Planet Jupitus: Universal language brings us together

On arriving in Tennessee last Saturday night, I got to my hotel room, grabbed the phone and ordered several bottles of powerful local beer. My theory is that you make the hangover worse than the jet lag, thereby eclipsing it. It’s just a theory.

The next day it was your bleary-eyed and surly correspondent slumped against the car hire counter. “You like Jeep?” a helper barked. He jabbed at a wallchart indicating various panzer-like vehicles, with carbon footprints the size of the Isle of Wight. I waved lazy assent and started on the paperwork in front of me.

Upon seeing my passport, a light filled his eyes. “What football you support? Chelsea, yes?” To me, such a statement is a mental espresso. This was a hangover cure. I shot upright as my eyes snapped wide open. “No, no, no. West Ham! East London?” He gave me a vacant if friendly stare.

Obviously the form of Alan Curbishley’s men had failed to penetrate the United States car rental staff demographic. “I like Keegan!” he blurted. Did he think that Kev was involved with the Irons, or was this just a polite conversational helper?

I opted for the latter and entered into the stuttering Esperanto of football. How many times have we found ourselves in some far-flung corner of the globe, unable to communicate with the locals until somebody dredges up a name from the sporting past and, as if by magic, it’s all smiles and beers.

We grinned like goons, spewing player and team names at each other. But mischief got the better of me and after he had waxed lyrical about Nani. (“Nani . . . Good . . . Yes?”) I nodded then beckoned him closer to whisper; “Cowdenbeath . . . Very good!”

He looked puzzled. How had these giants eluded him? “Dougie Hill . . . superb!” I winked, with both thumbs aloft. He absorbed this information as I slid into the driver’s seat and sped off towards Nashville. On the car’s radio I lucked on to World Soccer Daily just in time to hear Steve Cohen, the presenter, describe Robbie Earle’s commentating as being “like a fine wine”. I love my life.

PHILL JUPITUS

Comments

[Gareth Crockett]

You'd be surprised how many people I've met passing through Florida who wax lyrical about Vinny Samways - no word of a lie. That said, for all our sins in the UK, we do not have to endure the ESPN panel during Champions League halftimes. As erudite as Shaka Hislop is, his Butch Harmon style talk-to-camera musings are less coherent than Ian Wright after an SWP hat-trick at Wembley.