You know, as Interlulls go this is right up there with the most tedious we’ve ever had.
I think in these circumstances it’s only right and proper that we try and blame someone for the fact we’re so very very bored. Blatter, Platini, meh. Easy targets. You need to look deeper than that. The people who created UEFA and FIFA. Not quite but we’re on the right track. We’ve gotta go back further.
When you think about it why do we have international football? The answer – because there are countries.
If we accept that the human race evolved out of Africa there had to be an initial tribe, right? A group of pre-humans who did their evolvey stuff in a particular region.
But then one chap thought ‘Hey, what’s over there?’ and set off with his girlfriend and maybe another couple, we’ll call them Lionel and Hilda, to have a look. And when they got there they liked it, did the bad stuff with each other and started producing little pre-humans. Then some of those little pre-humans would grow up and explore and they started to spread out a bit.
Others left the initial tribe not to explore but to get away from Arthur, who was the world’s very first really annoying cunt. You know one of those people who just talks too much all day, every day. The kind of guy that if you work in the same office you kick yourself when you end up stuck with him during lunch or even when out having a smoke break. Arthur invented that practical joke where you kneel behind someone and then someone else pushes that person over you.
So for various reasons the initial group fractured and splintered and they did not take kindly to usurpers of any kind. When visitors came who said ‘Hey, it’s quite nice here!’, the original group would think ‘Damn immigrants. Take this stone axe to back of your head’ and rivalries would grow.
Suspicions and mistrust between the groups grew and grew, especially the one with Arthur in it because as time went on he became even more of a cunt. He fancied himself as a bit of a bard, a poet to entertain the masses, and he would grunt long verses about he could feel something coming in the air tonight, although the concept of the lord had not yet been invented to finish that particular line.
Lines were drawn, territory was claimed with a mix of scenting the area with fresh urine and leaving the heads of interlopers on sticks. The first countries were formed. And as time went on and the battles between them were generally quite brutal and bloody the concept of a sporting engagement began to take shape.
It took many hundreds of years to grow beyond simple games of chance, such as ‘Who can cannibalise the most infants before the new moon?’ or ‘Lacrosse’ but eventually someone decided kicking a recently lopped off head around was tremendous fun and football was created. From there it was a short leap to international football and if you’ll do me the indulgence of fast-forwarding rather quickly … here we are.
If those initial pre-humans had just been like the rest of us, content to just sit there and not worry about what was ‘over there’ we’d be talking about Arsenal now. If it wasn’t for that cunt Arthur, who forced people away with his personality from hell, then we’d be talking about Arsenal now. There might even be an Arsenal game tonight.
If time travel is ever invented then I would not go back to witness great events such as the building of the pyramids, the sack of Rome, the great fire of London or the birth of our lord and saviour Dennis Bergkamp. No. I would go back to the dawn of civilization, whack that cunt Arthur like he was a mafia snitch and make sure the rest of them knew that ‘over there’ was very dangerous indeed and should be avoided at all costs.
Yet there’s little we can do about history but bemoan it. I am bemoaning like a fox today. Stupid internationals. Just shut the hell up and be over.
Stupid Arthur.
