Football, ey? What to do with it. I don't think in all of my years I've encountered a topic as absolutely hell bent on shredding to pulp anyone commenting for either side, merciless, damning anything that speaks out. Debate on immigration? Pah, move over, the football row would eat you with it's mouth closed. Euthanasia can go hang itself. Wait, no...
So why do people hate it so much? Is it the mass sycophantic audience worship that befalls multi-millionaire crybabies who sometimes can't even find time to beat their wives because they're too busy making racist slurs at their teammates, and who enjoy a hero's welcome for giving a percentage of their income (so minute it could be compared with their brain) to charity, only to find do-gooding bores them, and they'd much rather buy a nineteenth iPad? Is it the angry crowds that make merry and glass one another when one person they're never going to meet and who is probably throughly dislikeable shows slightly superior dexterity and skilled manipulation of their feet*, thus outwitting another person they're also never going to meet, but that they feel some extreme impulse of loyalty towards? Is it the scarring memories of year upon year of frostbitten torture in the school field, being shouted at for failing to "Go long", whatever that may mean? Or is it perhaps equally scarring memories of the old doddery PE teacher's dazzling ability to "Go long", perhaps given incentive by calls to "Man on", "Ball to hand" and other practices which must be against some sort of law. Lots of laws. So many laws.
And if all of these are genuine reasons to detest football with heart, body and soul, why then does it have the largest fanbase of, well, anything, apart from maybe the Beatles? Now I think this we have a proper answer to, and that's something along the lines of it being a universal language, you can hold up a vaguely round thing to pretty much anyone in the world, throw down two hoodies and make a sort of jazz hands gesture. You just know what you're getting, it's standard fare, you don't have to learn any improper verb conjugations and you can have a good laugh with a fare amount of violence thrown in and it doesn't matter that the people you're playing against speak an entirely different language and share next to no other aspects of your culture. Everything's dandy.
What I just find amusing is the entire concept of sport. I think it's fabulous, the idea that once upon a time some Greek** was sat in a field, getting ready to go and give someone a damn good war, when he noticed another similar Greek on the other side of the field doing pretty much the same. He says in his politest most dignified voice:
"Uhm, hey. I was just over there, doing my thing, and, you know, I saw you over here doing pretty much the same, and if you'll forgive me for saying so, I really just can't help feeling that I'm better than you."
And thus an area of life regarded as a figurehead for equality, peace, and friendly companionship throughout all of time was born. Read what you will***.
So, I don't really have massive new insights to shed on football when it comes down to it. The truth is for many it's a drug that they just can't get out of their system, and they'll spend hour after hour of their life honing to perfection their control of objects flying towards them so that they can be carefully manipulated and sent flying back, which will perhaps prove useful someday, when spherical projectiles about a foot wide but really really light get employed against our young hero with his flexible phalanges. Meanwhile vast crowds will employ every embittered trick in the book to smear the name of the people with the sculptured hair and the nice thighs. What I will say is my own justification for the real reason so many people dislike football: Let's face is, it's not actually a ball. Any damn fool can see that that bitch ain't round. I did my research, it's actually a truncated icosahedron, which sounds about as unround as you can get. It's this sort of impertinent, gross, lamentable terminological inexactitude, or lie, that really sums up everything that annoys me about these people. No attention to detail, the simple name of their sport is just incorrect. Can they really claim to love it truly, with this gaping chasm, this inconsistency, lurking at their heart? It is my belief that this is the real cause of discontent and damn pure angst amongst footballers, and the source of ridicule and scorn amongst haters. All this anger over geometry. Damn you Pythagoras****.
*I mean, their feet, for God's sake. Could it not be their eyebrows or something? Now that I would watch. Christiano Ronaldo furiously waggling his upper forehead, because he knows if he fails he'll get a tickle on the chin from Lionel Messi's (admittedly nonexistant. He'd grow one) monobrow.
**Probably a Greek. Most people were Greek in those days.
***Which I suppose is your job, really. I tend to deal with the writing side of things, it's your job to read. Dat's how we roll.
****Yet another Greek. They really did just have it in for us.
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