OH RIO, RIO CAUSING FOOTBALL TO BE PANNED
As regular readers will know, the Fiver enjoys Tin, a popular kind of memory and awareness suppressor that helps us muddle through the awfulness of existence with a numbing pleasantness that takes the edge off the very worst bits. We like Tin very much, and we talk about it often. We talk about how it tastes, how it makes us feel, how it makes everything bearable for a short time. We talk about these things, but we don’t compare our beloved Tin to Can, a rival brand of memory and awareness suppressor that also does the job very nicely, but we just prefer Tin. We talk about Tin being good, not how much better it is than Can.
Those of you who haven’t been lost at the bottom of a Tin fugue will have noticed Big Sports Day has just finished, and that people very much enjoyed watching a variety of sports for two weeks before breezily ignoring them for four years. Which is fine – there’s already plenty to keep track of without worrying about some bloke making a horse dance, after all. And yet, for some reason people will use these sports to which they’re exposed for a small amount of time and about which they know two-fifths of eff all, to prove that other things are in fact bad. And by ‘other things’ we mean football. The Fiver was dreading the end of Big Sports Day – not because of the empty hole in our lives left by a lack of rowing, or volleyball, or that one where people run around a field then shoot guns, like they’re auditioning for Liam Neeson’s next film. But because we knew that the inevitable piping hot takes would appear, telling us that Big Sports Day was lovely and friendly and special and everyone was just nice to each other, not like that nasty football with all the money and rude words and shouting and how they drown a kitten in a ditch before every game.
And appear they have, popping up in places likely and less likely, explaining exactly what football can learn from the glory of Big Sports Day, as if the two things are remotely comparable, pointing out that there are some iffy things about football, as if nobody has spotted that before. We won’t direct you to any specific ones – if you absolutely insist you can find them yourselves, but you’ll be familiar with the refrains. Why can’t football be more respectful? Why can’t they have less money? Why can’t the sports that people watch once every leap year be more popular than the one that billions watch every week? Why can’t football be nice? We’re not sure which is worse: the absolute predictability of the whole thing, or its howling tediousness.
It’s worth remembering that during Big Sports Day an entire country was banned for taking naughty supplements, two wrestling coaches removed their clothes in protest after a refereeing decision didn’t go their way, a boxer flipped the judges off and called the governing body ‘cheats’ after he lost his match, an official was thrown in the big house for assorted forms of skullduggery, a swimmer fibbed about him and his mates smashing up a toilet in a petrol station, and that’s before we get to the question of whether it’s a responsible use of the gazillions this Big Sports Day has cost to host it in a city of crushing, desperate poverty. Yes, there are some good things about Big Sports Day. Yes, there are some bad things about football. These are not necessarily connected. It’s possible to say each of these things independently. It’s possible to say Big Sports Day is good without using the achievements of its athletes as a big stick to whack football around the head with. Two weeks of isolated competition is not comparable to the biggest sporting behemoth the world has ever known. Stop it.
So if you’re thinking about starting a sentence, or a social media post, or an article for a newspaper or website with ‘You know, football could really learn something from the Olympics...’ then please, please, please – don’t. Sit down, have a nice glug of Tin, and wait until August 2020, the next time you’ll care about these things.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I am sorry about the picture – we didn’t realise it” – Middlesbrough match-winner Cristhian Stuani apologises after posting a celebratory team picture on social media aberration Twitter without realising that Adam Clayton’s baubles were on show.
RECALIBRATED STANCE OF THE DAY
1 August: “It wouldn’t be outrageous to see Sunderland being a regular top-10 team … we have to feel that we’re not in this league just to survive every year” – energetic new Sunderland boss David Moyes sets his sights high.
22 August: “That’s where they’ve been every other year for the last four years, so why would it suddenly change?” – weary not-quite-so-new Sunderland boss David Moyes adjusts his sights and buckles in for another relegation dogfight.
FIVER LETTERS
“Just imagine my delight when I opened up Yahoo this morning and saw what looked like an image of a Fiver Towers (I may be misreading it, but prefer to think not) and the title ‘Best Place to live’. And then they go one better and seem to support the STOP FOOTBALL campaign (‘Fussball braucht kein Mensch’ – No-one needs football). It’s mornings like this that I sigh happily before realising that my contentment comes from having read the Fiver far longer than is probably good for me” – Sarah Rothwell.
“Re: post-match celebrities in pubs (Friday’s letters). Mick Jones of the Clash randomly joined our table in The Defectors Weld in Shepherds Bush after QPR’s game with Leeds when we won the Championship in 2011. He drank up and left soon after, quickly growing tired of one of our group repeatedly getting up, asking if he should stay or go, and then sitting down and staying” – Philip Wood.
“Re: Andrew Hill’s laugh maths (Friday’s letters). Five minutes per Fiver over five years equals 100 hours of reading. A baseline rate of 1 Lgh/hr calculates to 100 expected laughs, against the observed one laugh.This would rate the Fiver as abjectly mirthless, with a P-value of please report to my office immediately, Andrew” – Jon Angle.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet The Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Philip Wood.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Max Rushden and the pod squad chew over the weekend’s action.
JOIN GUARDIAN SOULMATES
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BITS AND BOBS
Liverpool’s owners have managed to claim that the club is not for sale and that they’re willing to sell the club amid Chinese interest in the same sentence.
Meanwhile, Jürgen Klopp won’t be rushed into the transfer market after Liverpool’s defeat by Burnley because he’s, erm, not an idiot. “If one game should change my mind then I would be a real idiot,” he trilled.
Big Sam wants to go to Big Sports Day. He also revealed he definitely maybe wants Joe Hart in between the sticks for England and that he’s already mastered the art of answering his own questions. “Are they fit and playing? Yes. Can you get them all in the England squad that play every week? Probably no now, so that is a concern that we have to overcome. In terms of picking Joe and the goalkeeper that he is, he will be in the squad – definitely,” he parped.
Ruthless, prolific, show-stopping … even by his own lofty standards Mike Dean has made some start to the season, but Peter Crouch isn’t impressed, claiming that trying to defend from set pieces is descending into farce. “If you’re going to give penalties away like that there are going to be a lot of penalties and people will be asking for consistency,” he blootered.
It took Gareth Bale just 72 seconds to open his account for the season after La Liga’s summer break came to an end over the weekend. That’s the La Liga summer break that lasted for approximately 72 seconds.
And Taxpayers FC’s stadium operator has apologised to fans who had to stand during the match against Bournemouth after turning up to find that their seat wasn’t there. “All affected seats will be re-installed as a matter of priority ahead of Thursday’s [Big Vase] match with Astra Giurgiu,” droned the catchily named LS185.
STILL WANT MORE?
He’s big, he’s round, he scores at every ground – and Gonzalo Higuaín can hit back at his critics by bringing Juventus another title, sings Paolo Bandini.
Phil Jones to Stoke? Wilfried Bony to Taxpayers’ FC? There’s nine days left in the transfer window, and the Rumour Mill has hit the bottom of the barrel.
Nick Ames reflects on the Old Farm derby, with added Bad Words from Ipswich boss Mick McCarthy.
Where’s José hiding Marcus Rashford? And nine other Premier League talking points.
Despite a strong start, it’ll take more than crazy touchline antics for Antonio Conte to turn Chelsea around, warns Alan Smith.
And Antoine Griezmann talks to Amy Lawrence about Euro 2016 heartbreak, catching up with Him and idolising David Beckham.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. AND INSTACHAT, TOO!
