There’s a football tournament on. Don’t know if you caught that. Started last night. In Germany. Which makes all the metaphorical talk of ‘Munich being invaded by a Scottish army’ a bit… insensitive? Or maybe I’m just being too soft. Too historical. Anyway, there’s football in the middle of the summer and that’s something we should all be exceedingly grateful for. Not only that, but… it’s a showcase for all the bestest, most exitingest, most heavily tattooed, most ridiculously overpaid, soccer super-talent. Ever!!! And dressed in their full international kit regalia. Brilliant!

Except…

I’m finding a growing number of serious football fans becoming ever more disillusioned with international football. And I don’t know why. I’m there in my full England kit, my Gareth Southgate waistcoat, my bass drum strapped to my chest and a ‘King Charles face’ strapped round my head, cross of St George blowing in the wind, ready to go to Heathrow and no-one’s coming with me. It would appear that proper football fans don’t want to go to internationals any longer. They leave that to those who just like to drink beer all day and all night and more in between, if possible. Football England seem to be doing their recruiting at Alcoholics Anonymous. The failures section. Fallen far off the wagon.

International football seems to have lost its connection with sober people. And as someone who is sober at least some of the time (when I HAVE to be), I’m struggling to find my enthusiasm for this tournament. Maybe it’ll come, as it progresses and gets a bit more exiting. The match tomorrow, England’s opener against Serbia will just open the old Harry Kane wounds and have me wondering why Jude Bellingham earns his (outrageous) wages in Madrid. And the match will be played, as all Serbia matches are, under a cloud of red smoke. It’s either a case of Serbians having some kind of ‘all the flares you can carry’ permanent deal, or it’s that Serbians spontaneously combust at football matches, leaving just plumes of red smoke. And the ones who aren’t ’auto-burners’ are just there for the fighting. And to demonstrate just how far ‘to the right’ most of Europe has moved.

So if I’m not interested in England much, what is the point of the tournament? Ah, you see, the purpose is to enjoy the suffering of other nations. Like, shall we say, just for an example… so many to choose from… ok, Scotland. No one likes to see the Germans win anything. And much as I really like most Scots who I meet, the ones I can understand anyway, when it comes to international sport, they are our enemies. I didn’t want to see them so humiliated last night but they must learn from their mistakes. Heaven knows they made enough. Primarily they must learn that ‘someone standing between the goalposts is not automatically a goal keeper’. They need certain skills not apparently available north of the border.

So the tournament moves slowly through the group stages. Giving the commentary team the chance to learn the pronunciations of lots of obscure stadiums all of which sound like cheap wines made from antifreeze.

COME ON ENGLAND!!! (We are in the tournament, aren’t we? What about Brazil?)

Happy Saturday

A xxxx