So it's come to this. After a rip-roaring performance on Monday where I played in the pouring rain like the spirit of Garrincha lost in a puddle, I'm sidelined for my lot's friday kickabout because, like a girl, I went out and bought myself some new boots and they made like a bacon slicer on the backs of my heels. Arse and sod. Still, football's coming back, at least to the telly, in just under 30 hours from this posting, at about five o'clock tomorrow afternoon. Alright so it's only Switzerland vs. Czech Republic, but it does signify at least a fortnight of football at least once a day, which will drive any women in my house completely mental, but I'm bigger than them and I've got the remote, so provided I can drown out the shrieking with the volume button (It's a fucking big telly) I'm in for a fortnight of absolute shouty bliss.
But it might not happen for much longer. Not next time. Not if UEFA get their way.
The meddling cunts have decided that there just aren't enough people making enough money from Euro 2008 because the UK is showing it on free-to-air television. Now I don't see what an organization that is supposed to govern football is doing interfering with television rights, but they're going to take British TV heads to the European Court to make them put the rights up on general sale to be bought up by the for-pay satellite TV companies. This is fucking rediculous. They've evidently sold someone the rights, and if they didn't like the price, they shouldn't have sold. But they did, so they should shut up and stop being such greedy cunts. You could probably say I'm only saying that because I want to be able to watch the stuff for free, but you'd be wrong - I'm fully in agreement with the BBC and ITV, and I've already got Sky Sports.
The thing is, it's a worrying trend that we should have to pay for the football twice. I pay my TV licence and the only thing I really watch on TV is the football. I've not watched a terrestrial channel in months, and Sky is more than worth the money I pay them for the sheer coverage of sport that I enjoy - Football Focus, Friday Fight Night, etc, are all things I watch religiously whenever they're on. I've watched so much banter between Jeff Stelling and co that I almost consider them old mates, and I've ordered every Hatton fight on their Box Office service for as long as I can remember. That's fine. But people who don't have the money to pay out for Sky Sports and Sky Box Office deserve to get their fill of sport as well, out of the TV licence. UEFA say that the Euro 2008 tournament isn't important enough to British interests to fall under the protected charter that says that it can only be shown on free-to-air television here, because we don't have any of our teams at the finals. I disagree. If the average armchair fan can't sit on his sofa and watch every last second of the tournament through a Carling-filled haze, how is he ever going to tell Fabio how to run the team when we have to play you cunts in the future? We might actually have to rely on his expertise, and not that of millions of armchair Football Manager players.
Seriously though, we get precious little on 'free' TV anymore. BskyB and, increasingly, Setanta (every fucking Calzaghe fight ever) are buying up everything worth watching. Football is massively important to this nation, and is probably part of our national identity even more than it is in Brazil. We in Britain truly do eat, sleep and breathe football, regardless of trite adverts for a certain brand of fizzy pop, and it doesn't matter who's playing, we just love watching. With the international makeup of our Premiership as it is, all of us will likely have a star player for our clubs at the tournament; Liverpool have their Fernando Torres, Arsenal their Cesc Fabregas, right through to Portsmouth star Niko Kranjcar and Celtic legend Henrik Larsson. Players their fans want to see do well, and opposing fans want to see do themselves in - I'd consider it a personal low point if Cristiano Ronaldo got punched in the face by a great big Romanian and I wasn't able to see the teeth fly in full high definition clarity.
Not massively important to Britain? Tell that to everyone who'll be sitting down and tuning in from saturday afternoon. After the initial lull, the initial promises that we would never watch football again, let alone Euro 2008, we've picked ourselves up and have been clamouring, ever since the Champions League final ended so dramatically, for the tournament to start? Why? Because football is our first love. Our wives hate it, our daughters don't understand it and our bosses shout porkily at our answering machines as they're left alone in the office to handle that big thing that needed to be done today, but none of it matters. Not even the fact England aren't there matters, because there's football on, and football is in our blood.
