THERE should be a subdued crowd of us, gathered on plastic seats in church halls or in the back rooms of community centres.
There should be silence only broken by my sombre voice declaring: "My name is Hugh and I am an addict."
The meeting of Pissa (Phone-In Stations on Soccer Anonymous) could then commence. My abstinence from phone-ins has been prolonged. I had engaged in a full life, taking part in edifying activities and engaging with members of the human race. But then there was the slip. It was on the way back from Ayr racecourse on Gold Cup day. The races had been run, the copy filed and God was in his heaven and I was behind the wheel of my Ford Fiasco.
And then it happened. I turned on the radio of instead of inserting a CD. There can be excuses. Did I forget it was Saturday because I was at a race meeting instead of a fitba' match? Did I just forget it was Saturday because I was me?
The reality is I turned on the radio and Robbie Savage came on. Now, the former Leicester City and Derby County player is no doubt a lovely man, but the notion one would ask for his opinion on anything beyond hair lacquer is somewhat odd. One would gain more knowledge from quizzing Lassie on the precise purpose of a Hadron Collider.
The purpose of the phone-in, though, is not to gain knowledge. As a member of Pissa, I should know this. Phone-ins are about venting, whereby Robbie either a) agrees with the manic caller, thereby increasing his ire, or b) disagrees with the caller, thereby increasing his ire. The sole purpose is to make the ire go higher.
Robbie plays this game more successfully than he did when performing with a ball. The callers rely on two gambits. These can be categorised as the We Deserve Better Than This option and the It Can Not Go On theory. Those of us on planet Earth know that we, the football fan, do not deserve better. Indeed, it could be argued that we do not deserve anything given our collective resilience in the face of barely disguised contempt from others. We also know that not only will it go on but it will never soddin' well stop.
The football fan is trapped, dear reader, in an endless cycle of despair, disillusion and rising direct debits. And, frankly, Robbie does not have the answer to that or even the ability to apply the balm of consolation. He just talks, normally at the same time as the caller.
The mind conjures up Robbie, the Afghan hound, barking at Dan, the disillusioned terrier from Sunderland. The brain slowly deciphers that both think Paulo Di Canio should not join the Sunderland FC Christmas club.
And, of course, it is not just Robbie and Dan. There are hundreds of them. I have stopped the signals from Scottish phone-ins by applying the same blocking devices used to upset German radar in the Second World War.
But any attempt to escape Robbie is met with the witterings on some other English-based station with the presenter urging Hull City fans to come on with views on that victory at Newcastle. This ignores the reality that there are only six Hull City fans and they will be having either a pint or a pee, perhaps both, in some service station on the way home to Nirvana on the Humber.
Yet, like the true addict, I gulp all this down, seemingly unable to twist the dial or even to turn the radio off. The binge continues all the way back to Glasgow with the ears assaulted, nay cuffed, by opinions so half-formed they could make a Saturday column.
The next morning I wake, consumed by self-loathing. Yet that night I am back in the Fiasco, and my fingers hit the button yet again. There is a moment of crackle before the crackpots crack on. One of the commentators screams that the phone-in is on a roll. I would prefer a square sausage on mine, not least because it has more grey matter.
But I listen on and have to tell the whole story at the next meeting of Pissa. The column's resident psychiatrist consoles me. He says there should be at such moments of temptation a telephone hotline. "Aye, but knowing my luck Robbie Savage would answer," I reply.
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