No fan of footie fans

I used to love football, the greatest game on earth. Now, I've watched a grand total of two games in the world cup finals. I can't blame work for missing all those games, I blame lack of interest to some extent, and a lack of my own TV to the rest of the extent.

The never-ending force-feeding of football in England, the unnecessary and extensive hyping up of even the most insignificant maches, and of course the ridiculous build-up to the world cup have been a turn-off. I've simply got an overdose of it, or actually, I've got an overdose of fussing about football. Just like I lost all interest in ice-hockey in Finland after years and years of overexposure to all sorts of idiots explaining how the yearly tournaments between the 5 countries where this marginal sport is played are a reflection of our national character and pride (or lack thereof), I'm now losing my interest to football. It's being used as a symbol of this and that, studied "scientifically", analysed to death and in general taken far too seriously. I'd still like the game (and love playing it), but it's just been talked to death here. And don't even get me started on the hideous puns of the sports journalists...

Also, I don't like rowdy crowds, yelling or shoving. And that's what will happen in every pub with a tv on. All the sore losers, cursing, the lunatic winners hollering and cheering as if they had something to do with it... Drunken idiots demonstrating their worse qualities. No thank you.

I hate to admit it, but I just don't like hanging arond the type of people who hang around football here in England. There are some otherwise sane and nice people who follow football, but unfortunately it seems that all chavvy drooling beer-guzzling redneck dimwits in their wife-beater shirts are football fans.

It's not a local phenomenon, every nation has its "idiots", the annoying mobs of young men that either demonstrate their infantile patriotism in sporting events or just in general exhibit their immaturity and laddishness in bars and streets. You have the latino machos, the English lads, the chauvinist slavic males. In Finland they are usually ice-hockey fans, here footie fans.

I'll try to watch as many of the remaining matches as I can, just because the games get more and more exciting. I really hope England would lose today, since that would mean the most idiotic of the lads would either kill each other or be arrested in the brawling and fighting tonight, and people in general (including journalists and columnists) would lose interest in the tournament. Then it might be possible to watch some of the remaining matches in more peace.