. Last season, Manchester City’s Rolando Bianchi seemed to be wearing a nice warm Gap number when he scored against Spurs.
Further media investigations later revealed it was actually a collar cut off from an old rollneck jumper. Apparently it’s pretty common in Italy. And in certain parts of West London, too — not long after, Jimmy Bullard started training at Fulham in this ridiculous little scarf thing. I tried to tell him he should do us all a favour and go for a Balaclava but he didn’t seem to take the hint.
One benefit of the cold snap is that it’s given me an excuse to get out my beloved Uggs. Now I know this tends to bring a mountain of abuse, but it’s a price I’m prepared to pay for well-in-sulated feet. The first time I wore them into Fulham, I spent the whole day trying to justify why I was wearing my missus’s boots. As you can imagine, I didn’t hear the end of it for a long time, which was why I was a bit reluctant to wear them into training at Ipswich last week.
But it was so cold I decided to risk it, and sure enough, when I got into the dressing-room after training, they’d been put up on display for the entire squad to see. I really should have known better but at least my feet were warm. What about Ugg football boots? Now that’s an invention I’d be up for trying .