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EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT FOOTBALL - by Mr Biffo

11/7/2018

28 Comments

 
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I don't know much about football, but I know slightly more than I generally let on. I've no real interest in it whatsoever, but having grown up in a family that's obsessed with the game, I've sort of picked up stuff by osmosis. Indeed, football - for better or worse - has been a massive part of my life. 

I tried so hard to like it as a kid, mainly in a fumbled attempt to fit in, and find a way to bond with my dad. I went to Watford and Wealdstone matches with my him, including the 1984 FA Cup Final between Watford and Everton. Alas, my favourite part of that was a display of remote controlled planes at half time. 

Of course, I collected the Panini stickers - I especially liked the shiny ones - and even tried playing football, but was never much good at it. It was a choice of either wearing glasses (which I soon stopped after they got knocked off my face), or being forced to play half-blind.

Generally, I was always far happier drawing, or playing Dungeons & Dragons, than having to suffer the ritual indignation and abuse that would come from fumbling the ball, or letting in a goal. Simply, football never appealed to my over-active imagination. There were never enough aliens or robots involved, and it was rarely funny.

Inevitably, I'd be picked last at school when they were choosing teams, and then shoved into defence where it was felt I posed the least risk to their insignificant victory.

Seemingly, it didn't matter to the other players on my team that I was crap, because a) I couldn't see, and b) My mind was generally on other things that I thought were more important, and c) I have no physical co-ordination; if I did something rubbish, it was the most terrible transgression.

At school, it felt to me that sporting ability was valued above everything else, and teachers would tolerate name-calling (and sometimes join in) so long as it was in that environment. 
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STATTO & BROOKING
After I left school I went to work for the bookmakers Ladbrokes as a graphic designer, creating visuals for the in-store TV screens (and, later, the company's teletext service). I moved on to co-editing the Ladbrokes teletext pages, and helped to edit the betting info that was pumped into shops. Indirectly, that's how I ended up at Teletext.

A more sport-heavy environment you'd be hard pressed to find than Ladbrokes. Indeed, one of my co-workers was an eccentric fellow called Angus Loughran, who later went on to find a degree of fame as Statto in Baddiel and Skinner's Fantasy Football series.

Statto was not a character; that really was how Angus was (sans dressing gown). His job was to broadcast on Ladbrokes' in-store radio, and he had a strange habit of weaving his head from side to side whenever he was on the mic. I also remember him once being so startled by the bang of a Christmas cracker that he fell off a chair. Plus, he had about half a dozen completely contradictory stories about who his father was ("a monk" was my favourite).

Working there did slightly rehabilitate my relationship with football, and sport in general. Unlike at school, I was valued for my artistic abilities to the degree that it didn't matter to them whether I was interested in sport or not. That said, I was genuinely impressed when Trevor Brooking - I remembered him as a man from my Panini albums - came into the office one day (though he was a bit stand-offish with me in the lift on the way out, which I've never forgotten). 

Probably the highlight of my time at Ladbrokes was animating a Monty Python-esque foot, which appeared in the first episode of Michael Palin's Around The World in 80 Days (he visited a Ladbrokes shop to get odds on his chances of success).

John Motson was another regular visitor to the office, as was Channel 4 racing commentator Derek "Thommo" Thompson. A lovely man, but he had a habit of asking me how I was, before saying "Good, good" without bothering to wait for a reply. Eventually, I started testing this with various fictious ailments.

"How are you today, Paul?"

"Not great today, Thommo. I've got septicaemia." 

"Good, good..."
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HELLO, WEMBLEY!
After Ladbrokes I worked on the scoreboard at Wembley Stadium, creating graphics and animations, and quite literally being the person who typed the scores that were displayed on the big screen. 

Oh, and also occasionally making my way across a rickety gangplank - a hundred metres or so above the ground - to change broken bulbs. I don't know if it was the Universe's sense of irony that led me there, but football was following me around like a sneering trout.

Amusingly, the scoreboard "control booth" at Wembley was right at the back of the stands, meaning that we didn't have a clear view of the pitch. We knew there had been a goal only when we heard the crowd go nuts, but then had to wait a few seconds for the score to appear on whichever TV channel was broadcasting the match, and update the scoreboard accordingly. Sometimes a finger slipped and we got it wrong. On at least one occasion an erroneous score ended up in the papers. 

Another time, I received a request from the control room to put up a message welcoming "Guy Sports" to the Stadium. I realised I'd misheard when the 30ft-high greeting "Wembley welcomes Guy Sports" appeared on live the TV over the shoulder of Sky Sports presenter Richard Keys, and the control room hotline started ringing off the hook.

