In a message to the Liverpool Football Team, after they won the European Champions League thing last night, Tony Blair said: “Unbelievable. Incredible. Brilliant. The whole country is very proud of you.”
Sorry, Tony, I’m not. I couldn’t give a shit. I don’t care.
I’m told it was very tense – very tense if you care about a field full of millionaires kicking a ball around to make money for the club shareholders… …or, according to Jude if you care ‘about a kid who grew up in merseyside and went on to be captain of the club he supported as a boy… and wins the european cup’ – clearly I don’t. That’s very nice for him, but it registers pretty low on the giveashitometer.
I think I was just all footballed out as a kid – my dad worked for Wimbledon at the time when they were starting their rise from non-league to First Division (in those pre-premiership days) in 8 seasons (the previous quickest was something like 32 years). I went to home games, away games, youth team games, training sessions, supporters club parties etc. etc. etc. It was quite fun when I was little. I even ended up pictured in a book about football, in my mascot outfit at the age of five –
but by my mid teens I was sick of it, bored with blokes kicking a ball around, and increasingly distrustful of any unisex activity – too much testosterone involved! And I discovered music, where there are no winners and losers, just people playing what they want to play. Ahhh, that’s more like it.
Now that pro football is all about shareholders and millionaires, date-rape scandals, failed drugs tests and club takeovers by shady billionaires, it has even less appeal. Even if I enjoyed the game, I think I’d rather go out and support my local pub team.
But I’d still rather go to a gig.