Racy read stirs up a Keane sense of déjà vu

I SPENT a pleasant hour yesterday morning in the company of an acclaimed author, sipping coffee and discussing sexual anxiety, masturbation and football.

As you do.

David Winner is the man who wrote Brilliant Orange, a book which documented his love affair with Dutch football. Now he has turned his attention and rather more ambivalent feelings to the game in his native land. Those Feet the title is inspired by William Blake attempts to get to the heart of English football, via a circuitous but undeniably scenic route, which takes in Victorian prudery, the decline of the empire, the significance of mud, and the life and times of 70s legend Frank Worthington, a full-time footballer and part-time sexual athlete (or was it the other way around), who gave his autobiography the glorious title, One Hump Or Two.

There'll be more of this next week in these pages, but I feel duty-bound to permit no delay in bringing you the most sensational revelation in Winner's book. If a little-known novel first published in 1859 can ever be considered 'breaking news' then this is it. Bear with me; it's worth the wait.

The book, which Winner stumbled across in researching Victorian attitudes to war, sport and notions of manliness, is called Sword And Gown and was penned by one GA Lawrence. A fairly racy work for its time, its protagonist and hero is a sportsman and fighter with a quick temper, a fierce warrior who survived the Charge of the Light Brigade and was known to his subordinates as 'The Cool Captain'.

"There were passions in him difficult to rouse but yet more difficult to appease or subdue," Lawrence tells us. We also learn that "it seemed as if some strange doom was on him", and that he possessed a "vast deep chest" and "knotted muscles without an ounce of superfluous flesh".

Remind you of anyone?

How about the eyes then?

"Cold, dark and steady, they seldom flashed or glittered but when their pupils contracted, there came into them a sort of sullen, suppressed inward light."

Then there's the testimony of a comrade who was at his captain's side during a cavalry charge in India. "I caught sight of his face... every fibre was quivering with passion. We should have fallen back immediately on our old ground, but it was so evident he did not mean to do this that I ventured to suggest to him what our orders had been.

"He faced round on me with a savage oath. 'How dare you interfere, sir! Are you in command of the squadron?' Then he turned to the troopers: 'Have you had enough yet, men? I haven't!' It seemed as if the devil that possessed him had gone out into the others too for they all shouted in reply a hoarse, hungry roar, such as you hear in wild beast's dens before feeding time.

"An old troop sergeant, a rigid pious Presbyterian, spoke for the rest, grinding and gnashing his teeth: 'We'll follow the captain anywhere follow him to hell'."

Good stuff, eh? But here's the best bit, here's the zinger you'll need to take sitting down: the name of the heroic, driven captain of this ripping yarn from nearly 150 years ago?

(Deep breath). Royston Keen.

Not a word of a lie, folks, and Winner himself admitted to me that the discovery hit him with the force of an epiphany. Not surprisingly, it also set in train a chapter which he had not previously planned to write, a kind of alternative history of Roys through the ages.

By the way, I mentioned earlier that Sword And Gown was a fairly racy read for its time, and this is largely because of the spicy love interest. Royston, we are informed, "had a big, thick manly moustache and was madly in love with a woman called Cecil".

As the Monty Python quiz contestant used to say: "Ah, that is where my claim falls to the ground."

Speaking of names (Great Journalistic Links Of Our Time, Number 193), your correspondent has come up with a little notion that might help to improve the atmosphere at Lansdowne Road for the next batch of World Cup qualifiers. It's not an original idea but rather one borrowed from our experiences on the road so far in Group 4.

In both Basel and Tel Aviv, the stadium announcers had a special way of introducing the home players: they would call out the first name only, allowing the crowd to bellow the second. Thus, in Switzerland, it was Hakin! YAKIIIIIN! And in Israel, Yossi! BENAYOOOOOOM!

Pretty stirring stuff, be assured, and while I yield to no-one in my admiration for Philip Lynott, it might make for a simple and effective change from the millionth pre-kick off rendition of 'The Boys Are Back In Town' in Dublin 4.

So, let's have a rehearsal. Altogether now: Royston! KEEEEEEEEN!