Here's a Turn Up for the Book! (Football in General)

Name: aefra

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Product:	Football in General
Date:	08/06/02 (62 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: ?

Disadvantages: As op

What! Aefra writing an op on football? We all know by her comments what's coming. Well folks, you are wrong. This is not an anti-football/ World Cup rant. So there!

Have I ever actually seen a football game? Yes I have. Have I actually enjoyed a football game? Yes. Lots. I have happy memories as a pigtailed 11 year old watching Barnet United every other saturday by the side of a special family friend, Uncle Dave. I remember standing at the side of the pitch, nothing fancy in those days, jumping up and down and yelling with the small crowd around us. I can recall Uncle Dave's admonition to an enthusiastic fan in front of us when the language began to turn blue. Uncle Dave was my hero and I was proud at those moments to be his surrogate daughter and friend.

Much later I was to yell with the best of them as Southend United beat Colchester 3-1 (or something like that). Admittedly on those later occasions it was because the boyfriend of the time was a fan, rather than any football need of my own. In those days we were not separated from the opposite team's fans by fences and we did not risk personal injury just by being there. It was a rousing, jolly, exciting way to spend a saturday afternoon, and the rivalry between the fans was friendly. It was an excuse to forget my ladylike behaviour and yell and leap into the air and then groan out loud. After the match Southend High Street had to put up with some hoolignism, but knives were not in evidence.

This was before a pleasant young man, with an admittedly great talent for kicking a ball, lived in a palace and was regarded - with his pop star wife - as royalty. Long before the saturday afternoon out became such big business that the ordinary fan was priced out of the ground. A long time before the blanket tv coverage which so irritates those who have no interest. A very long time before passions were roused to the extent that football grounds had to be designed w
ith segregation in mind.

The woman who finishes her comments on ops she has read with remarks on her dislike of football, is the same girl who broke the springs of her mother's settee the day that we beat West Germany in the World Cup. Yes, I was lucky enough to see it and will never forget.

I don't hate football. I do hate what it now represents. Hate is too strong a word and not ordinarily part of my vocabulary. Let's say, "extreme irritation". Football overwhelmes the Nation. It is number one priority in the media particularly on tv, and to hell with the rest of the large minority.

The above is the reason that I shall be pleased when the whole shebang is over. Enjoy, all you passionate fans out there, but please understand that some of us won't be at the party. :-)

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