Monday, June 26, 2006

Monday

What a great day of the week. I woke to the sound of rain, the air was fresh, even the hay fever decided to relax.

From some sort of national obligation I watched TV as our football team, England, played Ecuador. I even carried on to see parts of the Portugal and Holland game.

It's depressing. Drunken louts who only find enjoyment from booze and when their team beats another. The media grab hold of an isolated incident, and make it into a crisis. I'm cynical enough to know that the red-top (popular) press will give these silly young men so much beer that they'd do anything. The mob can easily be stirred. It could happen. Although give young Englishmen enough beer and mock courage and they'll believe they can do anything.

There's been so little trouble at the World Cup in football, and it is a World Cup, even the USA fielded a team that was good enough to get to these final stages, that I'm unimpressed with a few plastic chairs being thrown around.

The German police took the right action, rounding up anyone who was causing trouble and locking them up for three days. They missed the game, they missed all the fun before, during and after the match. That's the best punishment there could be. Nobody wants these louts.

There's a part of me that wants England to lose. I'm not sure we need our young people to copy the lying, cheating, over-paid young men who are today's gladiators.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am not a football fan but like you, I watched most of the Portugal Holland game. What a farce, it was more like a brawl than a game of fooball, all signs of sportsmanship non existant. Do they justify the huge sums of money they are paidjust to kick a ball around ?

Anonymous said...

But is it not better for these misguided, pampered players to use their testosterone on an athletic field against other nations than to be misguided, pampered soldiers?