Roger Moore scores: it's just not cricket
Last updated : 05 August 2006 By Chris C
“You what?” were the exact words of the Moore Camp Commandant this week, when I respectfully requested an official leave of absence from the children to attend the first home game of the season.
I didn't have the heart to tell the old girl that Sunday afternoon is also off limits while I settle back into the sofa with my friends from Bremen to indulge in what we commonly call ‘armchair supporting' – which I've never understood, since it's the armchair that's actually doing the supporting, I'm just avidly watching, sighing, swearing and occasionally leaping and punching an imaginary referee.
Yes friends, it's barely August, Mathew Hoggard, like the summer holidays, is in full swing, hay sits where grass used to dwell, trunks not shorts are the order of the day, but the football season is upon us. And no matter how you try to dress it up, it just isn't right. August is not what football was invented for.
Yes, I'm excited about the new season; it's no coincidence that my office password is ‘Champions2007'. Yes, it's a bold new era for our club – a club I finally feel is beginning to be returned to its rightful guardians – us! And yes, it will be a welcome change, no a delight, to jeer the opposition and their fans rather than our own Directors. But it doesn't change the way I feel; the season is starting too soon.
The wonderful thing about football is not the games themselves, for these are too often disappointments, even when they end in victory. No, what makes football special to me is actually the periods between the action on the park.
The pre-match build-up can start as much as three days before a game. That potent cocktail of tension and excitement is enough to see me through most Thursdays and Fridays before the usual pre-match ritual of leisurely breakfast, Racing Post, and Soccer AM puts me in the mood for football, and then some.
And the best build-up of all are the months of June, July and August when cricket is enough to satiate the sporting cells, while the passion cells take an opportunity to recharge and look forward to a season-long slog of hope, all too often dashed on the rocks of mediocrity. But what do we have if not hope?
No, for me, the summer is about the slow burn, that nagging yearning that starts post World Cup and becomes a rumble of need as the season looms, finally becoming a euphoric rush headlong into the first game, which should be somewhere just before the start of the new term. Football on August 6th? That's like having Christmas Day on November 28th.
Football? Not for me, not yet. Well, not until ten minutes to four on Sunday anyway, then it might all change…
