The beautiful game?

Dear readers,

As the World Cup approaches with sickening inevitability, I want to say a few words about football, or, rather, about the tyranny of football. I am, as anyone who knows me will attest, profoundly uninterested in football, to the point of outright hostility at times. That is my right. I am also well aware that many, many people (some of whom I usually count as rational human beings) are passionately wedded to "The Beautiful Game" (puh-leeze) and follow both it and their chosen team with fervour. That is their right. So far, so good.

To what I object is the period convulsions of the common weal when a significant event in football comes along, people lose their reason, and there is an assumption that, not merely fans of the game, but everyone will be interested. The World Cup is, of course, the most striking example of this, but we could also look at the European Championship, the Cup Final or other major tourneys in the world of association football. With Brazil '14 charging up on the rails, this is all happening again.

I am not much of a sports fan. I am addicted to motor racing in almost all of its forms, and I will watch Wimbledon quite happily each summer, but otherwise I don't really take a lot of interest. Sticks and balls? You're welcome to them. I confess I have some admiration for the veneration of the history of the game that baseball fans often exude, and I find their obsession with statistics charming in its own way, but, largely, I do not intersect much with the world of sports. This does not, to me, seem a particularly remarkable fact or quirk. But, oh, how some people disagree.

I know perfectly well that, come June, people will start saying "Did you see the match last night/yesterday/today?" I will politely tell them that I did not, and, if elaboration is required, I will explain that it holds no more interest for me than the All-Kazakhstan Wrestling Championship (I don't know if there is such a thing - but there probably is). And I guarantee, I guarantee, that, before the summer is out, someone will respond "But it's the World Cup!" And this is what I mean. When the Olympics rolled around, it struck no-one as unusual, despite the fact that I was very happy that London hosted the Games and put on a damned good show, that I didn't suddenly develop an interest in track-and-field. Look! A man throwing a pointy stick! Fine. When he hits someone with it, we'll talk. But I didn't watch, because I'm not interested in the sport.

Football is different, football is other, football is, people think, transcendent. I am sure that there are many people who do not think of themselves as football fans who will generate an interest in the World Cup, and I'm sure viewing figures for the matches will suggest that. I'm very happy for them. But I do dislike the assumption that you will be following, that you will be on the edge of your seat as England loses on penalties (or whatever, but I understand this is not uncommon). It is not a cultural norm. I am not feigning a lack of interest. I really don't care.

The World Cup takes on a particularly piquant nature because of national teams. As one who is of overwhelmingly Scottish ancestry but was born in England, there is the inevitable question: which team do you support? Well, none, actually, and I couldn't give a stuff. It's not England, it's not Scotland (it probably would be if I had a gun to my head) and it's not Whoever's Beating England, Ha Ha Ha. Do grow up.

But I am braced for all this anyway. The television schedules will be warped by showing matches from Brazil, the news will devote near-blanket coverage, and already Esquire has produced a World Cup special edition, filling pages of an otherwise-enjoyable magazine with paeans to 1980s Brazilian footballers of whom I have never heard. Grown men will talk and write in the most florid, Bulwer-Lytton-esque terms of the artistry of football, and will throw out wild generalisations about supposed national characteristics being exhibited in a playground ball game. Much of it will make Alan Partridge's excited cry of "Eat my goal!" seem like a model of restraint in broadcasting. I will not be watching. All I ask is this: allow me the peace and quiet (and, ideally, the scheduling time) to seek out the Le Mans 24 Hours, the British Grand Prix and a few other nuggets, and I will leave you alone if you'll return the favour.