Sport

I understand there's something that's almost compulsory on the telly right now. However, I was always of the maverick tendency and didn't like to go along with the herd instinct. I understand 4% of Scotland are in Germany and at first thought it was hilarious that they got Rosemary Tonked 5-1 first time out but that is to miss the point. For such devotees, although winning is allegedly the preferred option, it's being part of it that matters more. It is instead of church.

On the bus on the way back from Waitrose ( ! ) there were a number of young men in evidence making their way to pubs in their England shirts, gladly foregoing any attempt at expressing individuality in their apparel but adopting the uniform. I'm sure Roland Barthes or Claude Levi-Strauss would have made short work of the semiotics and anthropology of it all and equally understand the non-conformist in me that instinctively rebels against uniform. Not only was sports kit subverted as far as possible with socks often rolled down in pre- compulsory shin pad era and shirt untucked but wearing any other trousers than denim jeans when they were de rigeur for the student classes. That last bit was based on the gospel according to Rod Stewart in an interview in Sounds circa 1977 where he said he didn't own any such things. And then, about 30 years later, there he was wearing them on the video of Have You Ever Seen the Rain. You simply can't trust anybody.

 

There was a time, certainly into the 1990's, when I knew all about the football, the test match, then the snooker, the Tour de France, the Derby and most recently mainly the jump racing but I won't be taken for granted as anybody's captive audience if I can help it. A favourite line, whether with regard to Fulham FC, Notts cricket or any other professional outfit that my interest in was diminishing, was, well, I never saw any of them at my poetry readings. I retain some residual regard for amateur or Corinthian sport but not England.

I was very lucky to be English. It was never going to be anything else. One is either born, against very long odds, or is not. You were either going to be you or you weren't going to be anybody at all. It sometimes seems like a close call which one would have preferred but nationality is nothing to be proud of.

Recent difficulties with one of my bookmakers, as below a week or two ago, have even served to undermine the last vestiges of involvement with sport I had, there being little future in the gradual accumulation of small profits from horse racing if such firms are going to make it too difficult to transfer them out into the bank for onward spending. It's the industry's last ditch defence against anybody who dares to consistently beat them at their own game. They don't like it. Subservience, but mainly your money, is what they expect from you while conning you into thinking you are enjoying yourself.

Well, no, not me, I never lost control. You're face to face with the man can see precious little reason to care anymore.