Saturday 12 June 2010

The Great Debate

Well, all the talking is over and the battle for a trinket the size of a pot plant has started in Africa. Thirty two nations, some playing entertaining football, some playing measured football, some playing dull football are taking part in the quadrennial festival of football that enlivens my TV screen. Most of the time I don't really give a rats-ass about England 's (or to be more accurate Eng-er-lund's) fortunes in these competitions. The hype and hyperbole are wearing and misplaced, I'm of an age whereby I can still remember the racist connotations of a number of those who follow Eng-er-lund and the horror of riots at various competitions in the past.

So some time ago (I think after England drew with Poland and failed to qualify for in 1974 World Cup) I decided that I'd much prefer watching Newcastle V Carlise rather than England v USA... Simply, I cared more about the former rather than the later. Occasionally I have been sucked into the joy of supporting the country of my birth, but on the whole I've been a passive observer.

That said, there always used to be a horror when watching England... Which Newcastle player would get injured and therefore miss the start/middle/whole (delete as appropriate) of the next season? Shearer, Lee, and most notably England's Michael Owen all fell pray to the same set of worries, and they were usually lived up to.

For the South African World Cup, its very different. Not a Newcastle player within a beery breath of the squad, now no worries there. But, its replaced by a different one. Enter, stage left a mercurial winger, wearer of the black and white stripes and the finest Spiderman since Tobey Maguire...Jonas Gutierrez. Not for one moment do I think that he's likely to get injured (he falls over far too easily to get hurt by anyone) but my concern is that if he has a storming world cup he'll have his head turned by a more glamorous team - like Everton or Wigan and he'll leave the bright lights of the North East for pastures new. Equally I don't want him to have such a rubbish world cup that he comes back completely demoralised...

My internal debate rages on....

1 comment:

MaryKwizMiz said...

just back from watching wor Spidey putting himself about quite a bit. right-back he ain't though (silly Diego. didn't fall over nearly as much as a winger though and got a fw tackles (and a yellow) in himself.
and celebrated nicely. Go Spidey! ..but stay with us.