| Why is English football so *!?@#!% *!@#? by Dominic Hilton Friday, November 23, 2007 Over the past 24 hours, several ex-friends have requested that I “quit whining like a schoolgirl brat about the shocking state of English football and write a brilliantly incisive piece about it instead.” As it happens, I am only too happy to offer my two cents worth on this issue of vital international importance. And what’s more, if I cock up my analysis, I only expect to receive a £2.5 million pay-off. £2.5 million is the reported golden parachute that the Football Association is depositing into Steve McClaren’s bank account. The FA hopes this sum will help McClaren accept that: |
| home articles blog letters retractions vacancies competitions about us contact _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ |
a) he has been fired as England manager
b) he is an incompetent muppet with the footballing brain of an otter
c) he might no longer be welcome on the FA’s complementary VIP trip to the Euro
2008 Championships – and even if he is, he certainly won’t have full access to the
masseuses
b) he is an incompetent muppet with the footballing brain of an otter
c) he might no longer be welcome on the FA’s complementary VIP trip to the Euro
2008 Championships – and even if he is, he certainly won’t have full access to the
masseuses
Aside from the sex scandals, the one thing people always point to when assessing the
all-round *!?@#!% *!@#ness of English football is the vast sums of dosh earned by
the numpties who are lucky enough to get to play or coach the game professionally.
It’s almost impossible to stagger along an English street these days without hearing
somebody say, “It is my estimation that footballers are grotesquely overpaid in real
term net earning gross factor income factors and blow all the money on call girls who
they also married.”
Personally, I don’t subscribe to this argument (if, indeed, it is an argument). Not to
stray from the point, but many years ago, at university, I became a big fan of the
political theories of a tall, distinguished Harvard philosopher named Robert Nozick (I
even went so far as to pin a picture of Nozick on the wall of my digs, hidden somewhere
underneath a giant poster of Christie Brinkley bending over a red Ferrari).
Nozick, for those of you who couldn’t give a fig about political theory, is famous for
being the only academic in the whole history of academia to – I swear this is true –
defend capitalism. With his silver fox hair and snazzy white suit, Nozick developed
something called the “entitlement theory” which (as I only discovered several weeks
after my finals) isn’t as boring as it sounds.
In practice, entitlement theory means that (and I paraphrase here):
all-round *!?@#!% *!@#ness of English football is the vast sums of dosh earned by
the numpties who are lucky enough to get to play or coach the game professionally.
It’s almost impossible to stagger along an English street these days without hearing
somebody say, “It is my estimation that footballers are grotesquely overpaid in real
term net earning gross factor income factors and blow all the money on call girls who
they also married.”
Personally, I don’t subscribe to this argument (if, indeed, it is an argument). Not to
stray from the point, but many years ago, at university, I became a big fan of the
political theories of a tall, distinguished Harvard philosopher named Robert Nozick (I
even went so far as to pin a picture of Nozick on the wall of my digs, hidden somewhere
underneath a giant poster of Christie Brinkley bending over a red Ferrari).
Nozick, for those of you who couldn’t give a fig about political theory, is famous for
being the only academic in the whole history of academia to – I swear this is true –
defend capitalism. With his silver fox hair and snazzy white suit, Nozick developed
something called the “entitlement theory” which (as I only discovered several weeks
after my finals) isn’t as boring as it sounds.
In practice, entitlement theory means that (and I paraphrase here):
So we can now see why, thanks to my sophisticated knowledge of entitlement theory, I
find it intellectually impossible to condemn footballers for being paid almost as much
each week as the kind of people who mistakenly went to Oxford to study the theories of
philosophers called Robert Nozick accumulated in student debts they have no hope of
ever paying off.
What I am saying, in shorts, is that I don’t think English football is so *!?@#!% *!@#
because its thicky practitioners are paid too much. No, I think English football is so
*!?@#!% *!@# because its thicky practitioners are, not to put too fine a point on it,
crap.
Now, at this stage you’re probably thinking, “Lord above! Did I really read 13 paragraphs
of this article to be told that?” But before you embark on a google search for a more
sophisticated analysis, please allow me one more paragraph (not this one) to elegantly
justify my diagnosis, using long scientific sounding words.
It’s astonishing how nobody but me, in this article, above, ever tells the truth about
English football. You’ve probably noticed how most sports require professionals to
actually be able to execute certain fundamentals, like throwing, catching, facebusting,
etcetera. But in football, you can still get paid £250,000 per week and have ordinary
citizens walk around with your name plastered on their necklines even if you are unable
to do things like
So the problem with football is not too much money, but muppet players of whom
nothing even remotely able-bodied is demanded. Now let’s move on to a bitter whinge
about national decline.
It has long been my contention that the biggest problem with English football is the
unavoidable Britishness of it. I say this not as a man who readily indulges in bouts of
postcolonial self-loathing, but as a man who got stuck on the Piccadilly Line for two
hours last night.
As I wrote during the World Cup Finals in Germany last year:
find it intellectually impossible to condemn footballers for being paid almost as much
each week as the kind of people who mistakenly went to Oxford to study the theories of
philosophers called Robert Nozick accumulated in student debts they have no hope of
ever paying off.
What I am saying, in shorts, is that I don’t think English football is so *!?@#!% *!@#
because its thicky practitioners are paid too much. No, I think English football is so
*!?@#!% *!@# because its thicky practitioners are, not to put too fine a point on it,
crap.
