When Henry met the media
| 10:22 UK time, Friday, 12 May 2006
It was the Football Writers’ Association annual dinner last night, where the cream of Britain’s sports press met to pay tribute to Thierry Henry - their player of the year for an .
These events are always entertaining in one way or another – but this one in particular provided a fascinating insight into the media’s relationship with our national game.
The audience could be characterised by a single stereotype – middle-aged white bloke in a shabby suit with a soup stain on his tie (and before anyone accuses me of having a go at my colleagues, I should know because I fit the bill perfectly). On the evidence of the hundreds of faces in the Lancaster Gate Hotel, it is unlikely that the football writing community will be heralded as an example of diversity in the workplace – not for a while anyway.
In the middle of this journalistic love-in stepped Henry, the modern master and surely one of the finest two or three players ever to have graced British football.
The Arsenal star gave a captivating acceptance speech, generous in his praise of all things English – from the national team and our media to London itself. As ever Henry oozed cosmopolitan charm, with a self-deprecating confidence that you can’t fail but warm to (and I speak as a Spurs fan, incidentally …).
Then Henry sat down and was replaced at the mic by the kind of old-school comedian that you tend to find at these events (gags about work-shy Scousers, women who can’t park the car – all that sophisticated fare).
I for one couldn’t take my eyes off Henry. How would he react in the face of this unreconstructed badinage? Lost in translation? And the rest...
As the comic gabbled on for what seemed like hours, every now and again unearthing a gem of political incorrectness from the morass of mediocre material, the Frenchman sat there on the top table, half smiling, half bemused, as he tried to comprehend the famous British "sense of humour".
The King of Cool followed by the Tabloid Fool. It was a surreal juxtaposition and (he said, struggling manfully to find a profound pay-off line) one that says much about the clash of cultures that is modern football.
