Open Goal Magazine

FOOTBALL COMES HOME...
SUNDAY 4th MAY 2008

It had to happen eventually. No, I'm not talking about Reading and that Brummie lot finally being found out as Premiership chancers. Nor am I referring to Nottingham Forest belatedly climbing out of the doldrums and back into the relative heady heights of the Championship. I am talking about this: an almost entirely serious Open Goal diary entry.

Oh yes, I have fart-arsed about in this column over the previous weeks and months, banging on about any old bollocks like Bob Monkhouse on acid. Half the time even I don't know what I'm wittering on about, so how the hell you lot do is beyond me.

But I saw something happen yesterday that recharged my aching football heart with all that is good about the game. There's too much of modern football fucked up by cash, egos, and corporate bollocks.

We have had the gritty grass roots passion seemingly ripped out of the game by bland all-seater stadia and the frenzy to communicate the game to Europe, the rest of the world, Pluto - who knows where next?

But twice in one game yesterday the true spirit of football raised itself from the hollows of commerciality.

First, Carlos Tevez scored a belter for United, followed shortly by Dean Ashton executing the most difficult of overhead kicks with the most consumate ease.

And in the background, all around, opposition supporters were applauding. Fair enough, Hammers fans look on Tevez as the modern Di Canio, but United have got no claims to Ashton, and whereas I'm not stupid enough to think they'd have been clapping gracefully if that goal had any real significance on the result, there's something quite touching about fans outwardly appreciating a goal as the ball nestles into the back of their own net.

It shows we're human after all, not numbers on a corporate sheet. We've got brains and emotions, and we don't need to be spoon-fed a footy product to be told that it's good for us. We're football fans - fans of football. Right? Well anyway, it touched me. Deep inside. Like Otex. Welcome back, football.

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