Trahison Des Clercs

Football to the cultured and soccer to the crass, what’s all the fuss about? Arguably just 22 millionaires spoiling a perfectly good lawn, can we simply understand world popularity through preference prance and the extraordinary entertainment engineered by kicking a bag of wind around a pitch? Or should we in fact whinge and whine with more waspishness? Consider, for example, the English Premier League: arguably the bee’s knees in terms of marvellously magic merriment. Which team wins? That is increasingly determined by one factor: how rich is your foreign owner. And prices for the fanatics? Golly gosh, dreadfully dear! I look back with nostalgia to the 1970s and 80s when hooliganism was kicking in heads left, right and centre. This isn’t some internet warrior effort where violence is rejoiced and revered. The hooligan was a sad specimen, often middle class cretins with such vacuous lives that hurting folk filled the void. But it did vanquish, at least temporarily, the corporate takeover. Games were cheap as chips and competitive.

And today? Choose wisely. Try rugby instead. Not the Chinless Charlie variety; the game invented to give a game suited to fat folk and the Welsh too used to nobody status. Rugby League. Fast, furious and- above all- not tosspotted.