Falling out of love with football

Schurrle curls a perfect cross from the left, the baby faced Goetze brings it down on his chest and sets up an instinctive drive past the keeper to make the net bulge! Yes, I cry (the first time ever for a German goal) what a goal. My pleasure is an odd mix of delight at a wonderful bit of football and a sizeable element of relief that this 2014 world cup was not about to be settled by a mindless media frenzied penalty shoot out. A headline today reads 'A goal worthy of winning a world cup' but I am thinking, 'a goal that just showed us what we have been missing'.

Maybe I am just a grumpy old man in the making, maybe just hard to please, but I am increasingly seeing my love of football as an addiction to a bad drug. Sure there a highs that keep you coming back for more, but the lows are increasing lower and longer and I have the feeling the drug is being increasingly cut with all kinds of crap with nasty side effects and peddled by ever dodgier dealers.

OK, I admit I am a Manchester United fan from the south of England and I know there are many out there who will stop reading on the strength of that admission, but I have my story, just like everybody else and have been gripped by football for nearly 4 decades. I've been there at all of England and Manchester United highs and lows along with those of my adopted countries France (home) and Holland (wife and in laws). I remember the details, the ins and outs and crucial moments and I have felt and worn those emotions as much as any other fan. I read the football gossip daily, fully engrossed in the drama, the soap opera that football has become. I watch when ever I can, I follow games on my phone when I cant, I am truly addicted to football.

But.... this world cup has been an epiphany for me. As pundits and commentators everywhere hail it as true triumph, I am somehow beginning to see through it all and see it for what it is. The group stages were definitely more exciting than the latter stages, but it struck me that everyone was so excited because there were actually some good games in there. I reckon I have to watch 10 games of football before I see a good one. I even paid 100 euros to watch Barcelona in a scoreless draw at the Nou Camp last year. Of course I can see that the tactical, attritional battles that are low on flare can be high on merit and skill, but so, I imagine, are the meetings where hi flying businesses strike important deals, but I just dont want to watch them! Would we stand for it at the theatre? 10 plays before you see a good one? Books, restaurants, concerts and many more forms of entertainment would not survive at that rate. Aside from all the antics of overpaid spoilt idiots (lets not even go there) they have nothing to do all day except practice and yet still they blaze over the bar or miss the target by a mile so much more often than they get near it. They can all pull off incredible juggling acts with the ball, but we so seldom see them on the pitch. How many corners do you have to watch before something interesting happens, let a lone an actual goal. Referees (and I sympathise) haven't got a chance because the cheating is so rife and blatant, they struggle to know who to punish and when. Awful cynical fouls go unpunished, others that never were, change matches. Luis Suarez becomes the pantomime villain, banned for months and then bought for 75 million. Neymar gets his back broken and apparently that was OK (imagine the implications of FIFA declaring that tackle a problem). Sure it has always been a physical game but all the tactical pushing and shoving is just boring and often blatant cheating. Journalists, by and large, have capitulated to this black and white world of sensationalist headlines. I am sure that many of them have two totally different articles at the ready incase of a last minute twist. I cant even watch much of it anymore with paying disproportionate subscription fees. Managers, agents, owners, sponsors, advertisers, they are living on a different planet with no sense of proportion or reality. We've made heroes of idiots, billionaires out of millionaires. AT the top of the heap we have Sepp Blatter's FIFA running the show - say no more. Sure the drug looks good, flashy, full of promise, but the reality is generally disappointing and the hangovers unpleasant.

I dont know the reason why all this is so and I cant offer solutions. Maybe others just think I have indeed 'fallen out of love with football' but I cant escape the feeling that I am the frog that jumped in to cold water and had it slowly heated up so I didn't notice it boiling. I am hooked but way past the best part of addiction. Wonder if it is just me? I wonder if I'll ever kick the habit.......

A New Millenium

Welcome to the year 2K! I am Jim Noble and this the first post in my 21 st century Diary. I had the pleasure of seeing in the new year in Henrik Ido Ambacht, just south of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. It is my first New Years in Holland and without doubt unlike any I have ever seen. I have been in some big places with lots of people, been to some wild parties, been in some great pubs, been spectacularly drunk and have seen spectacular fireworks over Sydney Harbour bridge a few times but Never anything like this. The Dutch have always amused me with their curious mix of civilised and loony. I suppose we spent most of the evening sat in a couple of different living rooms eating and drinking and having a chat and so it was by no means wild, but at midnight, all hell broke loose. As those of you that have experienced it will know, midnight (and in fact before hand and for a couple of hours aftwerwards its a firework free for all. Everyone is in the street letting off their own fireworks from wine bottles. Its like a war zone (I am grateful to not really be able to say that I suppose) Lights flashing and banging everywhere. At one point one shot along the ground, obviously from a fallen wine bottle. I must confess to being a little scared. Anyone in my immediate family will know I have a history of being scared by firework displays, mistaking them for midnight invasions. We spent the evening with our good friends Wendy and Ercan, Wendy and my wife, Lianne, go way back and I have always been welcomed by her family of friends. After a toast or two, we braved the battlefields to walk to Wendy's mums place where we sat down again in a civilised circle round another table full of food and drink. The bitte balle are my favoutrite, dipped in mustard! I suppose in years to come it might seem quite rock'n'roll that I started the new millenium with my head down the toilet and I suppose it is an equally auspicious beginning to this diary! I guess it was a bad cocktail for bitte ballen, wine, beer and champagne. At 27 years old I have done a fair bit of drinking, but reckon my binging days are over!

This year I am getting married! 2 weeks ago, I surprised my now 'fiance' on a Saturday morning by fetching the post and included was a reservation at the Charingworth Manor hotel in nearby Chipping Campden (we dont live in Holland anymore, we are just visiting). I explained that I just wanted to take her away somewhere nice for the weekend. We drove up, had lunch in a pub and then checked in to the hotel and as we had just finished dressing for dinner I ordered a bottle of bubbles for our room and got down on one knee and asked Cornelia Johanna De Graaf to marry me as I offered her a ring. She said yes of course and we kissed and drank! I definitely surprised her. The only person that knew was my new friend Alison who helped me understand about engagement rings! A slightly misty eyed dinner followed and then, would you believe it, we looked outside to notice that the estate was covered in a blanket of fresh snow. You cant write this stuff can you. We changed and went out for a roll in the snow, threw snowballs and made angels. Snow is like a drug for me (and no I dont mean cocaine) Just plain old snow. This was a very happy evening indeed!

Anyway, here we are in the year 2000. I have just started my first job as a secondary maths teacher at Bartholomew School in Eynsham, I have just become engaged to the lovely Lianne, we live in an amazing 300 - 400 year old terraced cottage in the middle of Witney on the edge of the cotswolds. The world has apparently survived the millenium bug and I wonder what the new century holds for it. I want to write this diary in part to chronicle my own life and those of my family and friends and partly to chronicle the 21 st century as I see it! Who knows, someday it might make a good read! For now I think I need some more paracetamol and something to eat! Pictures to follow.....