Having spent much of last week listening to Radio Five Live’s excellent Olympics coverage, interspersed with updates from the test match between England and Pakistan being played out in front of a packed house at the Oval and a handful of cricket fans on Rupert Murdoch’s pay TV channels, I was looking forward to more of the same today. I know there’s not much going on today – there’s only Usain Bolt, Jessica Ennis-Hill, Greg Rutherford to name but three in competition today – but I’m afraid there’s only one thing to talk about today: the return of the Premier League.
It is probably just me, but I was under the impression that the football season actually started a week ago yesterday when Fulham beat Newcastle United. Did I dream being totally hacked off when hearing that Bristol Rovers had lost to Scunthorpe? Did our cup win against Cardiff City never happen and we’re not going to Chelsea for the next round after all?
In the grand scheme of things, anything below the Premier League is a media no go zone. Worse still, the only conversation appears to be about the managers, with the unwelcome return of Jose Mourinho’s industrial-sized ego and the hot news that the admittedly brilliant Pep Guardiola is set to turn Manchester City from a massively wealthy club that wins trophies into a massively wealthy club that wins trophies. And so on.
Sky’s money is making things even sillier. For instance, Bournemouth – Bournemouth – have spent £15 million on a Jordan Ibe, a fringe player at Liverpool. Similar examples are everywhere. That’s even more absurd than the £100 million Manchester United have splashed out on Paul Pogba, which represents a loss of about £100 million on the player.
Five Live will provide commentary upon reports upon commentary today on the latest news from (insert your own favourite Premier club because I have no idea who is playing who) with the occasional snippet from Rio (“And Ennis-Hill wins the gold medal with a new record but…and now we go straight to the KC stadium where there has been a corner”).
Even Alec Stewart, the former England batsman, was asked his opinion. Not about the test match, oh no. He was asked about Chelsea’s prospects for the new season.
And so it will go until May 2017. When the weather gets (even) worse, perhaps I will finally get into the football. These days, football is a bit like Maggie May. A very good song, but one I have heard too many times.
