Recently in Football Category

I have been resisting the temptation to write about West Bromwich Albion. Though they always say you should write about 'what you know', it just seemed that to do so is to extend the agony. I had no desire to think any more about them or waste even more time or energy on the topic.

I managed to avoid the subject for the best part of last season, a season that had started brightly enough before slumping in the middle, leading to the departure of yet another manager. I wasn't sure about that decision but it seemed we'd replaced Roberto with someone who at least got the team organised and into winning ways.

I was once at the Baseball Ground, the former home of Derby County. Once was enough, it was part football ground part air raid shelter being composed of girders, crumbling concrete and corrugated iron. I mention it now as I recall how we laughed at the signs nailed to the walls outside the turnstiles; they depicted all the items you weren't allowed to take into the ground, with drawings of each.

Whilst waiting to enter the ground we amused ourselves by adding obvious items to the litany of nails, darts, fireworks, spears, knuckle dusters, etc. We journeyed from guns and grenades to intercontinental ballistic missiles but would never have thought to add teddy bears to the list.

Perhaps this proves the resourcefulness of the modern-day football hooligan; no longer content with arranging their pitched-battles by mobile phone or anti-social networking they're now concealing weapons in cuddly toys. It did make me wonder how the teddy was explained to the stewards who checked fans on the way into the ground. A cuddly toy in the webbed-fingers of a scarred skinhead with misspelled tattoos, did he tell them it was his lucky mascot?

Sometimes it's not what you say, but the way that it's said.

There's no doubt that you've heard Richard Keys and Andy Gray's 30 second guide to advanced public relations for all sexes. If not then it's here.

Had they delivered it in a slightly different way (jocular) - 'hey Andy why don't you get down there and explain the offside rule' or 'it's OK for her running that line but I hope she's got my tea on' - then they might have got away with it. Sadly there's a bit too much bile and casual/off-hand sexism in the very brief exchange for that.

It's slightly more saddening in these supposedly enlightened times that they even thought these things. In truth it's the lack of thought that lets them down; they were just filling the gaps in their apparently limited rapport with clichés - killing time, making very small talk.

Football is the new rock 'n' roll.

For a while there was a lot of hype about comedy as joke-tellers were elevated into bigger tours & venues, but comedians tend to be a fairly dull bunch. Once Russell Brand was off-the-market they were no longer tabloid-fodder. Frankie Boyle may be offensive on-stage but you hardly expect to find him falling out of trendy-London-nightclubs, snorting cocaine and sleeping around.

The average comedian may well be a heavy-drinker and they may be making piles of cash - you do the math on an average arena tour - but they're generally smart enough to stay out of trouble. Comedy is not the new rock 'n' roll but football may well be.

A few weeks back I wrote of the reductive powers of football and how my partisan nature can lead me into great sorrow. I become less of a cultured, intelligent being (if I ever was) and more of a snarling subjective Neanderthal.

The nature of the season means that sorrows can either be quickly overcome or more severely etched, a week can change a lot and, as Saturday proved, even 45 minutes can make a significant difference.

It didn't take the football season long to remind me that I lack a sense of humour with regard to my choice of football team; that my tribal partisanship is easily inflamed by a particularly severe defeat and the accompanying ridicule.

A good sense of humour is probably a pre-requisite for following a bad team, and I've had years in which to develop one as we bounced up and down the divisions. Indeed I have that 'gallows-humour' that seems common to all my Black Country compatriots, but being able to see the funny side of a 6-0 defeat? That isn't happening.

Every now and again I get the impression that I'm psychic. This delusion rarely lasts long enough for me to lose any money on rash betting schemes, or appear on television wearing a dubious scarf around my head whilst speaking in a funny voice (that bit comes naturally). This is largely because I'm fully aware that my insights are only as a result of experience and memory. I'm psychic because I'm old.

I can point to a few recent examples of this 'ability'. At the moment that England was forced to play Germany in the World Cup I knew that they would lose. This 'vision' was inspired by a few certainties - England rarely beat Germany in a major tournament, England had been playing badly, Germany had been playing well. England appeared to be falling apart at the seams; their opponents did not - even though they'd had a player sent off in the group stages. For me it was a foregone conclusion, an easy prophecy.

The World Cup comes around every four years; you can't imagine the planning and preparation that go into making it happen, even if you know a little about such things. It is the showpiece event for world football, watched by billions all over the globe.

Given these minor details is it in any way conceivable that the governing bodies would do something ridiculous to ruin the tournament? That they would change something so fundamental that it would render the world's greatest players redundant? These are the questions we have to ask ourselves when considering what they've done to the ball.

In the first few games it was all about the ball, it's too light, too round, it swerves too much, etc. Do we believe that FIFA would sanction a new ball if it proved to be so radically different from 'traditional' balls that it had an effect on games and results? The answer is, unfortunately, of course they would if they were getting enough money to do so.

I have builders in my loft. It's not that I'm keeping them there against their will or anything, they are actually working. I might consider locking them up there until they've finished, or for long enough for me to hide from them when the bill is due, but that's another story.

This story is actually about technology. We're all technologically capable these days; we all have websites, e-mail, multiple social networking identities, etc. It's so much a part of our lives that we barely even think about how incredible it actually is - we take it for granted.

My builders, Steve & Simon, even have a great idea for a trade website - an idea they're currently researching with a view to launching later this year. The fact that this should surprise no-one is further proof that we are all at one with the technological age; unless you work for FIFA that is.

The goalkeeper quit. Again. Last season he left for a month or so, because he thought he might like to play rugby instead. We were suitably enraged, having put time into nurturing and encouraging him and even picking him up to drive him to certain games. In the end we allowed him to come back as he appeared suitably contrite, and he's a good keeper after all. This time there's no going back.

By now you'll have worked out that I'm not talking about professionals, this is much more challenging - the heady and competitive world of under-11's football. Or should that be the petulant and irritating world of under-11s?