The World Cup kicks off proper tonight with the first match. It seems to have been eons coming, and stretches ahead like some never ending trip through purgatory.
There are as many of us desperate for the whole shebang to be over as there are looking forward to it with eager anticipation.
Needless to say in our house we are at polar opposites in our views of this overpaid, overhyped circus populated by egocentric (albeit talented) individuals. As you may have guessed, I am in the ‘can’t wait for it to be over’ posse whilst The Hubby is in the ‘eager anticipation’ camp (I use the words advisedly). He has even backed out of a lads curry night next week to watch the bunch of nincompoops in the England side play one of their matches.
I have never really got the point of football. The ridiculous and little understood offside rule for one (and I maintain that is little understood and when it is, often misjudged by even professional pundits), the ludicrous posturing of the players, the viciousness of the press when things are going badly and almost godlike worship when they go well and the whole obscenity of the amount of money involved just raises the whole thing to the levels of lunacy. Add in the elderly and out of touch FIFA chairman, Mr Blatter, who claims that one day football will be played in an interplanetary league and we enter the realms of a parallel universe.
I also take huge aversion to the popular press, who like to give the impression that they have one brain cell which they share (although actually that can’t be the case as they are, in the common phrase, ‘popular’ and making shed loads of dosh), telling me that I should be enjoying this and embracing a sense of national pride. Why? There are far better things in which to take national pride. For instance, to name but three….
• Soldiers giving their lives for their country
• The National Trust
• The Queen (whatever you might think of her dysfunctional family or of the monarchy as an institution, she is one amazing lady)
But most of all, I dislike the way that mass market sport (and in particular football) can turn even the most mild mannered (usually) male into a rampaging, ill mannered, loutish great ape. Often although not always fuelled by copious amounts of alcohol, perfectly reasonable men will shout, scream obscenities and make ill informed comments about players in their own and other teams whilst yelling such phrases as “Go on, my son”, “Get in” etc, at the same time as jumping up and down and waving fists in the air. For God’s sake, it’s a GAME boys, get real.
So as you may have guessed, I am not looking forward to the next three or four weeks at all. I am hoping that England will be eliminated as soon as possible so that the worst of the fervour dies down (and the pathetic plastic England flags will disappear from every car aerial and window) and we can get on with life as normal.
But of course if we win, I’ll join in the celebrations. Well, there’ll be free booze around, won’t there.
