Oh lordy the football season has started

I see there is football on ITV and football on BBC tonight.  That  will get most people reaching for the remotes and turning the television off.  The strange thing is that we are in mid-August and the Premier League hasn’t even kicked off.  And there is the small matter of the Ashes still to be decided.

 

I have to admit that I have very little time for football.  Largely because the team I support went belly up and sold out to an individual who prefers not to be photographed and now runs a community football  club as an offshore investment.  Call me old-fashioned but I don’t think that is what sport is all about.

 

Call me even more old-fashioned, but I was intrigued to see that the club’s slightly unhinged high-profile manager was saying in his press conference that one of the opposition goals should have been prevented as the striker’s head was so low “somebody should have put their foot through it”.

 

The ironic thing about this public endorsement of murder as a legitimate footballing tactic is that it happened shortly after a prolonged bout of public support for Bobby Robson.  Robson left Ipswich more than 25 years ago – but his legacy of fair play seems long forgotten by the people nominally in charge of the club.

 

Ipswich played in the League Cup last night.  And as is the vogue didn’t bother to play their first team.  It must be funny when you are hosting a bigger team and they insult you and your supporters by playing the reserves.  The funny thing is that Ipswich have some really good young players – and one sixteen year old gave more than a glimpse of his promise with two goals. 

 

But the question is why play him in cup games where both teams are apparently trying to lose.  Why not dispense with the fad for buying mercenary after mercenary with a revolving door transfer policy and try and build a football club instead?  Already Whickham’s reward is to see a journeyman signed who apparently hasn’t scored for two years.

 

So all-consuming has money become that you wonder why teams even bother to play any more.  Why not share out the money and have a penalty shoot out to save actually playing.  This could be marketed as a more spectator-friendly version of the game with more goals.   If teams had 20 penalties each it could be called 20:20.