Everyone excited?

It is the 16th of August, and on Saturday the ‘big kick off’ happens when league football in all its forms awakes from its summer slumber. Only it has had barely twenty winks, what with the European Championships and then the Olympic tournament. There really has been little time to draw breath, and the question asked on the front page of WSC was, are we excited?

Well, we’re, or certainly I’m, not. And in the glowing wake of the Olympic Games which has just finished in that London. You may have seen it on the TV at times, and some news broadcasts did cover it too.

Anyway, my point is that thousands of Olympic competitors participated in sports that are not professional and do not receive government funding, and yet go out training every day for hours on end, with nothing at stake that to pit oneself against others from around the world who are in the same boat. Many of them are sailors so they are in the same, but different boats, otherwise it wouldn’t really be a sport.

Anyway, rowers, kayakers, sailors, shooters and all the other unglamorous sports just turned up and did their best, and for the most part these sports took place in front of packed stands, packed with people who did not know the first thing about those sports, but a gold medal was at stake. And the crowds cheered, and the winners shed tears of joy and apologised to their families for the long hours they had been doing training when they should have been with their families, being a child, father or mother. But loved their sports so much, they did that, training long, lonely hours to win a gold medal.

There were professional sports that took part in the Games; tennis, even athletics and football. The footballers who took part will have gone back to their clubs, trained some more and got on with earning more money. Those from non-professional sports went back to their semi-detached lives, and got back into training after a break. And seeing the commitment of those true amateurs really show up in stark of starkest contrast the professionalism of the footballers, some of whom earn £200,000 or more per week, and think nothing of throwing themselves to the ground during a challenge, feign injury, trip of a player whose skill has gained an advantage.

I know how fake and so far removed from the game I fell in love with, I told myself I still care about the game, and the modern version has just evolved. But in truth, it’s a cold, horrible and ultimately greedy game that coverts money and fans with money, and ignores those who cannot afford £50 to watch a game or the £30 a month for Sky. I will not support those prima-donnas no more, not even with my team about to begin a second season in the Premier League. I will watch Match of the Day, and there is Football League games on BBC, but that is it. I won’t pay a penny into this game no more. On Sundays I will not rush home to watch the early kick off, nor sit there all afternoon for the second game.

On occasion I feel like I might give in and call Sky, but I tell myself that £30 is better spent on a ticket to London once a month to visit the museums and sights, rather than spend it on a game that rewards such shallow values and rewards a lifetime of support by out-pricing those that cannot afford to go and watch.