The 'beautiful' game

'Football attracts morons. You'd have to be a moron to deny it. Unlike any other sport or pastime, football is like a magnet for the small-minded. Vicious, hateful, selfish, lifeless vermin flock to football like wasps to a discarded coke can.'

(From this week's issue of The Friday Thing)

That just about sums it up for me. It always has. The 'integrity' of football is under the spotlight again this week, in the aftermath of Wayne Rooney signing for Man United. I had no idea this transfer had taken place until I read the full text of the article referenced above, and I am proud to admit that. I was dimly aware of Rooney featuring in the news more than usual this week, but I thought it was just the tired 'journalism' of The Sun, trying to keep his flame alive after the World Cup,in the same way it has been doing it for David Beckham since he moved to Real Madrid. It turns out he's defected from Everton. Well whoopee doo!

Unfortunately, some Everton supporters have not seen it this way. Some thoughtful people have sprayed grafitti all over Merseyside likening him to Judas Iscariot (I can't help but wonder how many of them have actually read the bible, or even the passage that relates to The Last Supper), and a 'picture' of Paul Stretford, Rooney's agent, has also been rendered, depicting him in a hangman's noose. On top of that, Stretford's contact details have been given out on an unofficial Everton fansite, and as a result, he has received some rather substantial abuse at the hands of these disgruntled Everton supporters. Really, how empty must a person's life be for them to allow an institution such as football, or more specifically a football club like Everton, to exert such an influence on their life? Please God these people don't reproduce, that's all I'm asking.

I can't remember exactly when the rot for this sport set in for me, but I was young. I don't know if my disinterest grew from my lack of aptitude for it, or whether my lack of success in it was down to my disinterest for it, but by the time I hit secondary school, there was very little I hated more than the weekly PE session, with the attendant ritual of team selection for soccer/football/rugby/whatever the hell it was. I was always the last to be picked, and this pissed me off. Not in a boo-hoo-nobody-loves-me kind of way, but because that was the one time I had to acquiesce to being judged by someone else's rules. And I held almost everyone in my year in contempt. This odd-man-out phenomenon probably owed something to the fact that, during the game, when I saw a ball headed for me I generally tended to avoid it rather than intercept it, but I was damned if I was going to make an effort for something I had been forced into in spite of my lack of enthusiasm for it. Someone should have pointed out to my Phys. Ed. teacher that constantly playing ball sports is not necessarily commensurate with physical fitness, and if the latter was the point of the whole class, then we should have been in a gym instead. But I digress.

I got into hurling for a while, but lost interest in that as well. There was a long line of staunch GAA* figurheads on my father's side, and that line ended very abruptly with me. My grandfather, God rest him, was head of Duhallow GAA, and while his son, my father, never quite scaled those dizzying heights, he was prominent in handball and also was a frequent attender of sunday afternoon football matches in BallyGoBackwards. He tried to get me into those. It failed. He tried to get me into handball. It worked for a while (I think I even won a medal once), but eventually that failed too.

When I was very young, under 10, I remember enjoying games of football, but somehow somewhere that stopped. Looking back, I think that this coincided with the latter stages of the establishment of my identity, and it makes sense. I could never have continued to follow sports such as soccer like this. Why? Because of the fact that they are a world-wide institution at this stage, they are the stuff of everymen, and to participate is the ultimate act of conformity.

My brother-in-law once said that football is an instant passport wherever you go. He meant it in a good way, but he was right. It allows instant acceptance into an established world-wide community, and it disguises the fact that, football aside, you could be the most socially inept misfit on the planet with absolutely nothing to say about anything. Some people think this is the beauty of it, and if you want to be assimilated into the general population without ever standing up to be counted, then there lies the appeal. Straight away, you belong. Another rather baffling feature of this sport are followers (I have met ones like these) who can recall tables of numbers relating to the premiership games in a given year with an ease and accuracy that would make an actuary envious.

Irish GAA is much the same but with a rural tinge. It lacks the sleaze of English-based soccer, but it almost makes up for it by having a substantial agricultural element to its following. Which is why I never got into that either. It's a different side to the same coin.

I don't think this dislike stems from a lack of a competitive streak, just a refusal to identify with the followers of these sports. Interestingly, the more specialised sports don't have to suffer these people as a following. To my knowledge, discus throwing isn't followed by loads of lager-swilling non-entities in a pub somewhere. Well, my little band of inconsequential vegetables, can you tell me why that is? I've said before that a movement is in part characterised by it's followers, and this is why football has come to be regarded in the way it is now.

Anyway, back to Rooney. Who cares? He's lucky to be doing what he loves at such a young age, at such a level where he can make a substantial living out of it. He's not so lucky that he was pulled from formal education at such a young age, before he had reached a level that would have given him a chance to make some other living, should the first one expire (If, in fact, Rooney got a string of A-levels before he started playing professional football, please feel free to correct me). He may turn out to be a well-balanced man in spite of everything, but we'll have to wait and see.

I've always noticed that someone's rapid ascent to superstardom is almost always followed by a plunge that is equally as abrupt. What goes up must come down, as they say. I noticed his star rose quickly during the world cup (You've got to believe me, I tried everything to get away from it) and I especially noticed the toe-curling manner in which all of a sudden, lots of sports commentators became an authority on him. Someone should tell these people that constantly talking about someone else, especially when you are part of a queue of many, makes you look like nothing more than a subject of that person.

So there you go. Conclusion: Some football supporters desperately need to grow up, but the sheep mentality that surrounds these things will almost guarantee that they don't. And don't even get me started on Baddiel and Skinner.

Oh, and David Beckham is a dad again. The journalists at The Sun must be wetting themselves with glee. That's them kept in jobs for at least another year.

God help us.

*Gaelic Athletic Association, for you readers who are unacquainted with the finer points of Irish culture.