Monday, July 03, 2006
Call that football?
I've been thinking about this for a couple of days now.
More or less normal service is being resumed in the pub after yet another dismal England failure to win an important competitive match on penalties. Pah! I've lost count of the number of bitter disappointments suffered over the years.
It's time to make my resolution public which, by the way, I have been accused of being not likely to stick to, mainly because of similar ones made in the past. However, for some considerable time (as I have intimated before), I have become increasingly disillusioned with the game: the obscene salaries, the yobbishness, the niggling cynical shirt-pulling and violent tackles, inept and inconsistent officials, insubordinate protests and pathetic, childish play-acting. Here it comes - I fully intend never to watch another professional football match at club or international level, in the flesh or on TV. There, and I mean it! If anyone sees me heading towards one, I owe them a big fat drink! I've got better things to do!
It's a shame; I used to love football.
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4 comments:
You're not alone!
Many die-hard supporters (I was a season ticket holder for 20+ years at QPR and spent thousands of pounds over the past two decades watching England all over Europe) have fallen out of love with the game. I've been living abroad and haven't missed it half as much as I thought I would. The current England team don't deserve the support they get from the supporters. The players have no idea what sacrifices people make to watch them in the flesh at major tournaments. The supporters who travelled in their tens of thousands deserve better. Much better.
Quite right. It's a fun game to play and to watch at a local level, but the big shots are a complete wunch of self-indulgent bankers totally cut off from the real world. The press isn't any better, either. Claiming to be the voice of the poeople whilst slagging off the slightest mistake in bold type does tend to stickin the throat somewhat harshly.
I'll never buy a season ticket or a footy shirt. It's enjoyable to attend a really good match at St Mary's but they're few and far between now so I won't be wasting further quids on that any more.
Dear Loisinthetavern
Having been privy to a number of such vehement resolutions you have made in the past I must say that this is the most adamant I have witnessed to date. Lets hope that it lasts as long as your determination never to finish building my wardrobe as I sat waiting as a something-young year old surrounded by clothes and games that had no sight of a home for a good half-decade.
DIY ineptitude aside, I felt obliged to indulge in this particular blog as I feel duty bound as a football fanatic to try and convince you to have a change of heart or at least try and lower your blood pressure upon the mere mention of the word 'football'.
As far as 'years of hurt' are concerned I can be no match given my tender years. No doubt the extra years of pain accumulated in the past half century (that was lenient) have played heavy on your mind, ultimately resulting in this explosion of obstinacy! I must also concede that play-acting and diving seem to be an ever growing problem that is now rife in our beautiful game which I can not excuse nor do I intend to defend.
However, I do feel that this dogged determination to focus on the foul play and lament on our National team’s lack of success has somewhat clouded your judgement and here are the reasons why.
First of all, our league is the best league in the world and we should celebrate this and not moan about how much money Chelsea are spending or Sol Campbell is (or was) being paid or how many times Ronaldo is going to dive next season. It is an unfortunate English trait that we will try and identify a scapegoat for our underperformance when the truth of the matter is that our ‘best players’ didn’t perform on the World stage. Ronaldo diving is not the reason we lost the World Cup. But I digress.
We should all be proud of our league given the current match-fixing trials in Italy and the scandal surrounding German Bundesliga officials not that long ago, conveniently forgotten when the World Cup steamrolled into the country. And let’s be thankful that our locals don’t adopt a Columbian stance when it comes to their players missing penalties!
How can you not rejoice in the raw natural talent of Joe Cole and John Terry’s pure unfaltering desire to win and captain his team and (hopefully) his country? Why should we so quickly disregard the glittering career of one Alan Shearer and everything he stood for and brought to the game? And how can we fail to not be excited at the prospects of players like Aaron Lennon, Michael Carrick and Theo Walcott et al, all of whom now have World Cup experience at such a young age.
My point is this (in a round about way – apologies if I’m rambling!). For all the game’s faults, and there are a few, the game still has so much to offer. I feel that the part of you that used to look forward to three o’ clock on a Saturday afternoon, or a few pints on a Wednesday night and the Champions League on the telly, or Shaun Wright-Phillips scoring the fourth for City in the Manchester derby, or the friendly banter that follows every great goal, every cup upset and every controversy, will soon be screaming out for some indulgence and a feeling that you cant get from anywhere else.
No other sport gives us the highs and lows that following your chosen team inherently brings. Are you sure you don’t want to re-live the jubilation of successive promotions after back to back relegations? What about reliving the feeling of 1966 or cycling home at a rate of knots to see Celtic become the first British club to lift the old European Trophy? You might never see the next Duncan Edwards, George Best, Bobby Moore, Kevin Keegan, Gary Lineker, Peter Shilton, Stuart Pearce or Teddy Sheringham, not to mention the foreign players that have graced our pitches in your lifetime – Villa and Ardiles for example and more recently Zola, Gullit and Klinsmann.
And let’s face it, what are you going to watch instead, Cricket?.......yawn, Rugby?.....please, which Rugby player’s wife/girlfriend is the cameraman going to zoom in on during a break in play? Thanks but no thanks. Golf?........ok, but not one you invite the lads round to watch with a few beverages and a curry. Grand Prix?........Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz (Sorry I nodded off then. Did someone say Grand Prix?).
All in all, I don’t think you have any choice other than to lower your guard and make some exceptions to keep watching our wonderful, national game. Yes I have rambled on for some time now and no doubt you have just skipped to the end but I have one more thing to say to you. What feeling can possibly be better than witnessing the demise of Manchester United in all its glory? No title for three years, Champions League humiliation, a team in disarray. Surely it doesn’t get any better than this? (Dennis Law in blue, a cheeky back-heel, the red half of Manchester relegated …maybe it does!)
I consider you converted.
Regards (finally)
*sigh* That's my boy!
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