13th May 2023 - Aston Villa 2 Tottenham Hotspur 1; Crystal Palace 2 Bournemouth 0
As a family man with small children, opportunities to do acid come few and far between, and on this particular night, I had an acid window. The problem was that my mother-in-law, who lives with us at the moment, just wasn’t going to bed. It was getting later and later and later and still there was no movement. Eventually I just thought ‘fuck it’ and dropped a tab. After all, leave it much longer and I’d still be tripping balls when the kids woke up the next morning. And surely she’d be going to bed soon. I had in my notebook a list full of music, films, artworks and poetry that I wanted to look at, read or listen to during the trip. But no. She was still pottering around in the kitchen-diner. In the end, I decided I’d just stick Match of the Day on in the hope it would bore her into submission.
The first unusual thing I noticed was that when the line-ups came up on the screen before one of the games, the players’ faces in the profile pictures were grinning conspiratorially back at me. They looked like they liked a trip themselves, if they weren’t even tripping now. They knew what it was all about.
Inspired by their knowing smirks, I threw caution to the wind, turned the sound down on the commentary and started on my LSD playlist - continuing to watch MOTD, of course. First up, Careful With That Axe, Eugene by Pink Floyd (the live version on Ummagumma, to be specific). This became the soundtrack to Aston Villa versus Tottenham Hotspur.
Link: Pink Floyd - Careful with that Axe, Eugene (Live version, Ummagumma)
For those who do not know the song, it starts gently and celestially, lulling you into a false sense of security, before a sudden increase in intensity accompanied by some rather disturbed screaming (3:09 onwards). This corresponded perfectly with the frenetic and maniacal goal celebrations of Villa manager Unai Emery, vigorously shaking his fists in the air after Douglas Luiz’s 72nd minute free kick found the back of the net.
I think this marriage of image and sound captured something fundamental about the ultimate nature of football and I enjoyed it immensely. Perfection itself.
Meanwhile, in the action unfolding back home, I got an insight into the fragility of the acid-addled mind. Mere self-consciousness at the continued presence of my mother-in-law translated the noises she made as she lurked in my vicinity into the evil hiss of a malevolent goblin. This was the kind of uncomfortable moment that might once have transformed the whole experience into a pretty bad trip. However, on this occasion some calm and assured defensive work saw off the threat with relative ease. And this in fact turned out to be the point that she did head off to bed at last. Maybe I have Careful with that Axe Eugene to thank for that.
With her gone, and perhaps in gratitude that the potential infusion of football with hallucinogenic hell had been averted, I abandoned the idea of working through my ‘culture’ list to focus entirely on Match of the Day, commentary and all. The most striking thing I got from the experience was how fucking amazing Eze of Crystal Palace is. His second goal from the edge of the area was particularly stunning. There was no real perceptual distortion with this – it was just a heightened appreciation of that which is good as *very* good. In his post-match interview though, I was convinced his voice was dubbed. His lips seemed out of synch with what he was saying, but it was probably just the place I was in at the time. Whatever the case, it was no surprise when he was subsequently selected for England a few weeks later. It all led me to wonder if England manager Southgate uses LSD to help him pick the team. He always seems keen on the Trippier option.
All in all, a very pleasant evening on which, however individual teams may have fared, football itself was the real winner.