Notes From the Sofa by Raymond Briggs

Author:Raymond Briggs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-fiction, Opinion
ISBN: 9781783521708
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2015-10-29T11:41:14+00:00

FOOTBALL BORNEO

Football. Just say the word and see the faces light up, even girlies. Why has the whole world gone football mad?

The sport has been in existence for centuries, so why now? Once it was the preserve of working class men; now it has become a world religion.

Tribesmen in the wilds of Borneo and the Indonesian jungle support Manchester United. Even the managers and wives of footballers star on television. Top footballers become world fashion “icons”, earning millions by lending their names to deodorants and underpants. Their unemployed wives and mistresses spend money in such quantities it is an insult to working people. Apparently, there is even a soap opera on television called Footballers’ Wives. What next, Footballers’ Babies? Footballers’ Mums?

Bishops in their sermons make football analogies, fortunately not mentioning what position Jesus played – yet. It will come. Melvyn Bragg had to stop a speaker on his radio programme from making a football analogy when discussing philosophy. Three cheers for Lord Bragg. I wonder what team he supports?

Every week The Times has a thick supplement entitled “The Game”. “What game?” an innocent might enquire. “Is there only one game?” Yes, there is only one.

TV Sports News, i.e. Football News, is presented by toothy, grinning blonde girlies. This job should be done by old blokes who have been in the business all their lives and know what they are talking about. But of course, they are neither glamorous nor sexy. Anything to do with football must be both.

Any politician hoping to be popular and electable must declare a passion for football, otherwise he doesn’t have a hope. Even Tony Blair had to boast about his boyhood devotion to football, claiming to have watched a certain famous player, who in fact had retired years before Blair could have seen him.

Recently, a teenage schoolboy was brutally murdered. The first thing the papers said about him was that he was a promising footballer. More tragic than if he was a mere human being?

The language has become more violent, too. Not long ago the players at the front were called forwards; now they are “strikers”. The team is no longer just a team; it is a “squad”. Military language.

When something called the World Cup was on, cars drove around festooned with the flags of St George. Einstein said: “Nationalism is an infantile disease.” Judging by the behaviour of English football hooligans on the continent, he was right.

It’s lucky these ignoramuses don’t know that St George was a foreigner and had his head chopped off by another foreigner.

He must have been supporting the wrong squad.

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