Dulce et Decorum est

 I don't like football. I never have and I never will. I don't like anything to do with it. The endless footage, the unceasing reportage, the sheer noise of it. The outfits. Drunken, violent thuggery. 

Culturally, football is Japanese knot weed, it's Kudzo, creeping in everywhere, invasive and choking, stealing the sunshine, soaking up the water, everything feeding into it like it was cretinous, shouty AI. A black hole in shin pads. There are football related toilet paper adverts, depilatory solutions, cars, dishwasher tablets. A VARcuum. The official match ball for the 2026 FIFA World Cup is Trioda, which features connected ball technology and a 500Hz motion sensor chip. I don't know what any of that means as, the last time I played football it was with a bald tennis ball on wet playground cement. 

I don't understand the relationship between advertising and sport. Why does Peter Crouch pretending to comment on people installing a bathroom suite mean that it's a good bathroom suite? Because he's rich and successful and married to a model? Is that the status my new toilet will confer on me? If a plumbing service is advertised on telly with whistling and a strummed ukulele, it's not going to be in Peter Crouch's mansion. He's just banking another cheque he doesn't need, extending a brand that includes Bovril, Tiggo 9, L'Oreal, Paddy Power, Ted Baker and Arial. And he's like a one-born-every-day sucker next to David Beckham, who's sold advertising space on his forearms. 

Footballers, like Spartan warriors or altar boys, were children with a specific skillset plucked for a life they will never be prepared for, by men in Puffa jackets who see them as a commodity. They're big cows to a beef farmer. I don't believe they just have a kick about for 90 minutes every week and get paid millions for it. They train hard every day of the week and get paid millions for it, in between their lucrative advertising jobs. It's hard work and I couldn't do it, sure. But could a sportsman write a memoir about physical trauma with a light humorous touch? No, but they could pay a hack to do it for them. Gentlemen, I am available. Call me. 

Yes, John, but a footballer's career is so short, and there's always the risk of injury. You can't begrudge them their nest-feathering millions when their lives are so precarious. Besides, they're all thick. They couldn't get another job. Maybe Build-A-Bear or Footlocker. But you're wrong, I can and do begrudge them. I doubt I'll earn in my lifetime what Lionel Messi earns in a fortnight. (I've done no research here, but you'd know I was right if you saw how much money trickles into my bank account. There may be a blockage. This would be a job for Dyno-Rod if I could afford to pay them) Besides, I'm not seeing this short career business at all. The BBC presenter's salaries were published this week and sitting pretty at number six with his eye-wateringly high annual salary is Alan Shearer, an unpleasant and taciturn man who could turn the atmosphere sour at a Taylor Swift concert. He's a year older than me, and I'm ancient. Everyone tells me so. Is he even a presenter? He's a commentator, a job that's transparently ludicrous: he tells you what your seeing while you're seeing it, and later he'll describe what you've just seen, even though it's literally the last thing you've watched. If you've got pretty bad dementia, I'd say Alan Shearer is a boon, but even then only in the short term. He's audio description in a dour Geordie accent. That's worth 400k a year of anybody's licensing fee. 

The world cup is on, which is why I'm thinking about football, though I'm not thinking about football. Football is happening to me. It's pressing clammily up against me like a deployed airbag. Powdery. New car smell with a hint of alum. Stinging the eyes.  

I haven't watched a match, but I don't have to as the miasmatical horror is all about me: every ad break, every bus, every news story, every magazine show. At least they don't make football records anymore. Imagine the sound of Harry Kane singing, like a horse complaining its shoes are on too tight. The fans are there: cheerily tattooed, pissed and pink, braying nonsense at the cameras before shouting and punching the air. It's worse this year because a) the England team are actually doing quite well. They're in the semi-finals, they're a match against Argentina away from being in the actual final. Wow. Normally, I'd write them off, as I still remember 1978 (I went to a Wimpy for the first time. I had my first hamburger. I was incredibly excited. I still remember the smell of the coffee and the Argentina 78 poster on the wall) but apparently they're a bit scrappy this year, and have fluked quite a few of their games, so there's the very real threat England, who are on form, might be in the final of the World Cup! And b) they've decided that Wonderwall by Oasis, my least favourite song by my least favourite band, is the new national anthem. 

I'm not going to do anything petty like hope they don't win, though we will literally never hear the end of it if they do. They haven't stopped banging on about their years of hurt for the last sixty. I think it would be nice if England won something, after the self-mutilation of Brexit, the succession of clown Prime Ministers, the constant degradation and humiliation however self-inflicted it might have been. They've had nothing to feel proud about for so long, and this would be a genuine achievement, finally a chance not to be the butt of the world's jokes, regardless of how often we supply the set-up. 

We shall, of course, react to victory with decorum. The English way, quiet deference to the host nation, slaps on the back for the plucky losers. We got you this time, but it was a close fought thing. Well done! Hand shakes and backslaps. I think a hug is a bit much after 90 minutes of play in the fires of hell. A few humble, thoughtful words for a suitably understated media, and then back to the studio for expansive, philosophical discussion, while port and cigars are distributed amongst the men and women of the contributing panel. The fans will form an orderly crocodile back to their hotels, taking care to shake the hands of any opposition fan they might meet along the way, worthy adversaries all. Then its a cup of Horlicks and retiring to bed to dream the dreams of sporting victory. Though, of course, this time the dream came true. Three Lions on my pyjama pockets and matching bed set. Come on, you Albions. Sweet dreams. 

Now what the hell is wrong with that? Don't let me down, England.