And so the sun sets on another EPL season. Poetic and even legal types overuse this phrase, failing to admit it always comes up again. So excuse me while I state that the sun is setting on me as a sports fan.
All sports have their golden eras and I feel mine has passed. A golden era is generally in the eye of the beholder, there is no absolute truth to it.
In cricket, my era died with the West Indies team and it has not come back despite my awaiting the messiah.
In rugby league, it passed roughly with the end of Laurie Daley et al, and the introduction of muscle bound players and stretch fabric jerseys.
I diverted more attention to the EPL, where my modern golden era can roughly be correlated to the Manchester Unitd Sharp sponsored shirt – a classic jersey cut – when Arsenal used to beat them.
It’s all gone. A few remnants remain and I was going to wait for Ryan Giggs to retire before I committed, he is a true sporting great, but as it seems he never will retire – nor should he as he’s still a genius – I can’t wait any longer. It is all illogical probably, but I don’t identify with all these new players much, and as a result there’s no sporting passion left for me.
With the A-League I tried to subscribe to some interest. I’d love for football to become a better supported sport in this country, where to go to a game would be quite an exciting thing. But I’ve lost patience with it, so much infighting and squabbling, shocking uniforms, empty stadiums. Excuse me for I know I have no heart, but I can’t continue with it.
But it’s not just the end of passion and eras golden. As a football lover, its expensive to watch the game these days. When the EPL disappeared from free-to-air, I shrugged my shoulders and accepted my capitalistic fate, subscribing to pay TV.
It was alright too, more games, better access, and the added bonus I could totally ignore the appalling free channel cooking, dancing and talent shows that most morons love – wow, capitalism does work!
But after quite a few years you calculate the money spent on TV and shriek in horror, noticing you could have bought several tickets to London and sung “You’ll never walk alone” at Anfield for that. I called Austar, “Hi, it’s me, cut it off.”
Also, sport is shockingly addictive.
They all rave on about drugs, drinking, smoking, gambling, women, diseases and saturated fats as the big bad vices, but they never talk about sport watching.
Being sadly interested in English football and living on the wrong side of the world means very late nights. Conclusions like: I’ll just watch another game even though its already 2am, have a devastating effect on an easy insomniacs daylight hour productivity.
It must stop if I’m to make anything of myself, which isn’t looking too likely as the days turn into seasons and the seasons turn into eras, all disguising the passing of time.
But retirement from my current diet of pay TV and the EPL scares me. With no pay TV, I’m now potentially exposed to State of Origin, tennis, AFL, and those shocking free TV lifestyle/reality shows. What shall I do?
I shall turn attention to my under attended arts – get rid of TV altogether. I’m an amateur musician and I will purchase a drum kit to accompany the guitars that hang in silence, refine my skills and create.
I will take up smoking, drinking and all that as well. I will go to England with the money saved and take a picture of myself at the Michael Jackson statue at Fulham. That should keep me occupied.
But there will be no more getting worked up over a referees decision, peoples incorrect sporting attitudes, no more watching sport to small hours and having to call in sick because of it.
But the sun will rise again I’m sure, I like sport way too much to turn into some artistic monk living on a diet of sporting isolation, wind chimes, trickling water falls and divine frequencies.
I’ll keep a casual eye out I’m sure – like a good addict, taking the odd hit – but for now as the sun sets on an era, and the satellite beam is jammed, I’m going to bed for a while.
Good night, and see you in the morning, maybe.
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