Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Life of Brian
I’ve never really been a great one for buying football magazines but I’ve always made an exception for World Soccer. It always appeared to me to be a far more high brow affair than Shoot and Match which were the best selling mags back then. On my last trip back to England I picked up a latest edition and was pleased to see some familiar names there, not least of which was Brian Glanville. England can be so comforting at times, despite the internet, and the growth in call centres there is much that remains the same. Charlie Harper is still fronting the UK Subs, Ken Barlow is still in Coronation Street and Brian Glanville is still taking pot shots at the powers that be in UEFA and FIFA.
I wonder though whether the great Mr Glanville is not getting a tad bored writing off the Geneva based bods. I’m pretty sure Charlie must be getting fed up singing Stranglehold 30 years on, couldn’t Brian try a new song?
I’ve steered clear of football politics since taking up writing for a number of reasons. First and foremost it’s boring and depressing. Secondly, see number one. If I ever sat down and looked into the politics of football in Indonesia I would probably end up topping myself.
You want farce, a play about the FA would run for years on Broadway and rival Cats at the box office and the beauty of it would be that no one would believe it! I mean come on, imagine a national team coach having meetings with the Chairman of the FA in a prison cell where the latter is being held on corruption charges. Then having the same guy stand for re election and say that whatever went wrong in the previous 5 years wasn’t his fault, he was just continuing his predecessor’s policies. And then having him reelected. Unopposed!
Imagine having local government stop funding the game. At a conference to discuss ways of generating extra revenue only one club out of 36 was represented and his idea was to get more money from the government because fans here don’t like paying to watch football. You couldn’t make it up.
Come over Brian, you’d love it. And the best thing is no one would believe a word of it!
I wonder though whether the great Mr Glanville is not getting a tad bored writing off the Geneva based bods. I’m pretty sure Charlie must be getting fed up singing Stranglehold 30 years on, couldn’t Brian try a new song?
I’ve steered clear of football politics since taking up writing for a number of reasons. First and foremost it’s boring and depressing. Secondly, see number one. If I ever sat down and looked into the politics of football in Indonesia I would probably end up topping myself.
You want farce, a play about the FA would run for years on Broadway and rival Cats at the box office and the beauty of it would be that no one would believe it! I mean come on, imagine a national team coach having meetings with the Chairman of the FA in a prison cell where the latter is being held on corruption charges. Then having the same guy stand for re election and say that whatever went wrong in the previous 5 years wasn’t his fault, he was just continuing his predecessor’s policies. And then having him reelected. Unopposed!
Imagine having local government stop funding the game. At a conference to discuss ways of generating extra revenue only one club out of 36 was represented and his idea was to get more money from the government because fans here don’t like paying to watch football. You couldn’t make it up.
Come over Brian, you’d love it. And the best thing is no one would believe a word of it!
Labels: Brian Glanville
# posted by Me @ 4:13 PM 
