The Watchman Feature

03 Oct 2008 at 12:50:44 by Ross Billington

We've got a new Friday Feature for you this week.  Every month we'll be looking at LIVE to see what kind of reactions we can get from the masses playing together online. 

Most of us have experienced some pretty horrific things on LIVE, but now we've taken on a Watchman for payback!  In the first installment find out what happened to get our Watchman in a tiz waz which started his attack on the average LIVE user.

‘One man’s pleasure is another mans pain’, a wise man once said. Well, this one vice of mine perhaps does not equate to being another gentleman’s pain as such, but it may raise a dozen or so eyebrows.

I am a man of simple pleasures. Life churns up a premium of miseries per day so any outlet is welcome, in this cruel year of our lord, 2008.

So here it is; I enjoy, nay, relish, thrashing teenagers at FIFA on Xbox live. Without fear of falling into a Michael Jackson shaped trap, give me a 15 year old over a 30 year old any day. It’s all about the adolescence and consequently the one-upmanship of dominating a spotty faced serial Barcelona or Man U selecting oik.

Without regurgitating the “society is going to the dogs” pitch, it gives me a real smack of power and satisfaction to pound one of the millions of little scroats hopping around on the FIFA servers. Squashing these Lily Allen’s in training gives me a spastic infusion of self-importance and pep. My day is noticeably improved as is my mood lightened by thrashing 12 years olds ASBO’s junior’s at a virtual game of football.

I liken the sensation to brushing past a copper on the High St and giving a little nod as if to say, ‘I know we’ve not seen eye to eye in the past copper, but someone’s got to keep the little scroates in line’. The words may be unspoken but are mutual respect is undoubtedly felt by both parties.

It is my equivalent to happy slapping one of the happy-slappers, with an iron fist, in a velvet glove.

Unfortunately my daily online squirt bashing took an unexpected and rather grim turn several months ago. I had banished the memory to the back of my mental wardrobe but now feel compelled to share this twisted tale.

I have found that one of the finer aspects of online gaming is the communication, especially with a title such as FIFA. Banter can be flung back and forth over headset and microphone as both amateur Mourinho’s battle it out on the virtual green grass on screen.

Note my use of the word banter however, not pornography, or to put an even finer point on it, scouser scrotum.

It was a morning like any other morning. I had rolled out of bed smelling faintly of sweat and brawn, my underpants staking a Vulcan death grip on my undercarriage. Hot coffee placed precariously on top of my PC, 360 whirring into motion from its overnight hibernation. The scene was set for some football related oik bashing.

The tension was palpable and only heightened further by the feint aroma of stale guff from my preceding slumber. FIFA loads up and I am placed in a match against Liverpool, tough, but beatable.

The first half gets under way and I hold my own. Keeping the ball well and carving open half chances. My enjoyment is high and only curtailed slightly by the constant heavy breathing dribbling through my headphones. Doing my best to ignore this unsettling distraction, I play on pinging balls across field with gay abandon before taking a lead through a Darren Bent header, worth every penny of his £16m price tag. Scruffy, but a goal is a goal.

Half time comes and passes, the game chugs back into motion. Against the run of play, the scousers nick a goal back. Oddly no response comes from my opponent over the microphone, not a peep, this chap has one mean poker face it would seem, only the perpetual puffing and wheezing remains. It’s as if I have been matched up with an asthmatic wolfhound.

Then all hell breaks loose, following a goal line scramble, I nick a goal and take a deserved if slightly fortunate advantage. But this isn’t the issue. The action on screen begins to grind to a halt, each movement being throttled by latency. Christ, nothing shafts a good game of football like a case of the electronic judders. I pause the game and double check uTorrent – nothing, ‘Jenna loves Rocco’ finished downloading last night! This is not down to me. We continue in stuttered fashion.

Then the shower of abuse begins. A scouse in a flutter is something to behold. Breaking his wheeze ridden silence, the scouse barks broken English at me, referencing my mother, father and any other sucker into his unwarranted and confusing tirade. Whilst all this goes on, the full time whistle is blown and I have snagged a decent victory.

Wisely, I peruse the post match replays and revel in my on pitch wizardry and close the game moving back to the serenity of the Xbox dashboard.

Or so I hoped.

Several messages blink up on my screen in speedy succession, ‘How q***?’ I muse. Opening them I am slapped in the face by a pair of high definition testicles emblazoned across my 32’ TV.

I suppose the most worrying aspect for me was not so much the rosy set of nads now pasted over my screen but the working behind it.

I truly fear for our society when a human being takes the time and effort to drop his kecks, slap out his plums and take a snap of them. Not to mention uploading and sending the bugger. I commend the effort but must really question the motive.

Now, I have seen some funky shenanigans online in my time, some things I am not proud of and some that would downright choke a donkey. However, the sight of some filthy Liverpudlian bollocks with my morning cup o’ joe brought down a watershed on my prolific if somewhat short-lived FIFA online career.

It just felt wrong after. I had to have a cold shower.

Until now, FIFA 09 is winging its way to the 360 and I know that I can and will be tempted back into the fray.

It is time to cast the ball demons to hell.

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