Why I’m thinking about tattooing Phil King’s face on my arse
I know I’m not special or unique for wanting a football tattoo. It’s been done before, thousands of times. Chances are you probably already know someone with one, unless you are that person with one.
I got my first one when I was 19. It’s a Star Wars tattoo, but you wanna know the kicker? At the time I wasn’t even a Star Wars fan. I didn’t dislike it by any stretch, but I didn’t like it enough to have a symbol of it permanently etched on my skin. This, of course, has changed.
At the time, it was either that or a football tattoo, but at that age, I cared too much about what a prospective girlfriend of employer might think and shied away from getting a homage to my club on one of my limbs.
After all, football tattoos were for blokes in pub shirts who drink cider and black and belched for sport, right? Well it turns out that at 32 I don’t care anymore. I don’t even drink cider.
But while there are tomes of images online of fans with football tattoos that range from tasteful to laughably regretful, I still can’t help but want one.
What would I get, though? It’s something I’ve thought about long and hard over the past year, and despite the historic success the club has enjoyed (mostly before I was born) there’s a moment that stands out, a moment so resolute and surreal that it’s just screaming to be etched permanently on my arse.
In 1994 Aston Villa beat a weirdly unglamorous Inter Milan side in the second leg of the UEFA Cup. Having been defeated by a Dennis Bergkamp penalty in the first leg, Ray Houghton put the ball beyond Gianluca Pagliuca — as he had done a few months previous at the World Cup — to restore parity over the two ties.
With scores level by the end of extra time, penalties would resolve the outcome. My first ever Villa game was concluded from 12 yards as Tranmere Rovers were dispatched in the Coca Cola Cup semi-final just months earlier and now here we were again. The tension was all too much for my little nine-year-old brain to contain.
So with the shootout locked a 3–3 and heading for sudden death, it was going to take a hero of such epic proportions to come through for my local heroes. So who does Ron Atkinson send up for the vital kick?
Phil King.
Born in Bristol in 1967, the bulk of King’s career was spent with Swindon Town and Sheffield Wednesday in the late 80s and early 90s. He had been at Villa just a few short months when he stepped up, and in one authoritative swing of his left boot his career had peaked.
Before the tie, the Italians had been worried about John Fashanu and his elbows, when the person they should have been keeping an eye on was this man, this 27-year-old man, who looked more like a character in Coronation Street than a footballer, who stood and watched the net ripple with the world class Italian international goalkeeper on the floor before turning to face his onrushing teammates in full Christ pose, knowing that this was it, this was his moment.
You know we just don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they’re happening. Back then I thought, well, there’ll be other days. I didn’t realize that that was the only day — Archibald ‘Moonlight’ Graham,Field of Dreams
Everything, literally everything about it was perfect. The stride, the kick, the commentators both screaming “YES” in unison, watching him soak in the adulation to a cry of “YOU BEAUTY”, Big Ron’s smile, Lee Hendrie’s bowl cut, the pitch invasion and the naive assumption that football would always be this way.
There are bigger markers for success — we actually used to win trophies. That season’s UEFA Cup campaign was a short-lived experience as Villa crashed out to Turkish side Trabzonspor in the next round, but my gosh, what a night.
Ever since then, I haven’t been able to get Phil King and his moment out of my head. When my patience and support is tested, this is one of the images I come back to.
Football is all about moments and you can’t always decide which ones stick with you. Perhaps it says more about our national character, that despite being a former imperial power we still see ourselves as underdogs when coming up against these fancy foreigners with their great tactical understanding and nice hair.
So what better way to pay homage to Philip Geoffrey King than to have his finest moment tattooed, on my arse?
Okay, probably not my arse, but still, on me, a permanent reminder to savour every second of my life because you never know when it’s going to peak.
