So England are out of world cup – so much hope, expectation, excuses, and disappointment (and that unmistakable feeling of deja vu) .
I don’t know why we get so worked up about football, it always ends in tears. We should forget about football, tennis, cricket (and any sport that really matters) It’s time for Britain to get behind a sport we can actually do well in, like er… Crown Green bowls, darts, billiards or cycle timetrialling. People may say sports like Crown Green bowls and time trialling are not very interesting. But, at least they aren’t painful to watch like watching England’s all star premiership superstars underperform, as if they were doing an impersonation of Accrington Stanley under 15 reserve team. If only our national sport was a good honest amateur endeavour we wouldn’t have to listen to friends screaming at the tv.
” I can’t believe they are paid £100,000 a week and they still can’t pass ball / save simple back pass. My 80 grandmother could pass better than that….”
When first prize in a cycle race is £10 (which cost £7.50) to enter, you can’t blame the participants of timetrials for being motivated purely by money and being overpaid superstars.
Nor do you have these crazy situations of needing video replays for visually impaired linesmen. I mean it’s pretty obvious when you’ve crossed the line in a cycle race. Nice and simple; though it does mean you have to think up of other excuses for why you didn’t win.
Nor does timetrialling require a manager to have a grasp of tactics. There are some who think if only England had played 4-3-3 rather than 4-4-2 we would have won the world cup, and Wayne Rooney would have distinguished himself as the greatest footballer the world has ever seen. But, with timetrialling, you don’t have to rely on a £6m a year Italian to tell you to ride as fast as you can.
The only real bonus of the world cup was, for a brief time, the roads were deserted as we were gripped by the self-imposed torture of watching England lose to Germany once more. For those not under the spell of ‘this time it’s surely England’s chance‘ they could have gone cycling up the A34 as if it was a country lane; not since the winter of austerity and petrol rationing in 1948 have roads been so quiet. Just imagine if roads were always that quiet…. that really would be a reason to celebrate….
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A word of caution:
I cycled home shortly after the Slovenia match. I noticed the attention by drivers had plummeted & I was almost “wiped out” twice on a normally safe & regular route.
I put the terrible driving down to a combination of euphoria and alcohol, removing my earlier assumption that the roads would be much less busy because of the football.
What an absolute scream!! Very entertaining! Is it the whole media machine that has created the excessive football hype, the overpaid stars etc? What about a bit more cycling on ‘free’ tv? Anyway I’m now off to Frome bypass for the weekly time trial for the hell of it, lets hope the Tarmac lorries have gone home early!