‘It’s back,’ screams the Guardian. The return of the Premier League says the Mirror, along with Marcus Rashford’s defeat of Boris Johnson, ‘will lift the spirits of the nation.’ adding that ‘World Cup hero (Sir Geoff) Hurst hails return of top flight.’ It would not be an exaggeration to say I could not care less. Three months has gone by since Britain saw a ball kicked in anger and I can honestly say I have not missed it at all.
The only reason I wanted to see the current season properly ended was to ensure Liverpool won the title in a full season. But given that some 63,000 people have died of COVID-19, football has been the last thing on my mind. Losing my partner’s mother, seeing other family catch the virus, some mildly, some not so and losing a couple of friends and acquaintances have served only to remind me of the things that really matter in life.
I might be more enthused by the return of the Premier League if it was coming back purely for footballing reasons, but it isn’t. It’s coming back so the top clubs can get the money us mug punters pay to watch it. It’s not really about the integrity of the league because otherwise lower league clubs would have followed suit. However, there is no money in it for the lower league clubs to come back and as for grassroots football, ‘What’s that?’ say the Old Etonian Oxbridge crowd who run our lives.
We begin tonight with Aston Villa v Sheffield United, two clubs for whom I have no feelings at all, followed by Manchester City v Arsenal, two clubs who, whenever I am aware they are playing, I want to lose. To watch these games, even at the best of times, which these are not, would have little attraction for me. These are becoming the worst of times and the games have no attraction to me whatsoever. I’ll stick with our latest box set binge-watch, Ozark, thank you very much.
Sky have ‘generously’ agreed to show some games ‘free to air’, although BT haven’t. And what games they are. Tomorrow, Sky kindly allow us to watch the lower Premier League ‘clash’ between Norwich and Southampton and on Saturday the BBC gets to show its first ever live Premier League. And it’s only the critical encounter between…er…Bournemouth and Crystal Palace! Why on earth would I watch that game? For me, I have to favour one side over the other to genuinely enjoy a game. The best I can come up with is wanting Palace to win because Roy Hodgson is a nice bloke and because of the means by which Bournemouth are funded. That is probably not enough reason to give up two hours of my life on a Saturday night.
The return of the Premier League, the purpose of which is to ensure the rich stay rich while the poor clubs can go to hell, holds little interest to me. In the coming months, I fear that countless lower league clubs, in common with thousands of businesses up and down the land, are going to the wall. Many supporters will no longer have a team to support and the idea that watching a mediocre Premier League game, which to my mind is most Premier League games, will compensate the loss is for the birds.
It will take far more than the return of the Premier League to ‘life the spirits of the nation’, although I do know for some the reopening of McDonalds and Primark has been life-changing. Whilst hundreds of millionaires ply their trade in empty stadia, thousands of people are still going to die from COVID-19 and, as a result of the crisis, millions will lose their jobs. When life finally returns to the little people who don’t drive flash cars and live in gated communities, trousering in a week what many would struggle to earn in a decade, I’ll be far happier.
