Why I hate football.......

[cm_qs]

Having gone off on a fatigue-fuelled rant last night about why I love golf, I have decided to devote tonights diatribe to why I bloody hate football

I should clarify at this point that it is not the sport itself that I dislike. I totally understand why people want to play football and even watch it. It's the whole culture that goes along with it I can't stand.

I work in the construction industry and subsequently spend the vast majority of my working week in a manky portacabin in almost exclusively male company ...... and all anybody ever talks about is "the fitba" I drive home from work and all I can get on the radio is the football phone in. Open any tabloid newspaper and, even on a day of the week where there are no actual football matches to report on, there are more pages devoted to it than any other subject.

It's so tribal. A substitute for primeval battles with the opposing village and I just don't get it
Clearly I must be more of a lone wolf type.
What I hate most about it though is that it brings out the absolute worst in people. You never hear on the news of Formula 1 riots or ping-pong violence. The Tiger Woods firm has never ambushed the Harrington casuals outside Carnoustie railway station.
You can go to a Scotland - England rugby international and the fans all sit together and drink beer. Try that at Wembley and see what happens.

What really annoys me more than anything else though is that if you don't like football then you are treated as though you are some sort of freak who's only just landed from another planet. Maybe that's just a Glasgow thing, I truly don't know.

So, my question to the forum is - am I a weirdo?

(not generally, just about the football thing )

 

[John_Findlay]

Nope Craig. You've just seen the light!

Have gone off the game bigtime over the last couple of years. Never look at the last 10 pages of any newspaper anymore...why would this interest anyone?

Same old same old every bloody day. Bunch of overpaid neds, thugs and deviants play the game and Sky and Setanta overcook the pudding by showing us Hereford v Nobody 4 times a day. Didn't even watch the Old Firm game the other day...used to be a must watch.

Glad golf is our national sport!

 

[viscount17]

sort of vaguely support Chelsea (because my Dad's cousin played for them once upon a time) and have a vague liking for Pompey but other than England games I never watch or follow football. It's just so bl**dy boring - or it's just the way it's played (so watching England must be a masochistic streak coming out).

this year in particular was terrible. not content with a 'season' that runs from August to May, we then had Euro thingy plus the neverending who's buying who. I don't care.

vote for a change? football season 1 Nov to 31 March - then shut up.

 

[TonyN]

So, my question to the forum is - am I a weirdo?

(not generally, just about the football thing )

Yes, Yes you are

Actually when you put it how you have, I wonder why it has such a following. But your reference to thugs is a minority (just like get in da hole)

I was brought up on football, My church was my football club, the collection plate was for my subs and my bible was the white board in the changing room.

We aint all idiots, and most of us enjoy the game as it should be enjoyed, with friends and family with all the banter, a bit of mickey taking when ya rivals get beat by bottom of the league or stuffed by your own side.

I am a united supporter, my best mate supports liverpool, ther is hardly a bigger rivalry in the game, yet we always watch the game together, infact come match day, our local is usually half red half....red and there is never any trouble, lots of banter yes.

What I do agree with is the way the game is developing is getting out of control but i dont want to get started on that subject.

If I want to forget about football politics, I just pop down the park and watch the local leagues, nothin as good a a magic sponge and a box of oranges to remind you where you come from!

 

[madandra]

Caig, I have converted to Radio Two of an evening and love Chris Evans talking me home. (5-7pm)

 

[DCB]

"I have converted to Radio Two of an evening and love Chris Evans talking me home. (5-7pm) "

5-7pm

You working late these days !

 

[USER1999]

Now I am not a big football fan in general, just an Arsenal fan. I would watch Arsenal play Borehamwood (pre season friendly), but wouldn't turn on the box for Chelsea / Manchester.

Internationals are a complete waste of time. The standard of footy on show is abysmal. (the players may be the same, but as a team, it just doesn't work).