DENNIS
I had two colleagues who worked with me on the scoreboard; an Irish chap called Gerard Crowley, who has since gone on to become one of that country's top satirical cartoonists, and a middle-aged fellow called Dennis. Oddly, neither of them had any obvious interest in football either.

Indeed, Dennis - we speculated with, I should add, only circumstantial evidence - might've been more interested in murdering people. He kept a large, retractable, metal spike on his desk, and though we never saw him use it, the desktop was covered in deep gouges from where he'd clearly attacked it when he was alone in the office. Gerard and I had a theory that we'd come to work one day and Dennis would be waiting for us behind the door, spike in hand.

We also had an issue with rainwater dripping into the control room through a large crack in the wall. Upon my arrival one day, Dennis told me proudly that he'd fixed the problem; he'd used up every bottle of Tippex we had in our cupboards to fill in the crack. Suffice to say, the second it rained the Tippex washed out. 

Dennis also had a habit of resigning due to some slight from somebody - but would never reveal who or what had upset him - and changing his mind at the last minute."It had all been sorted, but I don't want to talk about it" became his catchphrase.

At one of his many leaving parties, attended as they were by the former roadies who worked (and possibly lived) in the rafters of Wembley Stadium and Arena, like denim-clad phantoms, Dennis was presented by one of them with a massive, clear plastic bag full of raw meat. Somewhat embarrassed by this gift, he hid it self-consciously beneath his chair, and never mentioned again.

Another time, he took a week off work, because - we learned subsequently - he'd been in court over the death of a man who'd fallen into a canal at the bottom of his mother's garden (who, of course, Dennis lived with).

​Apparently, while trying to fish the man out of the canal, a metal cigarette case Dennis had in his top pocket (we never saw him smoke) "banged the man on the chest, and must have caused a heart attack"...
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SCORE BLIMEY
​Technically - following the Python foot - my scores were the second things I ever had broadcast on proper TV, but as we also had to man the scoreboard for concerts, I felt a real sense of pride that a graphic I'd created of the late Freddie Mercury was the first image shown on the BBC's coverage of the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness.

One of my most cherished memories happened that day, when I took to the stands at the back of the stadium, directly opposite the stage, to eat a sandwich (on the days we worked, the management provided us with a packed lunch; excellently, as there were three of us who worked on the scoreboard, but only one of us was required on concert days, I got three lunches).

​I noticed that the stadium was unusually quiet - usually on gig days it was bustling with activity before the public was allowed in - only for David Bowie and Queen to wander on stage and perform Under Pressure, one of my favourite songs of all time. 


I later found out from a Bowie biography that he'd requested the stadium be cleared for his soundcheck. And it had been, except for me. I'd had the stadium to myself for a private gig.

It was from Wembley that I ended up at Teletext, and though it wasn't all about sport, I nevertheless once again found myself creating football graphics for the company's sports pages. And, of course, reviewing football video games.

I'd never played Sensible Soccer or Kick-Off - though I had dabbled in a pirate copy of Match Day on the Spectrum - but it was EA's first FIFA International Soccer, the isometric one, which taught me I didn't need to like football to enjoy football video games.

Heck, I even reviewed Actua Soccer during one my disastrous Games Master appearances - memorably criticising its "constantly rotating Mode 7 pitch" like I had a gun to my head - despite not having had the chance to actually play it beforehand. Indeed, I believe I'd only been given the opportunity to watch "Jaz" Rignall giving it a go.
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FOOSBA
​It was a couple of years after I left Wembley - by which time I'd been working on Digitiser for almost three years - that I actually engaged with football, genuinely, for the first time.

I got caught up in the euphoria around Euro '96, when England got through to the semi-finals. Like everyone else, I bought Three Lions, and I cheered, and was gutted when they didn't make the final. For a time, Championship Manager 96/97 was even our in-office game of choice (admittedly, mainly because we could change the names of the players; the main one I remember is a goalkeeper called "Stink Penis").

Alas, my enthusiasm ended with the tournament, and despite keeping half an eye on subsequent World Cups, that spark has never ignited into anything more. I've gone back to feeling apart from the rest of society whenever there's a big tournament on, and vaguely being irritated by the disruption it causes to my life (I mean, we're not getting Ant Man & The Wasp until a month after America because of the bloody World Cup).

