THE "THE KEOWN ARTICLE" DECORATIVE COMPANION PIECE
by Frankjim Sandiballs
In the controversial article in question, the author seemed to suggest that this Keown chap had created some kind of narrative, using the available resources presented to him by the power of associative memory. The aforementioned narrative questioned the role in football today of walls at free-kicks, this was backed-up by the intuitively-derived master narrative that goes something like "people often repeatedly do stupid things over and over without thinking about them, at least once those things have become commonplace, and it is considered the norm to do those things. And sometimes it is progressive and modern to question why people are still doing these things without thinking about them" (the irony is not lost on me). He now has a seemingly robust mental image, questioning the place of walls at free-kicks in modern football. It's worth remembering that the mind deals poorly with merely statistical facts, and the evidence of our eyes, supplied by our brains, such as it is, is only valid depending upon the way which it is retrieved. A salient event, such as a goalkeeper being unsighted by his wall, will cause other similar events to be dredged up, this is how associative memory works, and it helps to produce a world, inside Martin Keown's head, in which this sort of occurrence is much more common than it actually is.
The Issue That This Discussion Piece will be Examining
Martin Keown, who has played in many football matches, and has watched many many more, thousands of games in fact, knows, just like I know and you know, that very few goals come from direct free-kicks. If asked independently, on any given Tuesday when he might've been coming out of Tesco or WH Smith, he would've given a reasonably accurate, albeit possibly overambitious estimate. He would not have been far off 5.7% (the percentage of direct free-kicks scored in the EPL last season out of 577 attempts). Yet, to make the suggestion that walls at free-kicks are unnecessary, he must have completely ignored this evidence.
One Possible Explanation
We often ignore evidence, especially mere statistical evidence, in favour of the sort of routine impressions we form of the world on a daily basis and then passively endorse. We do this in low-involving conditions, when the stakes are exceptionally mundane, because we have a limited store of attentional resources and we are eternally saving them for later, just in case. From an evolutionary perspective this sort of resource allocation makes total sense, because you don't want to wander into a clearing, surrounded by tigers, and have no attentional resources left to tell which way they're coming from. Your mind is continually, unless provoked, abiding by the Law of Least Effort.
He may have discarded the evidence on account of holding a belief that the evidence was not significant. Rather than ignoring it inadvertently, because it is quite ordinarily human to do so, he may have actually thought it wasn't as significant as it seems. Perhaps he thought that 5.7% was high. Perhaps he sees a way in which we could get it down to 2.8 or 3.7 or 1.9. We can't really endorse this explanation, because he didn't go on to clarify if he had a better alternative in mind. You'd assume he'd have mentioned it. It's reasonable to assume this. But we can't see inside Martin's mind. Neither can you. He might have a lot of knowledge he's not bothering to use. Though, having listened to him, this is another explanation we're really not at all comfortable with endorsing.
Although in Fact
Maybe there is a third explanation. That he said it, not believing it, not even wondering if it was a good idea, not even considering whether he had any relevant evidence to draw upon. Just speaking. Speaking without thinking. Okay, this is impossible. He can't speak and not think at all. But can we assume that he was just raising an issue. He knows it's part of the job description. He sees something that might spark a discussion, he tosses it out there. He's not endorsing the idea, he's just filling discursive space. He has a role, an institutionally modified role in the communicative event, he is there to fill silence, and perhaps, just perhaps, this is absolutely all that he is doing. It would be a perfectly ordinary thing to contemplate. It may have been, to Martin, an invitation for someone to collate the relevant data. He might've simply, in response to being presented with the statistic "33 goals occurred from 577 direct free kick attempts in the 2013-2014 season" merely nodded, shrugged and said "how interesting".
Where Are We Going With This?
Well, we don't know why he said it. We have speculated as to why he chose to ignore the evidence, we have questioned whether he "ignored" it at all, but simply neglected to even and look and see if there was any. What we do know is that Martin Keown is paid to talk, and he did do that. Why he chose this precise phrase is like trying to figure out why your cat is so obsessed with cardboard. It's fair to imagine that Martin Keown isn't entirely sure why he said it, though he may have some impression, in fact, in all probability Martin Keown wouldn't even remember saying it if you went out and reminded him he had.
This whole fiasco really just finally ends up as a reminder that the world is very very very confusing and frequently unknowable.
There.
Everyone loves a happy ending.
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