Rant of the Week: Bobby

Less of a rant this week, more of a lament.

Football is shite.

Fact.

I loathe myself for liking it. I loathe myself for paying attention to the antics of people who behave slightly less well than Michael Moore would do if given five minutes alone with George Bush and a baseball bat.

The fact is that football as I grew up with it doesn't exist any more. The Premiership has destroyed any possibility of teams such as my "beloved" Blackpool getting to the pinacle of footballing achievement. The money circulating in the Premiership could help sort out the debts of several small countries. And increasingly the football itself is an irrelevence. People are more concerned with the fact that Wayne Rooney has been tied up and spanked by a 60 year old in leather than the fact that he hasn't kicked a football in four months, yet is still worth £25 million.

Actually, the Wayne Rooney thing is a good example of what winds me up. Firstly, who actually gives a shit that he's been sleeping with prostitutes, apart from his fiancée (who is understandably a tad peeved)? You give a 17 year old lad £20 000 a week - what's he going to spend it on? Copies of the Bible?

Secondly, in what world is it deemed proper to put a picture of a middle-aged prostitute on the front cover of a newspaper with the headline "Don't Fancy Yours Much, Wayne"? This woman probably isn't too pleased about the fact that she earns a living by spanking teenage lads who earn more in a week than she does in a year. Yet in addition to this, she has to put up with a national newspaper saying "Hey! You're a Boot!" on its front page. Wankers.

Basically, football is the equivalent of "Coronation Street" for lads. Few people care that much about the result, they just want to find out about who Keiron Dyer is shagging this week.

I am generalising here a bit. I have a good friend who is a Torquay fan. He lives and breathes his team, and despite living in Windsor, he drives to see them most weekends. He cares about how well they does. It upsets him when they lose, but not so much that it affects his life. He only gets upset if there wasn't an enjoyable game played - even if the majority of the good play was done by the opposing team.

On the other hand, I have an acquaintance who thinks this attitude of giving plaudits to the other team is an example of weak minded-ness. He claims to support Arsenal but has never seen them play. And every week, his mood changes depending on the weekend's result. You'd think, given Arsenal's recent form, he'd be happy, but no. In fact, in the middle of last season,. when Arsenal were unbeaten in the English league, but not doing so well in Europe, he was calling for Wenger to be sacked, because "'e's French, in'e? 'e don't understand the European game."

And it's attitudes like this that make me hate football. Yet the bald truth is that, however much I hate it, if I stop following it, that means there's a whole section of society who I can't communicate with. As loathsome as it is, football is a great ice breaker in conversation, and particularly when moving around with a job, it's useful to have something like this which can be used to build bridges. Not many people want to discourse on my favourite subject, music, but there'll be plenty of people wishing to pass comment on the big non-event of football this week.

Anyway, this whole rant was sparked by what happened to Sir Bobby Robson. The Guardian has some good comment on this, in particular, a decent article by Gordon Strachan last week. It's a shame when someone who loves their club so much can't bring them the success he and they so desperately want. But sentimentality doesn't balance the books unfortunately. And similarly, the manager is fairly unimportant today when placed next to the gigantic egos of some players (Dyer and Bellamy - stand up you worthless scum).

I just hope he doesn't get too downhearted and realises the important thing behind this.

It's only a game.