Somehow amid all this, I've absorbed just enough information to get through a conversation with a foreign waiter or taxi driver, though my cousins have long since learned that trying to engage with me about football is somewhat depressing and awkward for everyone involved. That never stopped my dad asking me every Saturday - at least, until he ended his weekly pilgrimage due to being old - whether I wanted to go with him to see Watford play.

I think somewhere in there, I grew to resent football. That I was incapable of playing it - through the sheer fact I couldn't see very well - and my failed attempts to actually enjoy watching or talking about it, left me with an underlying sense that there was something wrong with me. Especially growing up in the 70s and 80s, back when football was very much linked with masculinity, and being considered "ordinary".

​Admittedly, most of my mates were no more interested in it than I was, but that further reinforced a sense of social isolation... not least because the boys who did like football, and were good at it, were either the cool boys or the bullies or the ones who were sort of innocuous enough to never become a target for the bullies; the "normal" boys. 
​​

Anyway. This is a rambling, roundabout, way of saying that I've stayed aware of this year's World Cup, but despite thinking I'd be engaged with it, thus far... I've failed. Once again. I actually had a filling fall out while endeavouring to watch the last England match, which feels like a literal kick in the teeth. 

Even tonight's big England vs Croatia game holds little appeal, despite being married to somebody who's half-Croatian. If anything, my mostly-foreign wife is even less interested it in than I am. 

I'd wish England luck, but - honestly - I couldn't care less. Football's stupid.
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28 Comments
RG
11/7/2018 10:55:15 am

I've been an abnormal football avoider for my whole life, but decided to be positive about it this year as I'm generally trying to be positive. It seems to make alot of people happy so I've watched bits of a few matches and quite enjoyed the general spirirt of it. I like that there has to be a result at the end of a game unlike national football.

The thing that is starting to grate however is that 70% news content this week seems to be "We're going to win", "It's coming home", etc.

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Bob Trousers
11/7/2018 11:03:35 am

I’ve always found it weird that some who don’t like football like football games. I find it slightly weird that many who’ve never played the game for real enjoy watching it. It’s proven that those who’ve played empathise when watching a game far more. I know I’m talking like some kind of purist, saying that those of us who’ve played it to any degree of seriousness ‘get it’ more, but I’d expect anyone who’s played any other sport to feel the same way about it.

A World Cup is a classic example of Fear of Missing Out. Many who don’t even like football in any sense want their team to do well and want to take in the games if/when their team gets to the serious end of the tournament. If something’s that big a deal to that many people it must be worth getting involved in in some way, right? You can just feel all the good will, everyone’s so happy, hopeful and wants the same thing. And you get to jump around like a loon in a pub.

Or, you can be like me when it comes to any other sport. It wouldn’t have felt right to me to be interested in England doing well in any of the Rugby World Cups that they’ve done well in, perhaps because I’d had such intense ‘supporting’ experiences in football. I couldn’t bring myself to care in the slightest. I watched the final as a vaguely interested spectator, and barely even raised a cheer when they/’we’ won it.

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Mr Biffo
11/7/2018 11:59:05 am

I've tried! I've really, really tried... I do sort of get it, but it just doesn't appeal to me. Plus a lot of the associated stuff around it has kind of soured my feelings towards it. I guess to me it just doesn't feel important in the grand scheme of my life.

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colincidence link
12/7/2018 01:10:19 am

But those who don't like the sport don't have a 'their' team.

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AcidBeard
12/7/2018 01:27:57 am

I don't find it weird at all that people who don't enjoy football can enjoy football games.

I can't drive and have zero interest in cars but still enjoy driving games and similarly I've found I don't actually enjoy Tiger Uppercutting people that much but still quite like Street Fighter etc etc.

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Paul
11/7/2018 11:03:44 am

My dad tried to get me interested in football too. We used to go to see Watford play. It was OK, but not really that interesting. I had a similar relationship with the game at school as you. I was by then totally disinterested in it, but was somehow expected to be enthusiastic and good at it. even the bloody teachers would mete out punishments for not being good. PE teachers are psychopaths.

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Neptunium
11/7/2018 11:46:21 am

My favourite bits of this article were the reminisces from your previous jobs. I do love to listen to anecdotes about people's jobs, even mundane ones. I used to "pump" some of my older colleagues for all kinds of information about long dead projects when I worked at a former ICL factory. One of them had to "improve" Sir Clive's microdrives so they actually worked properly for ICL's version of the QL (BT OPD)

As for football, it was just never part of my upbringing so I've never really cared much for it. I've tried in vain to watch it and "get into" it, and even been to a football place to watch a football session, but I don't really get it and probably never will. I think I'll always be sad that I'll never feel those raw emotions people feel when they're celebrating a goal or whatever - I've literally never excitedly jumped up and down and watched most of my drink fly into people's faces.

