We all know how tasty and satisfying a good sniff is. Or a lovely delve into the nostrils to howk out a sizeable bogey to chow down on as an aperitif. So it really annoys me that with all the starving in the world, the likes of Ronaldo (both of them), Rooney, Beckham – hell, even our own dear Shearer – can be guilty of a horrendous waste of snot.
Many is the time I’ve seen a professional football player snorting a nostril or two full of sticky nose-juice onto the ground during a game. I know they’re rich and I know they drive stupid cars and wear suits that cost more than I earned in a year. I know they can wipe their arses with gold credit cards and use a fresh condom every time they have sex. But to be seen on TV throwing good food on the ground when there are millions starving in the Third World is nothing short of a disgrace.
A campaign should be started to force them to blow it out into a bag. After the game, it could be shipped to a needy child in Ethiopia or the Sudan who can’t generate enough bogies of their own for a good snort. Think of the children! Please, will someone think of the children? And the bogies.
Well, it turns out that Asbo (a.k.a Joey Barton) has been sentenced to 6 months for… well, being a violent little ****. Which is fine. Thing is, it’s hardly going to affect his footballing as the season’s over. And does anyone really think he’ll actually be behind bars for more than a few weeks at most?
At least we know that the justice system in this country is fair. Rich people get away with pathetic sentences the same as the average piece of filth off the street corner.
Just catching up on the news from the weekend and I see that the police are mounting the usual efforts to prevent thugs and hooligans travelling to the Champions League final in Moscow.
Can I just say – on this one occasion – let the ******** go? Round them up. Give them free tickets. And beer. Lots of beer. Get them on the plane. Wave them off.
And don’t expect them back.
Let’s face it, do you honestly think they won’t end up in some stinking gulag for 30 years if they kick off in Moscow? You know, the kind of punishment they should be getting in this country only we’re too soft? We can’t do the job properly, so let our Russian friends show them how human waste should be treated.
Oh, and if they could lock up Ronaldo for being a smug **** as well, that’d be cool.
Right up until a few minutes from the end, the Premiership could have gone either way. And I confess, after the first half I was interested. Mainly as it seems ManUre had bought their ref so I wanted Chelsea to win on merit. Ah well.
At the other end I happen to know a Reading supporter (well, someone who goes out with one anyway) so I threw my lot in with them. Which didn’t help once Fulham got their goal, despite a 4-0 win.
Personally, I didn’t care too much about our result. If we did win, I wanted to be sure that Villa didn’t. Silly reason – I’ve always enjoyed my visits to Everton more than to Villa (the ******** even confiscated my camera one time), so I’d rather see Everton get the UEFA spot. Which they did. From what little I’ve read post-match, we were lucky not to walk off with a scoreline similar to that suffered by Man City at the Boro.
I bet all 25 home fans who bothered turning up (a bumper crowd these days) at the Riverside had a good time as Man City attempted to ensure their passage into the UEFA Cup through the Fair Play League. I assume their tactic was to achieve this by failing to put in a single challenge – something the 8-1 scoreline says they must have succeeded in. However, a handful of yellows and even a straight red (the only one in the Premiership today) might not have done them any favours. On the other hand, maybe the players were protesting about the upcoming everyone-knows-it’s-going-to-happen sacking of Eriksson by dodgy chairman Thaksin Shinawatra.
So, at the end of the day and the end of the season, no real surprises. The three teams to go down were all heavily tipped to do so all those months ago. And what odds would you have been given in August on the top four finishing in the order they did? Evens if you were lucky. I’d say the one “shocker” – and no offence intended in this – is Everton keeping up a good level of play and taking the UEFA Cup spot.
Well, I’ll save you reading all this by stating first off that “yes, it bloody is”. Kevin Keegan‘s been raked over the coals for his comment on this “most boring, but great” league. Thing is, he’s spot on the money.
