Thursday 12th September

I used to be quite a football fan.  Never a fanatic, or a season ticket holder, but I followed the ebb and flow of the Premier League.  And as to international competitions, I loved them.  But now, somehow I have become uninterested.  England have recently played two games in their World Cup Qualifiers, and I haven’t bothered to watch either of them.

Is it the lackluster performances, though they did very well against Moldova.  But that is the point, isn’t it?   Moldova were never going to get through, there was only one other team in our group likely to succeed, and we could only draw against them. Twice.   But maybe my disillusion goes deeper.  Where is the manager to enthuse us?   Roy Hodgson hardly excites anyone, and his hand-wringing apologies are pathetic to watch.  At least Harry seemed to care.  The players too are boring in the extreme.   We have no out and out strikers, no goal-poachers even.  Where is the Lineker, the Shearer, the Beckham to give us belief.

But what is almost more depressing is that the competition itself will be held in Brazil.  So the result is almost guaranteed already.  And should a European side actually upset the Samba apple-cart it will be Spain or Italy or Germany, not us.  It will be shown late at night I expect too, as they are 6 hours behind us.  So, even if we limp over the qualifying line, I doubt we will even get out of our first group.  I can remember the excitement of only a few years ago, with Sven at the helm, and a super team, three lions on my shirt and all of that.  And for the life of me I can discern no excitement now at all.