Doin' the 'Spaz'

As 'Spazmania' sweeps the UK, England and Liverpool striker Peter 'Spazman' Crouch has found his bizarre goal celebrations - interpreted by some as a 'robotic' dance - the centre of controversy. The charity Scope has condemned what it perceives as the footballer's crude parody of a disabled person.

"He is quite clearly performing a playground impression of a cerebral palsy sufferer," said a spokesperson. "We really thought that we'd banished this kind of cruel stereotype when we stopped using the term 'spastic', but it seems some people just can't let the old 'spaz' label die! We're appalled that someone seen as a role model for children is indulging in such tasteless antics - it is bound to lead to imitation!" Indeed, the charity's fears seem well-founded as, in school playgrounds up and down England, children as young as six and seven can be seen jerking their limbs spasmodically, whilst pulling grotesque facial expressions.

"It's well wicked, the 'Spaz'," declares eight year old Neville Wart of Sutton Coldfield, throwing his limbs akimbo and gurning. "Anyone can do it - you don't have to be co-ordinated or good at sports! Its the best dance ever!" However, Wart and his friends don't seem to associate the dance or the term 'Spaz' with cerebral palsy sufferers: "A 'Spaz' is just some gormless, gangly twat who can't play football, isn't it?"

It isn't just schoolchildren who have embraced the 'Spaz' - clubs and discos throughout the UK have reported huge influxes of completely unco-ordinated, often middle-aged, men, all performing variations on the dance.

"It's given hope to all those sad tossers who can't dance," muses Simon Prodd, a DJ at the Throbbing Cock nightclub in Bury. "The 'Spaz' has legitimised wildly flailing your limbs about and kicking everyone in a three metre radius as an actual dance style."

With the increasing popularity of the dance, many have rallied to Crouch's defence, claiming that the footballer is not cruelly parodying cerebral palsy sufferers.

"It's quite obviously a homage to veteran British comic Jack Douglas, whose hilarious punch drunk tourette's sufferer routine graced several 'Carry On' films in the late 1960s and early 1970s," opines cultural commentator and regular Radio Four pundit Hedley Granville. "It's a well-known fact that Peter Crouch is a past president of the Jack Douglas Appreciation Society, and has taken a complete set of the classic 'Carry On' movies the comic genius appears in, with him to Germany!"

Throughout the whole debate, the 'Spazman' himself, has remained silent. However, an acquaintance of the former Southampton player has been willing to speak to us about the amazing phenomena of the 'Spaz'.

"Frankly, I think it is bloody disgusting," says Dirk Grunt, a former boot boy at the South Coast club. "All those thousands of bastards taking the piss out of Peter like that - he can't help being an epileptic! All it takes is for the ball to hit his head at the wrong angle and he's off, twitching his arms and legs! It is bad enough having fits in public on the pitch, without every bastard in the country imitating it!"