If You Don't Want To Know The Score, Look Away Now...
It was only a matter of time until I wrote something about football. If you hate it, please stick with it, but I'm guessing you probably will close your browser now and do something else, which is absolutely fine, I respect that completely. So, cheerio till the next one. Right, they've gone. Tosser... Anyway, I'm going to try and make it as broad as possible and not just bang on about Oxford United and how much I think Chris Wilder should be relieved from his duties as manager. I promise I won't mention him once.
But yes, I like football. I would like point out at this juncture though that I am not your typical “Oi Oi Oi! kind of fan. In fact I get quite embarrassed by some of the moronic behaviour that goes on at some games. Sometimes I'm notso much ashamed to support the same team, but more that I'm ashamed to be the same species.When I’m at a home game I can sit in a different stand from all the ne’er do wells and dicks, but at away ones you all get lumped into together. I was at one a while ago and this bozo next to me was saying to his mate about how glad he was that vuvuzelas – remember them? – hadn’t taken off. His mate added “yeah, people who blow them are just thick and haven’t got anything worthwhile to say”. Now, you may think that’s a valid point, people who blast air through a cone may do it because they can’t think of anything to say. But I found this hard to take from a man who, after giving us this opinion, broke into a song that went so; “Oneman went to mow, went to mow a Swindon.” If anyone knows what “a Swindon” might actually be and how and even why they’re in need of mowing, then please do let me know. Sometimes though, there comes a chant which can only be described as “quite beautiful”. I’m talking about when your opponents' manager is up off the bench having a rant and the people around me break into a cry of “Sit down you cunt” to the tune of Auld Lang’s Syne.
I used to be a nursery nurse and I once encountered a couple of Manchester United ‘supporters’ - and I use the word 'supporters’ there in its loosest sense. But anyway, they had a wee lad and a wee girl and they decided to call him Trafford and the girl Glory. If you don’t know, their ground is called OldTrafford. As for Glory, well, that would have been perfect had their surname been Hunter. But I just can’t get round the mentality of that. At the very least if you must do that, call them Alex after Alex Ferguson, or Wayne after Wayne Rooney or po-faced cheating cunt, after Ryan Giggs.
One of the many pluses from watching live football - what proper fans do - is that you don't have to suffer bloody commentators. They're all the same smug, charisma-vacuums these days. My own personal favourite commentator was the late Brian Moore. Someone who loved football so much, they designed the world cup trophy to look like his head as a tribute. I don’t however like bloody Motson. He’s such a doom-monger. You can be watching an England game in the World Cup finals and we’re 1-0 up with ten minutes to go and he’s coming out with stuff like,“England have never won quarter final game one-nil” and then the inevitable happens, the other team equalise and he’s almost delighted. Someone who I was quite impressed with when he burst onto the scene was over-excitable gut-bucket, Jonathan Pearce. He first came to my attention commentating on Channel Five when they used to show England matches before the Red Shoe Diaries (yes you did watch that). I was impressed with his passionate outlook on things - it felt like he really cared. Then I watched Robot Wars and saw him getting equally passionate over a radio-controlled Quality Street tin with an axe welded to it. Then you get the rather unnecessary co-commentators. Nothing fits the title 'unnecessary' more than the words 'Jim' and 'Beglin'. Although I have to say I used to love hearing Jimmy Greaves co-commentating. Obviously in this day and age they had to get rid of him for fear that halfway through a game, if he saw some players writhing around on the floor in apparent agony after colliding with each other, he would probably pipe up with something along the lines of “They look like a couple of poofs”. I don’t mind having someone on-board who’s been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, bought another t-shirt because the sponsors have changed their logo this season. Someone’s who’s played at the top and won stuff. In other words, not Andy 'Glittering Career' Townsend. Or Steve Claridge! Jesus wept. I can’t believe these people are paid to basically do nothing but spout the bleeding obvious.
I watch the football league show (Oxford United are in League 2). If there’s ever an incentive for us to get up to Championship it’s so that you get shown earlier on in the programme and you won’t then have to sit through the utterly banal horseshit they talk on there. It’s like they’ll show a few clips featuring the goals from a couple of matches and then it cuts back to the studio and there’s Manish Bhasin and he says to Steve Claridge “So another defeat there for Swindon.” And Claridge says “Yeah, it’s another defeat for them, but they’ll be looking to get back to winning ways starting with their home game next week”. Well done Steve. Inspired. We know! We’ve just watched the footage! Stop talking shit and show us more of the game instead! We don’t need all this shite. But no, on they go. “Another good win for Accrington there Steve.” “Yeah, they’ll be looking to build on that starting with their home game next week”.
“Looking to”. Everyone in football is always “looking to do well”. At the start of every season, every team is “looking to do well” or “get off to a good start”. No one says “I think we’ll have a shit season, we’ll get relegated”. Every new player that comes into a club will be “backed” to be a success at the club. It’s like when Torres joined Chelsea. Everyone was “backing him” to come good. No one said, “I reckon he’ll be utter crap”.
I’m going to leave you now with a couple of quotes from the legend that is Kevin Keegan. You can’t top this kind of insight into the game;
“Argentina won’t be at Euro 2000 because they’re from South America”
“Argentina are the second best team in the world, and there’s no higher praise that that”
“England have the best fans in the world… and Scotland’s are second to none”
That's all then. There were no substitutions or goals so I've finished it on time.
PS: Wilder out! Oh shit....
