Peter Reynolds

It must be the first football match I’ve watched in 18 months.  I thought it was worth investing the time.  After all, it was hyped to the level where it became an event rather than just a sports occasion.  But then really, football lost all that years ago. When the various mafiosi, the agents, the primadonnas and the gross, obscene salaries took hold, football lost everything it ever had of value.

So, hilariously, ITV’s HD coverage stepped into the rhythm, just four minutes before half time and cut, bizarrely, to shots of bleach blonde, just-retired footballers in the usual badly fitting suits, adjusting their lunchboxes and utterly tasteless ties, commentators preparing for their imminent incisive anlayses, wiping away the smears of mayonnaise and more exotic “amuse  bouche”  from their lips.

Perfectly appropriate, I thought!

What happened to Roy Of The Rovers and football as a role model?  These spoilt, vastly over paid, perversions of sporting talent, ill mannered, conceited, ignorant individuals.  They are porn stars and nothing more.  They don’t even deliver.  Give me a third rate club rugby player, or a rower, a cyclist, a swimmer.  Why is the world infected with this football virus?

The beautiful game?  In the eye of the beholder without lager, violence, chav celebrity culture, we can do much. much better than this!

Truth is, 10 minutes into the second half, I turned over to watch “The Apprentice”.