What a terrific summer of sport it’s been: a wonderful Wimbledon, a rollicking Royal Ascot, an absorbing Ashes series that still has the best part of two Tests to go. And now along comes football, barging its way on to the back pages, shoving the other sports aside, sniggering all the way to the bank.
Every August, the ‘beautiful game’ reasserts itself as the playground bully. Football is the most popular sport in this country — and the nastiest. It has become a cesspit of greed, debauchery and racism, especially in Britain. It is crude and overbearing and has all the subtlety of a disco at Holy Communion.
I feel bad about this because I love football. It was the only thing at which I was reasonably good at school; a photo of me interviewing Bobby Charlton in the 1980s has pride of place at home and I even wrote a non-bestseller about the 1998 World Cup.
I spent decades defending football from those who thought the players were awful and their fans worse.
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