A Quick Rant About Football

I realise this probably isn’t going to endear me to many of you, but if you’re so inclined, please hear me out. I find football to be one of the most dull things to watch on television. It’s up there with Countdown, to be quite brutally honest. “You what?” I hear you say, well, I shall list my reasons and even give you elaboration, if you’re lucky, below.

I think the first thing I should lay down is that I don’t like watching sports in general. I personally play rugby and rowed to a reasonably high level, and out of those it’s only Rugby that I can just about enjoy watching, but even that I usually only watch at the world cup. I guess it’s just because I find watching sport to be rather passive, obviously, and that makes it rather undesirable for me. I’d rather do than observe, it would seem.

However, football is a special case. I’ve been known to muck down and have a kick around with my mates if the occasion arises, but it’s a pretty rare occurrence. It’s not that I’m bad at it (which I am), it’s just that I don’t understand the appeal of the game. To me, and I’m sure football supporters see something completely different to me, it’s just a bunch of either rather effeminate or overly brutish men kicking a ball from one end of a pitch to the other, and occasionally managing to get it in the back of the net. There’s no structure to the game, and it’s far too easy for the ball to change hands. I think what I miss when watching it is the lack of progression. You can go 90 minutes and have 20 seconds of excitement. For me, that’s not really worth it.

My other problem with it is the fanaticism of the fans. Maybe it’s because whenever I get dragged (under false pretenses) to a pub where a match is being shown, I’m always an outsider, but there are few events that warrant standing in a group of sweaty men shouting at a screen. I think pretty much the only one is when the screen is a stage, and some group of musicians are rocking your socks off.

So that’s pretty much my rant. If you’re wondering why Hello Kitty is gracing the top of this post, it’s because I’d rather have her (I bloody hope it’s a girl) than some guys punting a ball around. Thanks for reading, hope I didn’t alienate too many of you.