We can all agree that the world will end very soon so it was important that we had a deadline day to remember during the brief time left. Any day now a dark cloud will spread across the earth as the planet becomes a frightened, less joyful place with people wondering if this is what life has been reduced to. But that’s enough about the international break.
On Thursday morning, it did appear that, at this bleak time in world affairs, deadline day would return to something of its former splendour. In fact, it looked as if by its very extravagance, deadline day could be used to make whatever point you wanted to make about the world in 2017.
It could be seen as a sign of decadence, a reminder of Berlin in the 1920s, or it could be an answer to the Remoaners who are always talking Britain down: if the country is going to the dogs, how come a battalion of Liverpool fans are monitoring private jet flight patterns across Europe in preparation for the arrival of Virgil Van Dijk or Thomas Lemar? This is the kind of innovation and inventiveness the doomsayers claim has been sacrificed by Brexit.
So it looked as if it would be a statement deadline day, but it didn’t turn out that way. By Thursday evening, Dominic Cork, who had been standing outside Stoke City’s training ground for most of it, was reporting that it was dark. Who says sportspeople can’t make the transition to journalism?
By then, it had become a story about things not happening. Even the things that were happening like Thomas Lemar scoring twice for France were framed in terms of what wasn’t happening.
Over the years, we have become used to nothing happening on deadline day as it becomes a study in the banality of existence. This was something different, on Thursday, big things weren’t happening and they kept not happening over and over again. It was as if the wheels of capitalism itself had come off the rails and it was up to Shay Given and Joleon Lescott back in the studio to explain what had gone wrong with the financial markets while highlighting the flaws in globalisation.
This, I would venture, is not playing to Given and Lescott’s strengths, but there they were anyway, reduced to talking about some of the things not happening or the collateral damage of some of the things that happened, like the importance of Aaron Ramsey’s Instagram post about the OX and what the presenter called the “hashtag shambles confusion”.
Deadline Day was, of course, ruined when Sky decided that they couldn’t have people sticking dildos into their reporters’ ears outside training grounds and altered the rules of engagement.
In doing so, they seemed to mirror the more prudent approach from clubs as it became common to hear the maxim that the well-run clubs get their “business done early”, even if if it was still something of a crapshoot, just one done a bit earlier.
In the golden age, Sky would turn to a man like Darragh MacAnthony in the studio for a unique insight and MacAnthony was one of the few men who could provide the unique insight they crave on the big occasion.
Who can forget his contribution in the summer of 2013 when he shared the studio with Niall Quinn, sharing it the way a seagull might share a sandwich with the child whose hand he has plucked it from
While Quinn, as ever, tried to see all sides of an argument, MacAnthony was seeing all sides too, but more forcefully, forgiving Yohan Cabaye’s refusal to play for Newcastle as he attempted to get a move to Arsenal on the grounds that he was sulking, which was human nature for footballers, “and we’re all human”.
Some are more human than others, and MacAnthony appears to be a visionary now as the humanity of footballers as expressed through sulking seems to be the only way to get yourself ready for the big move.
But what if the big moves don’t happen and we are left facing the bleakness of existence without the adrenaline that these signings should provide?
When Lemar was scoring for France on Thursday, most Arsenal or Liverpool fans would have paid whatever it took to get him to their clubs.
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For many players, this will be the moment when they are most loved by their new club’s supporters. Mesut Ozil, say, has rarely thrilled Arsenal supporters as much as he thrilled them when he signed, while who can forget the rejoicing among Liverpool supporters when Joe Cole arrived.
But that is fine too. What is wrong with instant gratification? It’s instant and it’s gratifying.
In this perilous time, we need to escape more than ever. Deadline day exists as a monument to the human ability to forget, a reminder of hope usually triumphs over experience and hope then turns to hatred and bile pretty quickly.
It ended, of course, with something not happening when Ross Barkley turned down Chelsea, something which baffled Merse and Phil Thompson, with Merse underlining his bewilderment by announcing “you can’t live in Liverpool for the rest of your life”.
He will probably come to regret that remark, but it just reflected his frustration as something else spectacularly didn’t happen. We are all human.