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RG
11/7/2018 12:10:01 pm

I get a similar sad feeling seeing how excited my dog gets when he sees his lead and knows he's going for a walk. He's THAT excited to go outside. I can't think of anything that would get me THAT excited.

Perhaps that's why it's good to be a football fan.

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PS1Snake
11/7/2018 12:05:50 pm

I tried on several occasions to get into football via video games. I even bought Pro Evo 4 on PS2 and FIFA 10 on Xbox 360, but I just couldn't get into it. I have accepted that I will never like football and the "culture" that surrounds it (seeing those drunken yobs trashing an ambulance among other cars reminded me why I hate England's football culture in particular).

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Spiney O’Sullivan
11/7/2018 01:07:58 pm

Don’t forget how domestic violence rates jump significantly during World Cup games featuring England, regardless of the result. Or the existence of football “ultras”; groups which are somewhere between gangs and borderline terrorist organisations.

Gaming culture might have a pretty bad problem with toxic people (swatting, death threats, sweary 12-year-olds ruining every online game they’re in, etc), but football culture has a dark side that makes gaming culture look almost civilised.

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PS1Snake
11/7/2018 01:53:56 pm

Yeah, the inevitable increase in domestic violence was something I was thinking about over the past few days. I suppose for many women the phrase "it's coming home" carries a more sinister meaning.

SonOfPurple link
11/7/2018 12:22:38 pm

Crackin' article. Can identify with much of the soccer avoidance myself, never really got much out of sport at school and haven't really touched equipment since, and attempts by retail colleagues to start sport-related convo's go absolutely down a blind alley with me. My football 'memory' is, not knowing much about positioning, just plonking myself where I felt comfortable standing, halfway down the side of the pitch; I only now know that the reason nobody pulled me up was that I'd essentially made myself the winger by accident. On occasion I did get near the goal, but that soon stopped after an errant shot took me full in the cheekbone...

I do play footy-based games, though. Not being up on the ins and outs I don't need the current leagues and players, so I'm happy to pick up several-years-past editions from CEX/Game, and just treat it as a platform puzzle game - get object A (ball) to point B (goal) while avoiding enemy C (Stoke, or whoever). On one occasion I was giving the other team such a pasting that I decided to liven up the match with some stunts, like sending my keeper all the way up the pitch to take a shot (and missed: would've been fun to hear what the prerecorded Motty would have played out in the event that a goalie scored)

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FEoD link
11/7/2018 12:43:19 pm

Wait. The stupid football is the reason we have to wait till August for the Ant-Man sequel..?!? WTF?!?!

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Load of Balls
11/7/2018 12:44:38 pm

Another representative of the "Picked Last" crew here, never had any interest in football whatsoever. Both the actual game itself, and maybe moreso the obscenely paid individuals involved in playing and running it.

Especially in my part of the world, football gives the lowest knuckle-dragging types in society an excuse to still act like cavemen attacking another tribe - except their spears have been replaced with beer bottles.

I'm more interested in how the media will use England's progress to mask and spin the current Brexipocalypse happening in Westminster...

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GAME Telford
11/7/2018 01:03:36 pm

Great article as always.

I often wonder if the Fifa games had a mode that changed the players to robots and the ball to the "golden power sphere."
Would none footballers play it. At its heart its a cracking RTS game.

Oh and....Its Coming Home.

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Paulio Fletcherinho
11/7/2018 01:33:19 pm

Great article that in some way manages to include the four things that define me: Films, comics, gaming and football. Pretty much my whole life until my daughter was born.

That said, as good as the games are, the yearly FIFA hype train leaves me cold. This model of an annual release crossed over into other game genres and we are worse off for it. I’d rather play something that has been crafted with care over time than spat out on cue like yesterday’s chewy steak, which incidentally made my filling fall out. It’s an epidemic.

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PeskyFletch
12/7/2018 10:45:45 am

Heh, same four things match mine(if you exclude family, fine dining and narcotics). I'd wager we even have a surname in common. Does that make us digi-brothers?

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Floop
11/7/2018 01:45:38 pm

growing up a few streets away from the old west ham boleyn stadium was enough to turn me away from the kicky ball thing for life.

