NOT BEFORE time, Rangers fans have come up with a song about one of this column's favourite players, Kirk Broadfoot. It's quite short, but for precision and the cleverness of the rhyme, it matches anything lyricist Hal David ever devised for Burt Bacharach.
"He's the white Cafu with a sh**e tattoo." Cult-hero celebration in just eight words. And irony. Oh, and something else: perceptive comment on one of 2008-09's burning questions. What was Dirk Bigfoot thinking? Was he hung over when he had it done? D
id Barry Ferguson tell him to go for under the ear, that below the left lughole was the place, tattoo-wise, and that any man inked there was the epitome of cool?
If I lose my job during this recession I'm going into the tattoo business because footballers are mad for them. Obviously, the market will eventually hit saturation point; when not a square-inch of Dirk's peelie-wally body remains untouched by Hindi script, Japanese kanji symbolism and the dedications "Mum", "Tongs ya bass" and "Same Difference rock my world". That's when I'll switch to the tattoo removal business because watch the stampede when someone like David Beckham suddenly decides they're naff.
It was Beckham who started the craze. At the last count, he had 12 tattoos including an angel on his back, a cross on the back of his neck, the names of his three sons, his wife's name (mis-spelled), his own name in case he forgets it, Tom Cruise's phone number and the number he first thought of.
Becks admits he's obsessed by them. He could end up with more tattoos than Prison Break's Michael Scofield, who needed to use his whole body for a map of Fox River State Penitentiary's service tunnels so he could break out of the jail. Indeed, Becks has a tattoo of this great labyrinth as well, prompting speculation he's about to star in an all-footballer version of the TV series, a musical version of Escape To Victory or maybe a re-working of a sci-fi classic by Ray Bradbury and called The Illustrated Ponce.
Imagine your average tattoo artist's lot before footballers got the bug. It must have been day after dreary day of anchors, mermaids, playing cards, more anchors, hearts plunged by daggers and yet more anchors. Then Beckham demands something gothic and dramatic and all-over. Then Djibril Cisse announces: "Paint me." And, as we could see from the shirt exchange following his team's defeat by Hamburg last week, Manchester City's Stephen Ireland asked to be done up like an eagle – the bald variety, presumably.
Of course, footballers are probably bypassing traditional tattooists in favour of modern parlours not hidden down the backstreets and offering more than just a dog-eared copy of Titbits to peruse, while-u-wait. Maybe all this trendy eastern mysticism is beyond the old-skool guys, anchors a speciality, but it would be a pity if they were missing out on the frenzy altogether.
In the interests of Old Firm harmony, I hope that Celtic-supporting tattoo artists are getting the chance to daub Rangers players, and that Rangers-following ones can then return the favour. Doubtless these guys wouldn't be able to stop themselves inserting hidden messages to act as curses.
As long as it was tit-for-tat, the player would get some fancy body paint to show off in the showers while the tattooists would be encouraged to be creative.
Football tattoos aren't new, of course, but some of the most famous ones from the past may have been terrace myths. When Eric Cantona played for Man Utd, legend has it he wore his collar upturned to hide a Leeds tattoo. Similarly Derek Ferguson, big brother of Barry, was rumoured to have played in sweatbands after leaving Ibrox to cover up the Rangers crest.
Scotland's most notorious football tattoo belongs to Bazza himself. But since Bevvygate, "Carpe diem" – seize the day – no longer suits him. And just like the Hollywood sex symbol who falls out of love with a glamorous co-star committed to flesh, he may have to get it changed.
Johnny Depp is supposed to have had "Winona forever" – after La Ryder – altered to read "Wino forever". I'm not suggesting Baz adopts this slogan, but maybe, in view of his strange concept of time, he should think about "Miss the day" or even "Seize the day after".
The full article contains 755 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
