MEETING John, the column’s resident psychiatrist, next week which is timely, given that I am exhibiting concerning symptoms.
My self-hatred, my profound self-defeating thoughts have returned to such an extent that tennis fixers have to bribe me to win a match. My mood is so low I can’t raise a laugh at Sam Allardyce being in relegation trouble.
But the most worrying development is – and please, please do not judge me – I have started paying my way into Scottish football matches. It all started so innocently. It was just the one Saturday, I thought. Just to see what it was like. Now it has grown into a habit that has taken me through Glasgow, into Lanarkshire and, in a moment of supreme self-loathing, Ayrshire.
Years of getting in for nowt, noshing on a half-time pie and slurping coffee and regurgitated meat over my Sou’wester garbed colleagues and then writing nonsense have come to an end. I am now back as a supporter, if not quite a fan. There is a difference. A supporter backs a club financially. A fan may not.
My disorder has led me to spread my charms promiscuously. Since my press pass was removed (a process that required an anaesthetic and two weeks of physiotherapy), I have watched the home matches of six different clubs against six different opponents. It is my equivalent of the Dirty Dozen. Or the Troublesome Twelve, which only alliterates if one is Roy Hodgson.
It has given me a new standpoint. Most often behind a pillar, most often beside a gentleman who has suffered such head trauma that he can only communicate in a veritable fountain of spittle-flecked invective. And there is no tastier kind, as I can testify. It has, too, given me a perspective, admittedly limited, on the football-going experience outside the press box. It has been mostly encouraging. The welcome from staff is generally excellent in that “it is good to see a fellow sufferer, and a paying one at that” sort of way. The seats normally face the pitch, which admittedly is not always a good thing. The half-time fare is generally edible, though at one ground my lark’s tongue in aspic was criminally over-cooked.
My experience, too, was benign. Like that wart inside my left nostril, since you ask. This season I have never felt threatened. This is in contrast to the times as a youth when one went to a match prepared to enter a battle zone. It is in contrast to recent seasons, when my appearance at fitba’ matches could prompt vile and constant abuse. But enough of my erstwhile colleagues.
The truth is that fitba’ remains for me an addiction but one that has negligible detrimental effects. Yes, it is too expensive given the quality. Yes, it can be uncomfortable given the demands of a climate that has led Somerset Park to be used as the final survival test in the SAS officers’ training course. But the most worrying aspect is the way that the authorities have become estranged from the supporters.
The facial recognition thingy has been debated tediously and it may be enough to remark that if fans are individually behaving criminally then lift him/her. If they are doing so en masse, use CCTV to identify them and prosecute.
More specifically, though, there are incidents that must cause the customer to wonder if the authorities are auditioning for some sort of reality show. It would be called Yer Having A Laugh. The first episode would see a SWAT team abseil from the stand and terminate the contract with extreme prejudice of a footballer who smiled after scoring. The second episode would involve having a Scottish Cup tie but increasing the intrigue of the match by not telling fans where it would be held. There can be twists in this episode. You can tell the fans where it won’t be. Then you can tell the fans where it will be. And then tell the fans that it won’t be where it was to be but it will be where it will be. Unless it is postponed.
Another episode could have supporters wanting to attend a match but being refused entry although there is as much room as exists between the ears of David soddin’ Cameron. And that is enough to land safely a fully laden jumbo jet. Best practice in this scenario, though, is to tell the supporter he/she can buy a ticket and then refuse to sell one. This has the added effect of reducing administration costs for future League Cup semi-finals as there are fewer ticket applications to process.
There is much good work being done in Scottish fitba’. There are people wandering out into the chill nights to coach and help bring through a generation of talent. There are others who seek to defuse much of the madness that infects our game and to scratch a path forward.
But there can be extraordinary daftness. And that sentence has just been written by someone who has paid £20 to watch 22 footballers treat a ball with extreme brutality on a day so cold an Inuit left at half-time declaring it “too brisk”.
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