Mind Games

By Super Dan (from Empire)

So it is crunch time in the race for the title, and as such out have come the big guns. Or rather, the dirty bomb of the manager’s arsenal, the prison shank, the garrotte. The weapon known as Mind Games. After closing the gap on their bitterest rivals, Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini immediately announced that United were still ‘probably’ going to win the title.

For City, he said the title race was ‘not in our hands’, which is interesting when you consider that should the Sky Blues win all their remaining fixtures they will most likely be champions regardless of what United do, but that’s by the by. What was even more interesting was to see Sir Alex Ferguson, wily as ever, claim that the initiative was now with Manchester City rather than his United side, despite the fact that defeating the noisy neighbours in the derby will leave United virtually guaranteed the title.

So what we have been treated to is the slightly ridiculous sight of two Premier League managers apparently inviting their opponents to triumph, like two sickening sweethearts urging one another to put the phone down first. “You first”, “No, you!”. All in the name of Mind Games.
Mind Games, deployed as a measure to unsettle the opposition, are as old as the hills of course. From Bruce Grobbelaar dancing like a puppet with half of it’s strings cut on the goal line, to Bill Shankley having a ‘This Is Anfield’ sign placed about the tunnel stairwell, to the old reducer that would send a tricky winger flying into the fans in the first couple of minutes of a match, just so he knew the defender ‘was there’. The uses and methods are legion.

Mind Games aren’t limited to football either. Oh my, no. They are employed in cricket with an almost exquisite piquancy, to the point where they even get their own name – sledging. Some sledges have reached almost mythic status, such as when Ramnaresh Sarwan replied to Glenn McGrath’s cheeky enquiry of “So what does Brian Lara’s dick taste like?” with “I don’t know, ask your wife”. Or when Eddo Brandes replied to the same Glenn McGrath’s salvo of “Why are you so fat” with a lightning quick “Because every time I f*** your wife she gives me a biscuit”. It may not be Oscar Wilde, but on-field banter like that can often cause an opponent to lose composure or concentration.

However, when I read about Mind Games in football, I can’t help feeling a bit, well, disappointed. It all seems so tame, so gentle. Claiming that your team are the underdogs? Well, so what? Why should that make the other manager or players panic about that? It’s probably true, after all. I can’t help feel that in the realm of Mind Games, managers are really underplaying it. Leaving the weapon holstered. And as a spectator of such goings on, I want to see more. I want to see a manager employ such razor-sharp psychological torment on his opponent that Derren Brown sits at home wearing his suit, manicuring his beard and wonders “How the hell did he do that?”.

I want to see a manager obliterated by Mind Games to the point where he is left a sobbing wreck, confessing all his mortal sins like Chunk in The Goonies to Ed Chamberlain and Gary Neville in the Sky studio, perhaps until his assistant or captain has to come and put his arm around him in a comforting way and gently lead him back to the dressing room, whispering quiet words that only they can hear.

We are unlikely to see anything of this sort, of course. Perhaps it is fear of such tactics being used in return, a sort of mutually-assured destruction that could be the only outcome of unfettered Mind Games. The closest we have come is perhaps the most famous use of Mind Games , when Sir Alex Ferguson turned the screw on bubble-permed optimist Kevin Keegan in the 1995-96 season, leading to the serial quitter unleashing a broken-voiced rant, tears almost standing in his eyes, on live TV. And how much did we all enjoy witnessing it? It was named greatest quote in the Premier League 10 Seasons award, that’s how much, and there’s every chance it’ll win again for the 20 Seasons award.

I would love - love it! - if we saw something like that again.

I have never brought into this whole 'mind games' nonsense myself. I am of the belief that - in football at least - the better team over the course of the season takes first prize regardless of the pettiness spouted from the sidelines.

People always use the Kevin Keegan blow up from 1996 as an example but if Les Ferdinand hadn't been so wasteful in front of goal during the run in and Tino Apsrilla hadn't come in and upset the balance of the side then Newcastle would have won it and not Man Utd because of Fergies 'mind games'.