How I hate the Beautiful Game! I hate its cry-baby players and its gruff, joyless managers, its blokish supporters and its sinister owners, its whistle-peeping referees and its chippy little linesmen, its excitable commentators and - perhaps most of all - its unpluggable "analysts". I hate its imbecilic chanting and its self-righteous saloon-bar expertise. I hate its ersatz working-classness, especially now that the price of tickets compares unfavourably with Royal Ascot or Henley. I have even begun to hate those pampered little kiddies the footballers are now obliged to escort on to the pitch before the start of each game, as though all set to embark on a pervy kind of waltz.
Gosh! Craig Brown loathes football more than I do! Actually my case is a very different one, because I can and do enjoy football, but hate all that goes with it these days: the money, the behaviour, the money, the arrogance, the money, the drinking, the money, the aggression and the money. So it's an effort for me to resist big games like those in Euro 2008 - otherwise I'm managing to boycott football pretty successfully.
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