The transfer system is ridiculous, the hype is too much, the players are dull, the salaries are daft, the tv coverage is too much (although I still want a red button interactive that lets me watch Arse, instead of not watching some other team I don't care about, the cameras are there for motd, so let me chose the match I want to watch live).

The season is too long.

Why do we need a monday prem game, Tuesday CL, Wednesday CL, Thursday UEFA, Friday prem game, Saturday 12.15 game and 5.30 game (while not being allowed to watch the 3.00 game, and then at least 2 games on sunday. Too much, way too much. Let me choose what I want to watch, and put it all on simultaneously.

With the AbuDhabi connection, the hype is going to get even more unbearable, the transfer fees astronomic, the salaries stratospheric, etc.

Oddly, I will watch almost any team play rugby, because I like the game.

 

[haplesshacker]

I think one in four Sunday League gamnes are played without a ref because no-one want to be a ref because of the abuse they get from the players. What makes these pre-madonna wannabe, talentless thugs tick? It's an appauling example to set to their children, but they probably don't care, and their kids will end up the same.

As for encouraging my son to play football, I'll avoid it if I can. With yacht racing and golf, you learn alot about self discipline, self governing regarding the rules, a fair sense of play, manners, ettiquete, dressing suitably for the sport, respect for other competitors, and your surroundings. I do not want my son growing up thinking that being aggresive, rude, foul tempered and cheating is the way to behave in sport, let alone life.

I used to get alot of stick at school for not being into football, and I used to be called all sorts of things for my dinghy racing, snob etc. However, with the price of season tickets, football kit, football boots, mugs and all other parafinalia, golf looks quite a 'cheap' option. Certainly it cost me (my parents) less to go dinghy racing in my £300 boat, than it did for some of the footie kids and all their stuff. Go figure about me being the rich snob.

It just goes to prove that it's not about the money but traditional 'class' values. Football is for the lower classes, and golf, sailing, horse riding extra are for the middle and upper classes. I'm not saying that the last statement is exclusive, but it's the perception of what classes our sports fit into. What's amuzing it's these dense footie types that think we're snobs, but it costs me less to play golf than a season ticket at Portsmouth would cost.

Incidently, how many pro footballers play golf or have gin palace boats etc?

I admire raw talent and skill in any sport, but with football I'm afraid that it's fans / ameaters have ruined it and their short sighted, stupid logic, and appauling behaviour.

Go ahead, flame me! Popcorn at the ready!

 

[HTL]

Cant stand football, have worked for a football team for over two years and am yet to watch a full game.

One of my biggest grips is the way they dive about, I would feel such a knob doing it, they really need to grow some kahunas!!

I like watching the fat boys roll about in the mud blood and guts on show and wearing their heart on there sleeve.

 

[Imurg]

They're all a bunch of overpaid Jessies with vastly overinflated egos and brains the size of Dunlop 65!!!

And now even Man City have the cash to splash, it becomes even more about how much you've got. The England team is going to get even worse - give it couple of years and most of the team will come from the Championship caz the Premieship will be full of Spanish,germans,etc etc

Can't be bothered with it anymore................

 

[Atticus_Finch]

I hope to god that Man City win the European Cup.
I can't wait for The Stone Roses reunion tour.

 

[andiritchie]

ita all money now a little club like my wigan has little chance of doing anything losing interest

I a massive england fan but end up fustrated after every game if it was not raining today i would be out on the course kick off time for some quiet golf instead of watch the overpaid england under perform against a pub side

 

[madandra]

I was a season ticket holder at Fir Park (Motherwell) for 23 years and chucked it when Ged Brannan (a really good midfielder) chose to eff off in January to play for The British Virgin Islands instead of fighting for our survival with the rest of the lads. That season we had John Spencer, Andy Goram and Sasa Illic and together they got more lolly in a week than I was getting in TWO years so I decided to stop financing the cancer that is killing this beautiful game which is greedy players and agents. I am all for players getting well paid but why do guys on minimum wage flock to football grounds every week and hand these arrogant self centred unapprochable erse holes their hard earned cash? Could you imagine what the players would be saying if they were asked to take a wage cut to help reduce the ticket price for the punters??? They would implode !!!!!!!

