Boring, boring ...

It’s ages since I watched a game of football, and I suspect if I asked you to guess which one, you wouldn’t get it. It was, in fact, the first 85 minutes of the second leg of the Chelsea-Barcelona affair. There was a film starting at 9.30 on another channel and I hate missing the start of films. Besides, after Chelsea had failed to capitalise on their dominance (and the referee had made a series of bizarre decisions) I just knew that Barcelona would sneak it at the end so I turned over in disgust.

After that, I didn’t watch any more games for the rest of the season. No Premier League or other divisions, including the usually exciting play-off finals or Newcastle United’s compelling car crash of a season finale. No UEFA Cup final, FA Cup final or even the Champions League final.

The reasons are varied. Sunderlandnil rarely play live anyway and I’m not a Newcastle fan, or for that matter a supporter of any of the play-off teams, so I didn’t watch the domestic games. I never really watch the UEFA Cup final anyway unless there’s a British club playing; I’m certainly not interested in German teams or Ukrainian teams, and to be honest I can’t actually remember who exactly played in this year’s final. I was in Galway for the Ocean Volvo Race on Cup Final day, and I have to say that it was spectacularly good in every way, much better than 99% of football matches, so I was never going to waste such amazing weather sat in a sweaty pub.

As for the CL final, I watched a Russell Crowe film on DVD (“A good year” – not bad, especially with a good red in your hand). Again, I had a sneaking suspicion that Barcelona would win and the thought disgusted me to the extent that I couldn’t bring myself to watch. However, there was another reason much more fundamental than my dislike of that awful club, and it was the same reason that made me look for alternatives for all those other games too.

I was bored to tears of bloody football.

I can still remember intense feelings from my childhood – running onto the grass at Carr Lane Rec with my first ever pair of football boots and a composite ball in school PE lessons, or taking a brand new football out in thick snow and playing anyway. I can recall with perfect clarity being allowed to take the radio to bed if there were midweek games past my bedtime and listening to exotic names like Gothenburg and Besiktas, and I remember all those FA Cup final days and my mother draping coloured ribbons over the TV set for one team or the other. And I can remember oh so keenly the excitement that would build up before every England game.

Those feelings disappeared long ago, not just because I’m touching forty but because football isn’t the same as it used to be. Yes, I know, the world moves on and life changes and certain things stay in childhood so they can be cherished even more, but it doesn’t alter the fact that I don’t like the way football has gone. Television – and television money – has taken football away from one type of fans and given it to another. And while I have absolutely nothing in common with those fans, I can’t claim that it is necessarily their fault.

Quite simply, there is too much football. There are live games seven days a week, with four of five games some days, and the news programmes and the newspapers and the internet are constantly bombarding us with more information that we don’t really need or want. On top of that, any prick can just start up a football blog and think the world really gives a damn what he thinks!

I remember one time I went to my local Irish pub in the centre of Madrid for a full Irish and a read of the Saturday paper. I got there at lunchtime – obviously a perfectly respectable time to be having breakfast – and sat in front of the 12.45 (UK time) game. Then I stayed to watch the 3 o’clock game. Then I decided I’d order some chips and dips and catch the 5.15 game too. Before that had even finished the Spanish games started, one at eight o’clock (their time) and another at ten. This football marathon finished at midnight. Twelve hours and five games of football after going into the pub I fell out into the street feeling like I’d eaten the entire contents of Willy Wonka’s factory. It had nothing to do with alcohol because I hardly drink – I was just sick of football.

That was towards the end of 2004, but I have to say that the problem had already been going on for some time. Funnily enough, I never tired of Spanish football, only the English game, and since moving to Ireland and it’s been getting steadily worse. So last season, come the business end of things, I was bored silly with the stupid game, the know-alls, the pundits and most especially the constant, never-ending, unavoidable, Orwellian coverage.

The result is that I’ve not watched a game since the 6th of May, and right now I am not feeling that pre-season excitement creeping up on me like I used to years ago. So I’ve decided not to watch any football – if the self-important brain-dead television executives allow me – until there is really something to play for. No pointless summer tournaments, no meaningless opening clashes, no muddy mid-table hoofing and no semi-finals, because next summer is the first African World Cup, and I would really like to enjoy the World Cup like I used to.

There’s another victim of modern football – the World Cup used to be every four years, now it seems like it’s every day.