Urban Hat€monger ?

Have you kept in touch with football when you've been abroad?

Going to Germany in the early 1980s got me back into football when I was going off it a bit. In places like Hamburg there was an avant garde rock scene among fans at some clubs, something that isn't there in Britain. And you get big pints of beer at German matches for, like, 25p, and a nice clean sausage. I saw Germany v Bulgaria at the 1994 World Cup. What a day out that was.

The German players were limbering up like an hour before the game, doing leap-frogging and gymnastics. Then they showed an interview with someone from the Bulgarian staff on these massive screens around the ground and he said, "I'm just glad we've all turned up. We only had nine men half an hour ago." In the stadium they were trying to be nice to Everyone and they brought in these guys with red caps all dressed like Michael Jackson as extra security. We were in the German end and in the middle of the game this South American filmcrew come and sit in front of us, and I'm asking them to move. This red cap comes up and asks me what's wrong, then a policeman comes over and he brings over this guy from the US soccer federation who looks like Ronald Reagan with white hair and he's saying things like "is your seat not comfortable sir?" And I'm saying no, it's fine, it's just this film crew. Then he says "Ah. You're not German are you sir?" I think they had this idea that football was like some germ from Europe that might infect them.

Do you play yourself?

I've started playing again. I'm a central defender. I like tackling, but when I play I walk.

Like Franz Beckenbauer..

Similar. I trip people, tap them on the shin. But I don't like the niggling little fouls they do now, all that shirt pulling. The annoying thing about that Beckham foul in the World Cup, when he got sent off, was he hardly even kicked him. f you're going to kick them, kick them.

The Fall used to have a team, we'd play university teams before gigs. We played the lcicle Works when we were both in this hotel in London. There were eight or nine in our team, the group and couple of roadies. This guy called Big Dave from Lincolnshire, who was like the fattest lad you've ever seen, went in goal. And they turned up in replica Liverpool kits with "The Icicle Works" on the front and they've got this mock European Cup with them. It was 20 minutes each way and we went 5-4 in front in injury time and their tour manager's the referee, so it went on and on until they won 6-5. It'd gone dark by the time we finished and in the bar they're telling all the music journos they've won and passing the European Cup around...

Have you had any encounters with football hooligans?

It seems to me that the fascination with rough lads we've got now is a very middle class thing. They're from small places, but not impoverished places either - stockbrokers who can forget about being new dads for a day and have a fight. It's a sadomasochism thing, wanting to be hit. It's like the kid at school who was always hitting people, you just knew he was a closet case. I used to get it on trains coming down to London. They get on at Milton Keynes and they're staring you out and all this.

I remember Man City had this group called The Main Line Service Crew. We were on a train on a Saturday afternoon going down for a gig and they were asking us if we were City or United and all that. And I said, "Hold on, it's three o'clock, City are at home today. What are you doing here?" And they were going to Spurs or somewhere to try and cause trouble at halftime, then they'd be back up on the train to get to Maine Road when the away fans are coming out. That's the sort of mentality they've got.

What footballer do you most identify with?

Nicky Weaver. I always identify with Manchester City goalkeepers, I feel sorry for them.

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