Now, at this stage you’re probably thinking, “Lord above! Did I really read 13 paragraphs
of this article to be told that?” But before you embark on a google search for a more
sophisticated analysis, please allow me one more paragraph (not this one) to elegantly
justify my diagnosis, using long scientific sounding words.
It’s astonishing how nobody but me, in this article, above, ever tells the truth about
English football. You’ve probably noticed how most sports require professionals to
actually be able to execute certain fundamentals, like throwing, catching, facebusting,
etcetera. But in football, you can still get paid £250,000 per week and have ordinary
citizens walk around with your name plastered on their necklines even if you are unable
to do things like
- Control a football
- Shoot a football on target towards a goal that is 7.32 metres wide and 2.44
metres high - Not trip over your own feet
- Take a shower without shattering your metatarsals
So the problem with football is not too much money, but muppet players of whom
nothing even remotely able-bodied is demanded. Now let’s move on to a bitter whinge
about national decline.
It has long been my contention that the biggest problem with English football is the
unavoidable Britishness of it. I say this not as a man who readily indulges in bouts of
postcolonial self-loathing, but as a man who got stuck on the Piccadilly Line for two
hours last night.
As I wrote during the World Cup Finals in Germany last year:
If some foetus-look-alike in an official merchandise replica England shirt is
freely willing to fork out £600 to watch the meatballs in the England
football team play like paralympians [D1], then those meatballs in the
England football team deserve to have shopaholic WAGs spend all that
money on Dolce & Gabbana handbags [D2].
Therefore: D1 + D2 = D&G.
freely willing to fork out £600 to watch the meatballs in the England
football team play like paralympians [D1], then those meatballs in the
England football team deserve to have shopaholic WAGs spend all that
money on Dolce & Gabbana handbags [D2].
Therefore: D1 + D2 = D&G.
|
OK, so after Wednesday’s pitiful drubbing at the hands of the Croats, scrap that stuff
about how “England fights like a bulldog.” But the rest of it is all still true. And to update
it: I now believe that English football is in fact only the sporting reflection of the London
Underground (I bet you never read that anywhere before – ha!).
Note the parallels between the state of English football and my journey home last night.
So, to conclude, English football is so *!?@#!% *!@# because so is everything else, all
of which we should blame firmly on the policies of supermoronic Mayor of London, Ken
Livingstone. England’s loss to Croatia was, after all, played at Wembley Stadium, the so-
called “home of football,” which not only has a pitch that belongs somewhere in the
Everglades, but took eight years and £8 bajillion squillion gazillion to build.
Most other countries – none of whom has the word “Great” in their title – can knock up
state-of-the-art sci-fi stadiums with bowling green pitches for a few mill in a few months.
Find out why “the home of football” took so long and cost so much to build and you will
find the answer to why English football – and just about everything else British – is so
*!?@#!% *!@#.
I assure you I’ll have more to say on this some other time, but right now I’m sorry to
inform you that I have a Tube to catch.
© lizardmagazine.com, 2007
ALSO SEE
about how “England fights like a bulldog.” But the rest of it is all still true. And to update
it: I now believe that English football is in fact only the sporting reflection of the London
Underground (I bet you never read that anywhere before – ha!).
Note the parallels between the state of English football and my journey home last night.
- The miserable experience of crowding together with smelly members of the public
cost me a fortune (more than any other similar system in the world, almost all of
which are far superior). - There was surprisingly little British talent on display in any of the key positions.
- As I thought seriously about indulging in hooliganism, I kept getting told that the
Piccadilly Line was running “a good service”. - Meanwhile, the hyped-up, hysterical literature we were provided with kept insisting
London was “the greatest city in the world” as it pushed into our faces giant colour
photos of talent-challenged, blinged-up celebs out on all night drinking sessions. - I kept hearing the ludicrously overpaid tube drivers bleating into their mobile
phones about what they were “gonna do later,” as if their personal lives were more
important than the job they were paid to do. - Lots of other things that are too maddening to mention and besides I already made
5 killer points.
So, to conclude, English football is so *!?@#!% *!@# because so is everything else, all
of which we should blame firmly on the policies of supermoronic Mayor of London, Ken
Livingstone. England’s loss to Croatia was, after all, played at Wembley Stadium, the so-
called “home of football,” which not only has a pitch that belongs somewhere in the
Everglades, but took eight years and £8 bajillion squillion gazillion to build.
Most other countries – none of whom has the word “Great” in their title – can knock up
state-of-the-art sci-fi stadiums with bowling green pitches for a few mill in a few months.
Find out why “the home of football” took so long and cost so much to build and you will
find the answer to why English football – and just about everything else British – is so
*!?@#!% *!@#.
I assure you I’ll have more to say on this some other time, but right now I’m sorry to
inform you that I have a Tube to catch.
© lizardmagazine.com, 2007
ALSO SEE
National football teams have an uncanny ability to confirm national stereotypes.
Brazilians play carnival football. England fights like a bulldog. Germany is a well-
oiled machine. African teams are full of flair but hopeless at defending and
organising themselves. Thank God there’s not a European Union team.
Brazilians play carnival football. England fights like a bulldog. Germany is a well-
oiled machine. African teams are full of flair but hopeless at defending and
organising themselves. Thank God there’s not a European Union team.