After a busy morning of tennis and saving the polar bears (which is I how I now call ‘driving’, in the electric vehicle, from my elevated driving position of ‘the moral high ground’, knowing that Greta Thunberg would smile at me as I tried to run her over, enjoying the silent smugness that only the fully electrically-vehicled can really appreciate) I found myself on the couch at about 5.30 with the tv showing me the second half of the FA Cup semi-final between Manchester United (boooo, baddies, rich, horrible, arrogant, petrol-driving) and Fulham (yaaaaaay, the good guys, lovely London low-key team with proper values and a stadium within the ULEZ). Surprisingly, at Old Trafford, over half the match was done and United hadn’t even been awarded one penalty. Unusual. Anyway, that soon changed. But before, Fulham scored.

They’d been pretty much all over United for the first 45 and always looked more likely to score. United looked like they hadn’t woken up properly. After a very long night of booze, rape and pillage. Usual for United players. But then…

Its kind’a why I love football. ‘What happened next???’

United were attacking, someone took a shot and little Willian arrived at the near post with his little Brazilian elbow stretched out to make the save. Oh dear. Handball. But, (and this is where it gets ‘good’), VAR has to intervene first. No-one can take a sip of water without VAR approval. And then the ref was called to watch the incident himself. At which point the Fulham manager hurled a torrent of abuse at the man in black, who promptly grabbed his red card and sent the Portugezer to the stands. He then returned to the pitch where he pointed to the penalty spot (there was never any question) and also waved his red card at Willian. Again, the ref had no choice, nearest to goal, prevents that goal, red card. So the Fulham players go ballistic. No idea why, it was all fairly obvious, but that’s why we love football. For the explosions of frustration, anger and the horrible realisation that you’re probably going to lose a match you’d been winning.

Aleksander Mitrovich, everyone’s favourite Serbian thug, grabbed hold of the ref to ‘remonstrate’. The posh term for GETTING IN HIS FUCKING FACE!!!!!! That went down well too as the ref showed him a red card as well. On the basis that there’s never a wrong time to send a Serb off the pitch.

And so United went on to beat 9-man Fulham.

That’s why I love football. Why I hate football is because, in the same way I wasn’t born the son of Bill Gates, Elon Musk or even a nice billionaire, I was ‘born’ as a Spurs fan. To suffer.

Happy Monday

A xxxx