Football crazy (From Stroud News and Journal)

Football crazy

AAARRGH I'm an Englishman get me out of here.

A plague of flags has descended on all our houses and, er, cars and pubs and so on and on and on and everywhere.

Euro 2004 looms relentlessly towards us - a culture-eclipsing juggernaut For those of us rather less impressed by this all-consuming sport-turned-theatre the degree to which the nation at large succumbs to its marketing machine is quietly depressing.

But, shh, be careful not to say anything otherwise you'll be accused of being a killjoy and not supporting your country.

The same idiotic patriotism given unthinkingly to "our boys" at war is given to "our boys" at play.

Yet few fly the flag for war but for a football tournament...well, suddenly our patriotic fervour sprouts from every available crevice.

National life and death, it seems, moves us rather less than sudden death in extra time. How sad this state of affairs at a time of profound remembrance for those who gave the ultimate sacrifice 60 years ago.

The flag, once a proud emblem of nationhood, has become a trivial totem for a popular culture, largely inebriated and largely male.

Scan the face of a woman in the passenger seat of a car sporting the St George. See etched into her face the sadness of knowing she has slipped behind THAT flag and THAT game in her partner's pecking order of affection.

How she must yearn for a share of some of the fervour he lavishes on football. At the risk of prompting charges of treason, I have to make a simple truth known.

Football is a dull game played by petulant prima donnas and milked by manipulative marketers, creaming us for every excess penny of our hard-earned wages.

Its passing rewards are eclipsed by the more lasting damage to family and community relations and not least our finances.

By all means fly the flag but know that as you do your woman is crying inside and the moneymen are smiling all the way to the bank.