My front garden would often be used as a convenient toilet (duct tape on the letterbox on match days recommened)
The local streets became a car park, and the pavements a glittering wonderland of glass and blood

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Sam
11/7/2018 02:46:52 pm

Charming read. I remember being forced to play football at school, and all it meant to me was that I'd probably be kicked in the shins and/or have mud thrown in my face.

Still, not as bad as rounders...

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Nick
12/7/2018 09:07:11 am

I liked rounders. Half the game sitting waiting your turn to swing wildly as the ball goes past you and the other half of the game stood day dreaming quietly on the edges of the field knowing that nobody was good enough for you to worry about.

That's the level of inactivity I can really get behind in a participation sport.

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Sam
12/7/2018 11:22:29 am

I do appreciate this positive spin on it! Suppose I was a miserable youth.

For me, lining up to swing the bat was the countdown to ridicule, and standing at the edge of the field alone was just a cold endurance test. In a paper-thin vest and hotpants. Can't stand being cold.

Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
11/7/2018 05:12:08 pm

Very simple story here: never really liked team sports. Played soccer (for it is called such here) for two years, mostly to make my dad happy, and he even worked as a coach to try and encourage me. I was hopeless at it.

Also played baseball, which I was better at, but past a certain age, kid sports become taken more and more seriously and it stops being fun (they also expect you to be good at it)

I too worked at Wembley in spite of hating football (as it is called there), though mostly in the Arena, not the old Stadium or Conference Centre. Certainly a lot of character and stories to the place, even if my job was mostly standing around as security/steward trying not to think about how much my back hurt.

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Johnc
11/7/2018 05:51:15 pm

At school, for reasons I cannot fathom, some friends and I convinced our PE teacher to let us help the girls in the gym rather than play 5-a-side. The 'helping' involved setting up the trampolines and then standing around the edges to catch any lycra-clad girls whose bouncing was too enthusiastic. Meanwhile the bullies and cool kids got sweaty chasing a ball around. I was informed by one of the bullies that this meant I was gay. #footballlogic

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Geebs
12/7/2018 07:42:03 am

I live in a fairly noisy part of the world, and I have to say, it was lovely and quiet yesterday evening...

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Mrtankthreat
12/7/2018 11:26:59 am

I love football. I didn't much when I was a kid though. Like many here I was in the last picked crew in school and when I went to join a local team I just wasn't feeling it. My dad was a pretty good manager at amateur level (he was also involved in setting up ireland most successful ladies team) and I think it was a rebellious thing, to want to do my own thing and not follow in his footsteps.

Music was more my thing and from there I got big into drugs. I enoyed it but it just came time to knock it on the head. I needed something different to do on a Friday night so I started following my local league of Ireland team St Patrick's Athletic. I had got back into watching premier league football on tv earlier but actually going to games was a different experience altogether.

There's a great community feel and I ended up making tons of new friends. Away trips especially are amazing craic, either going all over the country or even abroad when we got into Europe.

The new friends I made ended up organising playing 5-a-side and we ended up from there playing full 11 a side. We're all getting older, aren't as fit and some of us, like me, hadn't kicked a ball since school so we lose way more often then we win but it's still brilliant. I've even gotten to play matches in celtic's old training ground and St Patrick's Athletic ground as well as travelling Europe for games too.

15 of us just came back from an over 35s friendly tournament in Belgium. It was something else. A total blast. There was even a marquee set up with a band for the evening after the games and plenty of drink was had.

So yeah. Football has kinda changed my life.

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Kelvin Green link
12/7/2018 12:04:16 pm

Crikey, Biffster, those opening paragraphs reflect my early years too, only my dad is an Arsenal man, and I preferred playing Call of Cthulhu and Shadowrun.

To this day, I still get curious, quizzical glances when I say I'm not interested in football, as if it's the strangest, most alien thing in the world.

All that said, like you, I do quite like football computer games. Pro Evo on the Wii was an interesting experiment in turning footie into almost a real-time-strategy game, and of course Sensible Soccer is the best.

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llama1
13/7/2018 04:44:01 pm

I've spent my whole life baffled by the people who ball with their feet - a friend once made me play a game of fifa on ds between mario kart rounds - i did appreciate the realistic physics engine!
Unfortunately my son now kicks ball - its strange to be stood with all the "football dads" whos kids dont really want to be there, reliving their youth - and im the opposite - still if he can get to 50k a week by 18 it would be nice.

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stupidactingsmart
16/7/2018 09:00:40 pm

I love football, but regardless, I really enjoyed reading that. I feel like I should have some witty or pithy comment to end on. Alas, I do not.

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