Richard Scudamore, the Premier League chief executive, says that’s nonsense as it’s the most-watched league in the world. But that doesn’t make it exciting. Eastenders is the most-watched soap on TV and it’s a load of **** as well. The reason it’s the most watched is for the teams at the top end. It’s not the league that’s watched worldwide, it’s ManUre, Arsenal, Chelski and Liverpool… the continual top 4.
His argument that “the numbers tell you it is the most exciting” falls down when you break those numbers down into what teams are being watched and why. ManUre fans don’t watch because they find it exciting – they watch because they know they’ve got a good chance of winning. And, this season, people will have watched them because they’ve played excellent football. Give more teams a chance of getting into the top end of the table and the League would be more exciting. Presently, it’s most exciting to ManUre, Chelski and Arsenal fans. End of.
Honestly, outside of actual fans of the teams, who “worldwide” is going to watch Fulham v Man City? Or care where they end up? ManUre, for whatever reason, have a massive worldwide following. People watch their games and – despite never having been to Manchester (fair enough as the team aren’t from the city either) – genuinely care whether they win the title or not. And, in all fairness, each season they have a chance to do so. So it’s exciting for them.
But is it genuinely exciting for roughly 12 of the remaining 16 teams? Sure, two or three will maybe push for that fourth spot. A couple will battle for the 5th place UEFA spot. Someone like Derby will be humiliated all season. There’ll be the occasional local derby to raise blood pressure. But overall is the entire league more exciting that, say, the Dutch one?
Some figures for you. In the last five seasons the same four teams have finished in the top four every year bar one (Everton replacing Liverpool). In the Dutch Eredivisie, six different teams have occupied their top four. The top two seem concrete, but those spots underneath are hard fought for and generally a lot closer than the English equivalents.
The Bundesliga, now in it’s fifth season, has had seven different top-4 teams and three different champions. Spain’s La Liga has had nine teams up there. France’s Ligue 1 has had twelve. In most cases, there does seem to be a runaway team or pair of teams that everyone plays catch-up with though not always the same one each season. The Russian Premier League top four finishers number seven in the last five years.
A huge part of the problem is money. Teams which finish top get a huge pile of cash (especially in the EPL). They can buy better players, get into European competition and attract more better players. Which means they win more. And can buy even more of the better players.
To break into this loop, you need luck. A huge bankroll from a Russian oil billionaire worked for Chelski, though – worryingly for them – it looks like he’s getting bored. Liverpool’s American takeover seems to have done them more harm than good. Man City have been bought by an idiot who’s sacking the best manager they’ve had in years because his ego is more important than the club. Arsenal have their place on merit alone, as do ManUre. Both built good squads, kept managers on long-term and had this all in place around the time the Premiership kicked into gear.
Breaking into that top four is incredibly hard. It’s as much theirs to lose as anyone else’s to gain. Look at other sports where they have wage caps, spending limits and drafts. The Australian Football League has had 3 different “ladder-toppers” and 4 different Grand Final winners in five seasons. The NFL – four different winners out of eight different finalists in five years. I admit that both of these leagues work differently to a “pure” league like the Premiership but just look at the spread of teams who do well at the end of the season. Realistically, nobody could predict what four teams would be in the semi-finals for the Superbowl at the start of the season.
Short of the top teams going bankrupt or the manager having a shitter, there’s no way in for the other teams. Who cares about your league position if you know, realistically by game 10, that you’re going to finish somewhere between 7th and 15th? Each game may be exciting on its own merits, but the League sure as hell isn’t.
The thing is, what can be done? It’s too late to put wage capping in place. European law won’t allow us to restrict players to national or regional birth only so bang goes the “pride” aspect. The rich clubs are already stupidly rich, the poor clubs are already struggling. So many have faced financial problems for various reasons (low crowds, trying to buy success, fans being priced out) that the game’s dying in the upper leagues.
I don’t have a solution that would ever be accepted by the top clubs – including Newcastle. Frankly, if I didn’t follow a team that was in the Premiership, I’d not give a damn about the League. The Championship (old Second Division) was much more interesting this year.
