The World Cup is well underway – you may have noticed – and, to date, I am not suffering from the disease known as World Cup Fever™. That is not to say I am not wholly disinterested, or that I won’t be deeply infected with the disease in weeks to come, but so far I do feel a little meh about it.
It is probably due to a combination of a number of factors, those being that the tournament is being held mainly in the USA USA USA which is currently ruled by an unhinged and demented right-wing lunatic, and that there are just too many teams. Let’s put it this way, the World Cup has not grabbed me by the short and curlies yet.
This is not the first World Cup in which I have found myself strangely apathetic. In the 1970s, England went on an impressive run of failing to qualify for successive tournaments, something they managed to repeat in 1994 when the tournament was in America. Call me parochial but I didn’t give a toss about most of the games. Off the top of my head, I couldn’t tell you who even won the thing in 1994, a tournament best known for Diana Ross’s shocking missed penalty.
England have qualified for this tournament, yet the near certainty that they would, did not prevent us booking our annual holiday in a place that has nothing that even resembles a sports bar. In fact, the thought of being away from the constant chanting of ‘Ingerland Ingerland’ and ‘Keir Starmer is a wanker’ (I wasn’t even aware he made the squad) was an important part of our decision-making.
This from a bloke whose entire life used to revolve around the football calendar. August holidays were all but ruled out due to the new season beginning and weekends away could only take place if my team, Bristol Rovers, didn’t have a home match. Those days are gone forever, as Donald Fagen once sang. Over a long time ago. Oh yeah.
Football, I fear, is beginning to leave my world. Not only have I completely lost interest in the Rovers, to the extent that I barely look out for their results these days, the thousands of matches shown live on pay TV hold little or no interest for me. When I learn that Super Sunday is about to begin on Sky Sports, for some reason next season’s clash between Hull City and Ipswich Town holds little appeal. Today’s World Cup match between Germany and Curaçao has the benefit of novelty value but when every match has at least one team who have no chance of advancing to the knockout stages, never mind winning the thing, then what’s the point?
That I am blogging about the World Cup in the first place tells its own story. Clearly, I am a bit interested, otherwise I wouldn’t be blogging. From my own non-scientific research, I suggest there are quite a few of us who feel that way and when the tournament turns into a knock out event we will get drawn in. It could well be England 1 (Kane penalty) Croatia 0 that does it for me.
The clowns and crooks who run football have done their level best to take football away from the people and to some extent, perhaps a large extent, they have succeeded. But perhaps at some stage something will happen to drag me away from my sun bed or the towering pile of books I have with me. As for now, I have had quite enough of FIFA twat Gianni Infantino and Dementia Donny to last a lifetime.
Football is over for me. Point. Now what time is kick off on Wednesday?
