To the pub this afternoon for the Arsenal v Chelsea FA Cup semi-final, and straight into the swampy no man’s land between two very different types of football fans.
To my right, a small group of braying, pastel-polo-shirted potato heads who wouldn’t let a corner pass without aggressively comparing the corner taker with that part of a woman’s body my predictive text calls an “aunt”.
To my left, a pair of middle-aged, middle-brow, middle-everythinged men – all Boden clothes, spectacles and folded arms throughout – who spent the entire first half regurgitating everything they had ever read someone else write about Wenger’s youth team policy, Eboue’s shortcomings, Hiddink’s talismanic qualities… basically anything they could recall from all their long years of being told that enjoying football was an inherently Good, Decent, Manly Thing To Do.
They sounded like photographs of paintings.
Can it really be so hard to enjoy football without wanting to kill/marry the particpants, or without wanting to dissect, third-hand, every component in ulcerating slow real-time?
And have I already, just a handful of posts in, turned into Carrie Bradshaw?
