He's got football pie all down his shirt

My local team, Leyton Orient, are on the cusp of relegation to League Two.  Despite the high falutin' name, League Two is the lowest professional division available to English football teams.  It's the Poundland of the beautiful game.  And it's traditionally a notch below even Orient's modest abilities.

We've been in League Two before of course, but our natural habitat is League One, the middle of League One to be precise.  We tend to get a nosebleed when we stray too close to the promotion places.  We led the division for nearly the entire season last year, and we're still reeling from the trip, which in some way explains our shocking descent to Aunt Sally status this time around.

Relegation this year will, as it always does, cause a schism among the faithful - between those who want heads on platters and the Pollyanna set, who would turn up and cheer even if the team decided to play inside a nuclear reactor.

I have some sympathy for the moaners on this one.  The club has been laughably mismanaged this year, and this has led to lacklustre performances on the pitch.  Also, dropping into League Two means there's no scope for a repeat performance next year.  There's no safety net down there.  If you slip up, you're out of the professional game, and that is unacceptable.

It's true that some Orient supporters thrive on complaining.  You can hear them screaming for the Government to step in and compulsiry purchase the club after back-to-back goalless draws.  But everyone will be in a foul mood next season, myself included.

Fickle Gerkin

Mrs O and I were in central London yesterday for the end of the Tour of Britain bike race.  When I started attending these bashes, about 15 years ago, it was club cyclists only who showed-up.  Then as cycling's profile increase, so did the audience numbers.  The last two or three years have been absolutely mobbed.  Yesterday, however, it was eerily quiet again.

This was a bit of a shock, as the weather was pretty good and there were plenty of star riders present.  I suppose it must be a result of having The Tour in England during the summer.  Going to see The Tour is like going to see Led Zeppelin in the 70s -  everything is bigger, better and louder than anything else you've seen in your life.  All other bike races look like Brother Beyond in comparison.  I imagine people took one look at the riders in British version, and thought "Sod it - I'll go to Ikea instead.  I need a new splashback anyway."

I can sort of understand and empathise with this attitude.  I have a similar distant relationship with football.  I dislike watching football.  At best it's boring and at worst it's torture.  And yet every second Saturday, I delude myself into thinking I seriously intend going along to my local team if they're at home.  Then about 2 o'clock I sober-up decide to waterproof the seams on my tent instead.  And, if I'm honest, it's cheaper and more fun than watching Orient.

You can't choose your family...or your team.

My trouble is I care too much

I'm off to a football match this evening.  That's a rare occurrence for me.  I used to go regularly, not often, but regularly.  But as real life has increasingly encroached upon childish pursuits, I've rather left the beautiful game behind.  This trend was exacerbated by most of my friends moving away from the area we grew up in.

I did go alone once, but it was an horrific experience for all concerned.  I ended-up sitting in the family enclosure, and was surrounded by 12-year-olds and their mothers, all in scarves and rosettes.  In any other circumstance this would present no problems; I'm a polite well brought up sort.  Unfortunately, when it comes to football, the veneer of civility slips away rapidly.  As soon as the referee gets proceedings underway, yours truly starts swearing like a docker - one who's just stubbed his toe on a red-hot javelin.

The reason for this is nerves.  I get really het up at football.  I hate it in all honesty.  It's the one arena in which I do let the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune get to me.  I look upon it as a personal slight when an opposition team of journeymen professionals contrives to beat my beloved Orient.  It's like someone having a pop at your family.

I know this makes me sound like a nutter, but I'm really not.  I wouldn't categorise myself as much of a supporter at all.  I don't slavishly follow the club's news, or pour over match reports.  I don't even really care that much for the game anymore.  I used to, as a boy, but now I've bigger cultural fish to fry.

The reason I can get upset to such an unseemly degree is that for me football is territorial.  The club is a reflection of what and who I am.  That's why I could never support a team with which I had no geographical or cultural link.  What would be the point?

The club is akin to a river for me.  I was brought up on its banks, and so it belongs to me.  I care not a jot for the players in the squad at any given time.  I appreciate what they do for the club, but they are not the club - no more than the water is the river.  The river's quiddity transcends its individual temporary elements.  And that is why I eff and blind all the way through the game.  Yes - including the halftime break.  QED.

Football Pie

Being a dyed-in-the-wool lover of the beautiful game (no, not darts this time, football) like what I am, I feel duty-bound to at least attempt to get a ticket for Leyton Orient's upcoming FA Cup tie with north London's pre-eminent poseurs, Arsenal.

To make things fair (and expensive), Orient have decided that you must have tickets for the two Tuesday night home fixtures that precede the cup tie. They dropped this bombshell the day before the first game. This means then that I've had to shell-out for a ticket I can't use. Even then, I'm only buying the right to queue for a cup ticket. If they're gone before I pitch up at the box office, I'm screwed. But what can one do? If I leave the sauce alone, I might live another thirty-five years, and not see Orient reach these dizzy heights. They've got me over a barrel. I must attend.

All football clubs do this of course, but generally it's the reserve of the top-flight clubs to wring quite so much financial advantage for a single game comme ça. It's unusual for the blood-letting to descend to League One. Consequently, the wound is a little sore. Come on, you Os.

I May Be Some Time

Well, we've returned intact from our weekend's camping. It was a fairly uneventful trip. There was a real ale festival at the pub on the site. (For non-British readers, real ale is traditional form of British beer. It's delicious, but it does tend to attract joyless, bearded obsessive types. They're usually harmless unless you get talking to one about hop varieties, in which case you're likely to experience a virtual stroke due to boredom.)

However, I'd forgotten how cold it gets in England at night. The days were nice enough, but as soon as the sun went down, it got seriously chilly. I went to bed each night wearing all my belongings, and I was still frozen solid. And it was a real battle of wills to overcome the urge to urinate in the small hours. I had to lay it on the line to my bladder and central nervous system: we're going nowhere until daylight, so roll over and get some sleep. Also, some of our neighbours thought it might aid the sleeping process if they sat up all night inexpertly playing a shrill banjo. It's a testament to how much beer I'd stuck away that I was able to zone out the extraneous noise and get ten hours solid dreamless a night. I'm not by nature a deep sleeper. At home, the sound of dust settling is usually enough to disturb me.

In the news today I see serial offender Joey Barton has got it all over his shoes again. He was sent-off yesterday for confusing football with greco-roman wrestling. When his manager, Alan Shearer, questioned the wisdom of his commitment to the game, he got the right royal hump. Anyways, the upshot is he's been suspended by the club (again).
Now I don't believe I'm betraying any great confidence when I say that Barton's got history in this department. Everyone outside the game appears to realise that he has (ahem) issues with authority, and that he'll fly off the handle as inevitably as night follows day, and yet clubs are queueing up to buy him. They always argue that he's turned over a new leaf or at least deserves another second chance. Someone will give him a job if Newcastle sack him, and he'll be okay for about ten minutes before getting the red mists again. What does he have to do to get sacked? Take hostages or organise a drive-by? Even if he did either of these, he'd be employed again because between assaults, he's a decent footballer. This dubious logic doesn't extend to other professionals thank God or Fred West would still be in work. Yes, he murdered a few, but look at the quality of that grouting.