Good piece in todays Sun.

The-Frank-Tavern

The-Frank-Tavern: Number of posts : 8505
Age : 55
Supports : Atlético de Madrid
Registration date : 2006-08-07

Post n°1

Good piece in todays Sun.

by The-Frank-Tavern Fri Jun 06, 2008 1:55 pm

...........by Adrian Chiles

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1252696.ece

By ADRIAN CHILES
A new voice in The Sun

HERE’S how most of my conversations go at the moment: "How are you?"

"Fine."

"What you doing once The Apprentice finishes?"

"Oh, I’m off to Austria for three weeks."

"Austria? What for?"

"The Euros."

"The what?"

This makes me mad. Because if England had the remotest clue about
football and had managed to scrape a draw with Croatia on a rainy night
in November it would be a different story now.

England would have qualified and complete strangers would be stopping
me in the street to ask if Lampard and Gerrard could function properly
together in the same midfield (don’t see why not), if David James has
cut the calamities out of his game (probably not) and if we’ll win any
penalty shoot-out (definitely not).

Colleagues of mine who know nothing about football would be telling me
about private jets their partners’ merchant banks had chartered to take
them all out to Klagenfurt or Vienna or wherever.

A champagne breakfast and eight course meal would be thrown in, naturally.

But, as it is, without England in attendance, those private jets will
stay on the tarmac at various deserted airfields that us ordinary
mortals have never heard of, let alone flown out of.

You’ll have gathered that casual football fans who enjoy the occasional day out at a big game, really, really wind me up.

I don’t think you should be allowed at a big game unless you’ve done
enough smaller games and you’ve got ticket stubs from Andorra, Croatia,
Macedonia, wherever, to prove you’ve done the hard miles.

It’s a bit like the Apprentice show I do, You’re Fired.

All through the run I’m asked for audience tickets and I’m always happy to oblige if I can.

What I can’t bear is those who ask me for tickets, but only for the final.

No, sorry, can’t help.

If they haven’t bothered showing up for the earlier shows, they can’t
really care enough, and so they can whistle for tickets to the final.

It’s all about how much you care, and there’s nothing worse in my view
than a football fan at a really big game who doesn’t care.

A case in point was the play-off final for a place in the Premier League between Hull City and Bristol City.

Finals of any competition are when attendance figures stop adding up.

The likes of Bristol City, whose average gate is xxxx, somehow manage to conjure up ***** to go to Wembley.

Who are these extra **** fans?

Where have they been all season? I wouldn’t let them in.

Ten minutes before the end of that match, with Bristol losing 1-0, the
camera lingered on their fans for a moment looking for suitably morose
looks.

But no, half the people in the shot spotted themselves on the big screen and stood up waving and grinning.

Their (or supposedly their) team is just about to see the season end in
bitter disappointment and some of their so-called fans are waving and
grinning!

As it is I’m sure they took their brand new replica tops home, gave
them a wash, sent them to the charity shop, and won’t have given the
whole ghastly business a second thought until the next time, if there
is a next time, which there probably won’t be, though they won’t shed
any tears about that either.

But for all that I feel sad that these people won’t now be drawn in to this summer’s festival of football.

The fact is I’m sad because I won’t get to see them suffer.

I love seeing fair weather fans with their heads in their hands in early summer every other year.

It’s nice to know they’re going through what the rest of us got through year in, year out.

Early in Euro 2004, England threw away a 1-0 lead over France to lose 2-1 right at the death.

I’m ashamed to say I enjoyed watching my mother-in-law in pain.

Not because I don’t love her, rather that I wanted her to know how it is for me supporting West Brom.

It’s all right for her and her like. They only have to go through this misery every couple of years.

I suffer like this at least every other weekend.

For the first time ever she looked at me with comprehension.

She finally seemed to understand why I’m driven half mad by football.

But that’s not going to happen this time because England aren’t there.

So the casual fan simply won’t get interested and won’t get to feel footballing pain.

At the other end of the football supporting scale are the absolute
aficionados, for whom the next three weeks represent footballing
paradise.

Free from the agony of supporting England they’ll be able to really concentrate.

They’ll take time off work, shut the curtains and wallow in it all. They’ll feel part of an exclusive club.

With the part-time England fans busy doing something else, the aficionados will have the tournament to themselves.

They’ll be like a small group of art lovers enjoying a private tour of the Tate Modern while the public are locked out.

But I find this terribly earnest breed of fan rather troubling too.

They’ll sidle up to me in pubs, or turn around from the driver’s seat
of their cabs, and say things like "I think Ujfalusi might be a weak
link for the Czechs, don’t you?" or "how do you think the Turks are
going to set-up, 4-1-3-2 or 4-1-2-1-2?"

I’ll nod thoughtfully, murmur agreement and change the subject before I can be found out.

There’s a big drive in the media to get people to choose a team to support as if that makes the tournament more interesting.

Well, it might.

But I’d strongly counsel against doing so, because it’s actually rather
nice to just watch lots of football without supporting anyone, without
leaving your fingerprints in the side of your armchair, and without
going to bed miserable after England have gone out on penalties.

Tournaments, on reflection, are terrible things. Cruel, barbaric even.

Think about it: 16 sets of fans and 15 of them go home miserable.
Shouldn’t really be allowed. And you lucky lot don’t have to be part of
it this time.

I, on the other hand, do.

As my mum’s Croatian I have them to support.

I’m trying to keep things in perspective and tell myself it’s great to
see them on the big stage again and winning isn’t everything blah blah
blah, but tomorrow I’ll be on the night train from Zagreb to Vienna
(change Salzburg 4.01am) filming Croatia’s red and white army on the
move.

By the time the train pulls in I’ll be emotional and once the national
anthem strikes up there’ll be tears running down my cheeks.

I’ll be desperate, just desperate, for them to go all the way.

But sooner or later, Croatia will be knocked out and I’ll be miserable.

At that moment please think of me and thank your lucky stars for just a
moment that England didn’t manage to scrape that draw last November.

Axeslammer

Axeslammer: Number of posts : 19690
Age : 52
Supports : Leeds Utd / FC Groningen
Favourite Player : Le Tiss, Bergkamp, Tadic, Eric le Roy
Registration date : 2006-08-07

Post n°2

Good piece in todays Sun.

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