I must add that if we had 11 Don Goodmans I would still be there shouting on the team as he gave 100% every time he stepped onto the grass.

 

[GB72]

I can tolerate football and will watch a game if nothing else is on but to me it is nothing compared to rugby. I find the atmosphere at football grounds oppressive and threatening. Compare that to last week when my nephew was the mascot at the Leicester Tigers. He had a player designated to look after him (the injured Lewis Moody) and met all of the team before and after the game (all of whom were happy to sign what he wanted). He even received an email apology from the team captain because it was his first game as captain and he forgot to hold his hand on the way out onto the pitch. If this were football, could you imagine an England international spending his Saturday looking after a kid or a team captain personally sending an apology email because he forgot to hold the kids hand. Add to that the fact that my whole family were made to feel welcome in the stands with no loutish behaviour and very little swearing and you can see why rugby is the game for me. All of this coupled with the fact that I can have a beer in the stands and banter with the oppostion supporters.

 

[OldWindy]

Despite being a die-hard rugby fan, I will watch football but like most I can't reconcile with the circus around it. Everyone wants a piece of the action/money generated by the sport, in particular the players - it's killing the game and the passion in one go.

The majority of fans appear to be suckers for this and willingly hand over way too much loot - and what for? Overrated players, cheating, disrespect and thuggery (to name a few). Why? Search me, but you can't truly love the game if you support any of the above.

The other thing is at an international level we're sh1te (all home countries). The game just doesn't meet expectations any more. Boring.

 

[Ken_A]

I was never much of a fan - I watch some big matches, cinals and world cup etc. But I hate the cheating b+++++ds who get paid 4 years salary for one week then just fall over when someone runs towards them.

The diving and overacting really grts on my tits. I also think if you give the ref jip you should get sent off - the players need to respect the ref - even if he has made a bad decision.

 

[USER1999]

The diving is one thing (among others) that really grates with footy. In rugby, a player who is 5m from the line is next to impossible to bring down, with 5 players hanging off him, in footy, a player in the box falls over at he flick of a finger. How the heck. Yellow card minimum.

 

[Wildrover]

The reason you can't escape from football is because it is POPULAR!!! If Egg Chasing (Rugby) was as good a game then that would get the coverage, but it isn't so it doesn't!!!

Football is the world's game, wherever you go people play football and know all the teams and players. 22 years going round the world in the RN shows you how popular it is. Everywhere you go the ship will play a football match against a local team, occasionally you will get a Rugby match if there is an ex-pats team there, assuming there are enough people on the ship interested enough to scrape 15 players together.

If you don't like football then don't watch it, I can't stand Rugby so guess what, I don't watch it! You also can't read the papers for all the latest soaps gossip, I don't watch them so I don't read it.

Whatever your feeling is about football though you cannot deny it is the number one sport in the world so it is only natural that it receives the greatest coverage.

Just for info I do not support a glamour team from the premiership either, I'm a life long Donny Rovers fan!!!

ROVERS 'TIL I DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[EchtLoon]

If you don't like football then don't watch it, I can't stand Rugby so guess what, I don't watch it! You also can't read the papers for all the latest soaps gossip, I don't watch them so I don't read it.

QFT

.....although even I have to admit to putting my SKY Sports sub back this year, the constant hype over the EPL to the exclusion of all else finally wore me down. When there's a game I want to watch now I'll head to the pub.

 

[Herbie]

I played football in the army even playing against some league teams in germany and when I left for a time I played in a local club, then occasionally in sunday league up till I was about 45.Football is a great sport and I love to watch the best of it but I have to agree with many of the comments about football culture and other aspects of the game. It has become pretty grotesque these days.It has without doubt got bigger than its boots lol and is no longer the thrill and pleasure it used to be for me.