After the dire and disgusting and depressing and devastating football yesterday afternoon I went out. In a huff. Then came back, because going out is simply not allowed and there were 17 policemen outside my door questioning me prior to possible arrest. So I turned off the tv.

When I turned it back on, several hours later, our national game had morphed, courtesy of Sky, into American Football and I was watching armour plated robo-men crash heads (well, helmets). And in fact I love NFL and have done since 1981 when I went to America and couldn’t avoid the game anywhere. I’ve kind of peripherally followed it ever since, but rather sporadically of late.

And thus was amazed to see, in the score cards, the ‘Las Vegas Raiders’. Like, when did that happen? The world’s most nomadic football team has arrived in hell.

When I was in California they were the Oakland Raiders. From, kind’a, Oakland. But they moved in the early 80s to become the Los Angeles Raiders. Just like that. You support a team your whole life and they fucking move 400 miles away. And LA already had a team, the Rams. Though everyone hated the Rams, mainly because they played their matches in Anaheim, rather than LA itself. So the Rams then moved away and became the St Louis Rams. Where everyone loved them and they won loads of super bowls and jewellery and stuff. Then they moved back to LA. Which was no longer a problem as the Raiders had, by then, moved back to their ‘spiritual home’ of Oakland. Ahhh, that’s nice. Except this year they moved on to Vegas to join the hustlers, pimps and gangsters in the desert.

Could you move Manchester United to Cornwall and get away with it?

Well, in that single and specific case you probably could. Because there’s probably more Man U fans around Exeter than in Lancashire. But Liverpool? Can you imagine moving Liverpool football club to Brighton?

And I realise that is the fundamental difference between the national games of our two fine nations. Not the games themselves, obviously, but the fans and attitudes. Because fans in the US support a ‘franchise’. The Raiders. The Rams. The Patriots. And may love them wherever they move. The preceding bit, ‘LA’ or ‘New England’ or ‘Cleveland’ can change. Whereas football here is passionately regional. It’s the City or Town that is supported. Which is why we don’t bother with silly attached names like they adopted in rugby. And why it becomes territorial over here, and consequently nasty and violent.

So what happens to Americans whose franchise of choice was the Washington Redskins? They’re still in Washington but woke culture and PC stupidity has now dictated that ‘redskins’ is a prejudicial, inflammatory and not very nice name. So they have become (as I learned in shock last night), The Washington Football Team. Catchy. Clever. Original. So if their franchise moved from Washington their fans would have nothing. Just ‘football team’.

All this because I can’t talk about proper football. Not after the week I’ve had. If I wanted to love a team who take 1 point from 3 matches I’d be an optimistic Arsenal fan.

Happy miserable, rainy, Tier 4 Monday

A xxxxx