Saturday, June 14, 2014

'Football Crazy Football Mad'

Well the original Scottish composers of this post's title pop song were Robin Hall and Jimmy Macgregor and their song can be heard at:  Football Crazy Football Mad.

The point of this post however is not  the song but rather to create a distraction from the  ongoing negative international news in eg Ukraine Iraq and Afganistan.

Rather like the London 2012 Olympic Games the Football world cup in Brazil is at first sight an extravagant distraction from the world's problems. However hopefully also like the Olympics the enthusiasm for the football and footballing nations involved will affect more and more people.

 Given the fact that religion has been used as an excuse for wars for generations and sadly I don't think any religion is exempt from  this, the human race does seem to  need something lighter to focus peacefully but competitively upon  almost as a distraction from the anguish caused by  extreme selfishness in other spheres of life.   The  warmth  shown by strangers to strangers grew substantially as  the Olympics  progressed and hopefully the same will occur during the football.

 Given the repeated failures of the United Nations  the UK USA EEC China Saudi Arabia and Russia to name but a few to achieve much peace in recent times by  intelligent discussion then some unintelligent accidental route to peace might have a better chance  which brings this post back to football. Of course the need for professionals to work at restoring peace remains acute but steps forward even accidentally and unplanned during a major sporting diversion  may  achieve more positive ways forward than international public sabre rattling appears to do.

Almost by accident last night I watched the  Holland v Spain match on TV. Wonderfully entertaining football with a great crowd in the stadium too. I had thought that with Spain the winners in 2010 and with the climate in both countries  being more temperate than in Brazil giving  no  weather/climate advantage for either side, Spain would win by at least two goals. In the event after a great match Holland won 5-1. I don't think that Spain has suffered such an ignominious defeat  in international foot ball for many years - almost a generation.

 I do recall our Spanish neighbour in the 2010 world cup flying the Spanish flag from his car and having great football parties at his house  to celebrate Spain's footballing wins then.  He looked a little forlorn this morning but of course these are still early days.

Hopefully the team from Spain will pick itself  up metaphorically speaking and  fight back in their next matches.

Meanwhile England's turn tonight. Well we in England have I think already more or less given up on our team progressing much further  so the usual disappointment  if and when, they are sent packing early in the competition, will not thankfully affect us for long this time.

3 comments:

  1. Well, Jerry, as usual the "exciting new-look" English team ran out of steam and ideas against Italy! At least they are likely to be spared the humiliation of yet another penalty shoot-out. Did you see what Stephen Hawking said about our abject failure in this aspect of the game? "England couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo".

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  2. Jerry, I think he's angling for you you (anyone) to say allez les bleus.
    I didn't think poor old Nat.Team did that badly given they were playing Italy, though there were yet more occasions for my wish to deliver a good smack to Mr. Rooney who doesn't appear to know about team spirit. Oh well, they'll probably all be home again in another week.

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  3. I suppose we could say Liverpool 2 Manchester United 1!

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