So, we’re out at last

On past evidence I was pretty sure we were not going to make it to the finals of the current European championships (Euro 2004), and last night, if you hadn’t heard already, the English team were knocked out in the quarter-finals over a “penalty”. (For Americans, that means a one-on-one goal kick, which is used after the game itself fails to produce a winner.) To tell you all the truth, I haven’t watched any of the matches but after hearing my dad and sister shout at the telly during the France game (while I was in the next room), and the hooliganism which followed, I was hoping we got knocked out as soon as possible as it reminded me of everything I hate about football: everyone getting worked up about something which they cannot control, however loud they shout at the TV and/or at people in a country perhaps 2,000 miles away, and which won’t make any difference in their lives if we win anyway. During the next game, I found myself in Croydon where there had been serious trouble after the France game, so I changed my mind.

I wrote about my objections to football in an earlier post, but one thing I notice about football is that the countries most famous for their football are often countries with terrible poverty and with slums: France, Brazil, Argentina. British “local” teams can afford to buy players from abroad to make up the shortfall in its own talent, so when we play foreign teams, we play our own teams’ best players. The fact is that winning a football game does not mean that the winners have a better country. Portugal still has military conscription and one of its best known exports is its workers. As for France, it has notorious slums where gang rape is used as a means of social control, and has become well-known lately for attacking schoolgirls as part of its ongoing grudge against the Algerians. The fact is, I don’t care who wins the football. If losing a match means we stop shouting “come on England” and focus on ways of making our country better, so be it.