Anyway, there was one good story to come out of today's BBC updates. Britain's oldest survivor of World War 1 has turned 112, and fuck me that's old. Henry Allingham, born on this day in 1896, is the last surviving member of the original Royal Air Force, has lived through 6 monarchs and 21 Prime Ministers. He has, somewhat tragically, outlived not only his wife, but his two daughters. He fought at Jutland, Ypres and the Somme, and was awarded medals of high status by not only Britain, but also France, and attributes his longevity to "cigarettes, whisky and wild women". Brilliant. Happy birthday, Henry. You've done all of us proud.
Goodnight.
But it might not happen for much longer. Not next time. Not if UEFA get their way.
The meddling cunts have decided that there just aren't enough people making enough money from Euro 2008 because the UK is showing it on free-to-air television. Now I don't see what an organization that is supposed to govern football is doing interfering with television rights, but they're going to take British TV heads to the European Court to make them put the rights up on general sale to be bought up by the for-pay satellite TV companies. This is fucking rediculous. They've evidently sold someone the rights, and if they didn't like the price, they shouldn't have sold. But they did, so they should shut up and stop being such greedy cunts. You could probably say I'm only saying that because I want to be able to watch the stuff for free, but you'd be wrong - I'm fully in agreement with the BBC and ITV, and I've already got Sky Sports.
The thing is, it's a worrying trend that we should have to pay for the football twice. I pay my TV licence and the only thing I really watch on TV is the football. I've not watched a terrestrial channel in months, and Sky is more than worth the money I pay them for the sheer coverage of sport that I enjoy - Football Focus, Friday Fight Night, etc, are all things I watch religiously whenever they're on. I've watched so much banter between Jeff Stelling and co that I almost consider them old mates, and I've ordered every Hatton fight on their Box Office service for as long as I can remember. That's fine. But people who don't have the money to pay out for Sky Sports and Sky Box Office deserve to get their fill of sport as well, out of the TV licence. UEFA say that the Euro 2008 tournament isn't important enough to British interests to fall under the protected charter that says that it can only be shown on free-to-air television here, because we don't have any of our teams at the finals. I disagree. If the average armchair fan can't sit on his sofa and watch every last second of the tournament through a Carling-filled haze, how is he ever going to tell Fabio how to run the team when we have to play you cunts in the future? We might actually have to rely on his expertise, and not that of millions of armchair Football Manager players.
Seriously though, we get precious little on 'free' TV anymore. BskyB and, increasingly, Setanta (every fucking Calzaghe fight ever) are buying up everything worth watching. Football is massively important to this nation, and is probably part of our national identity even more than it is in Brazil. We in Britain truly do eat, sleep and breathe football, regardless of trite adverts for a certain brand of fizzy pop, and it doesn't matter who's playing, we just love watching. With the international makeup of our Premiership as it is, all of us will likely have a star player for our clubs at the tournament; Liverpool have their Fernando Torres, Arsenal their Cesc Fabregas, right through to Portsmouth star Niko Kranjcar and Celtic legend Henrik Larsson. Players their fans want to see do well, and opposing fans want to see do themselves in - I'd consider it a personal low point if Cristiano Ronaldo got punched in the face by a great big Romanian and I wasn't able to see the teeth fly in full high definition clarity.
Not massively important to Britain? Tell that to everyone who'll be sitting down and tuning in from saturday afternoon. After the initial lull, the initial promises that we would never watch football again, let alone Euro 2008, we've picked ourselves up and have been clamouring, ever since the Champions League final ended so dramatically, for the tournament to start? Why? Because football is our first love. Our wives hate it, our daughters don't understand it and our bosses shout porkily at our answering machines as they're left alone in the office to handle that big thing that needed to be done today, but none of it matters. Not even the fact England aren't there matters, because there's football on, and football is in our blood.
Anyway, there was one good story to come out of today's BBC updates. Britain's oldest survivor of World War 1 has turned 112, and fuck me that's old. Henry Allingham, born on this day in 1896, is the last surviving member of the original Royal Air Force, has lived through 6 monarchs and 21 Prime Ministers. He has, somewhat tragically, outlived not only his wife, but his two daughters. He fought at Jutland, Ypres and the Somme, and was awarded medals of high status by not only Britain, but also France, and attributes his longevity to "cigarettes, whisky and wild women". Brilliant. Happy birthday, Henry. You've done all of us proud.
Goodnight.
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