After watching the TV series, I’m rereading Catch 22. It has to be one of the most hilarious novels ever. The main character, Yossarian, a bombardier, asks the doctor why he can’t be grounded as he is crazy. The doctor tells him you’ve got to be crazy to fly bombers and only a sane man would ask to be grounded, so Yossarian can’t be grounded because he must be sane to ask to be grounded.
On many levels , the whole game of football is crazy. The players are crazy, because the amount of money they earn must be the greatest disincentive to playing football. I am sure that Payet and Arnautovic went crazy, or perhaps they were the only sane ones – they took the money and stopped playing to the best of their ability.
Indeed, the amount of money swilling around the game is crazy. Now the craziness has extended to China.
The club owners are definitely crazy. Why would a billionaire waste a lot of his money, so that fans could throw coins at him and he has to hide behind a glass screen when he watches his team? Why is he not content to feed his carp and sit at home on his throne like chairs? Does a pornographer really believe he is going to achieve salvation by running a football team?
The next level of craziness is the amount of money wasted on managers. I am sure most of the fans could do the job. In fact, it would be better to have a computer programme acting as manager. It was once believed that a computer could never beat a Grand Master at chess. That was accomplished many years ago. What could be better that having a computer tracking each player’s performance – the distance they are running, the passes they make, the tackles they make and their positioning. I am sure it would be a great incentive for a player if they knew a computer was constantly analysing their performance. A computer would also analyse game plans and formulate the best plan against a particular team.
The London Stadium is completely crazy. Another £6 million was spent on removing seats over the summer and another £4 million on legal fees to get West Ham to pay more. West Ham only pay £2.5 million per year. However, everybody involved here is really crazy because the stadium is crap.
The pre-season friendlies were completely crazy. We let in an average of 2 goals per game. What is to be learnt here? Only that you’d better take a few happy pills before watching the first game against Man City. Oh, and perhaps also that we are playing the wrong system and need a few real defenders.
The fans. We are all absolutely crazy. We have this tribal like instinct to support our club, when the only factor that counts is the money a club receives for TV rights, which is then spent on mainly foreign players, in the hope they can settle down in the UK, even though they may not speak the language and are far from home. Wasn’t it better when our players came from our local area? Was football less enjoyable when I watched Moore , Hurst and Peters? Why did we not just buy a Prime Minister from abroad, rather than having Boris?
The United Kingdom is crazy. What other country in the world has four football associations and insists on fielding four national sides. When Germany was reunited, they stopped playing as West Germany and East Germany. Instead, we have suffered years of frustration and missed out on the outstanding talents of players like Giggs and Bale.
Now, we are going to suffer a year of VAR craziness. I thought handball had to be deliberate. Now, if an attacker ducks and it hits a defender on the arm, that is a penalty.
COYI, I’m bored with summer. Bring on the craziness.