In the aftermath of Zinedine Zidane's head butt of Marco Materazzi in the final match of the World Cup, everybody wants to get into the act.
First, jockey Paul O'Neill head-butted his horse, City Affair.
Today's Boston Herald brings news of a more disturbing development. Jeffy, one of the cute little kids in the treacly comic strip Family Circus, head-butted his brother, causing the victim to ask "Do we hand out red cards?" (You'll have to take my word for it, as I've been unable to reproduce the cartoon with sufficient clarity.)
As a weapon, ZZ's top was formidable, as the French would say. More impressive was the technique with which he accomplished his coup. It was almost as if he were drawing on a reservoir of Gallic technique and years of training in deliberately circling his Italian adversary and then administering his blow to the chest with forceful precision.
Turns out he was. As described in somewhat frightening detail by Craig Gemeiner in "The Dirty Tricks of the French Apache", head-butting is a weapon of long-standing--dating back to the late 19th century--among French street gang members known as "apaches" (pronounced "ah-PASH"). And, like Zidane's, the properly executed head-butt includes an innocent-looking set-up; a request for the time of day or a light.
The apache approaches his victim without apparent malice then, when he is at close range, delivers a head butt to the solar plexus.
The element of surprise makes the move more effective, just as Zidane's unexpected lunge succeeded in knocking the Italian defender off his feet.
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His work is available on Amazon Shorts (at 49 cents a dowload), and he writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
