I've been a West Ham fan for as long as I can consciously remember. Of course, put me under hypnosis and it is possible that there will be a very early and reachable part of my life when I wasn't an Irons' fan, but I doubt it. I certainly won't countenance the idea I ever supported anyone else.
It's one of the many things that makes me an interesting person, this West Ham link. I suspect my parents indoctrinated me in some way, most likely my Mum since I blame her for all the other unfortunate things that happened to me. My Dad did go to a few matches in the early 60s, when my family lived in the East End, before I was born, but he was just a general sports' fan. A breed I view with utter contempt, although my Dad has redeeming qualities.
Given the support of other teams that my male siblings took on, I think there was some kind of family rule to support the team closest to your birthplace, my sister being the exception who probably picked based on the colour of the shirt or something.
But she was a Chelsea fan long before other band-wagon jumping one-time members of my extended family. His latter day espousal of the Chelski cause was initiated by his desire to please a business associate, and the fact that they couldn't be bothered to go to the European cup final shows a strange way of being a football fan.
It might surprise you to hear I'm quite glad we got knocked out of the FA Cup today. Really. This is not some "clever clever" sixth-form piece of bravado. I would have preferred a 1-0 defeat to a disputed penalty, but actually a comprehensive thrashing will do too, no ambiguity or regret.
I was taken to my first game as a 7th birthday treat, (we beat Stoke 2-1, don't remember much beyond the noise, atmosphere and lots of swearing), and in the intervening years I've learned a predictable pattern to our various types of season.
This season is one of the ones that starts brightly and then fades away in the face of raised, and unrealistic, expectations. Our form is petering out, or top players are getting injured, and our bright September is deteriorating towards a dreary March.
Looking at the recent form of Liverpool, Arsenal and Man Utd, I know how our cup campaign would have ended had we won today. Sooner or later we would have played one of them, because at least one of them is going to the final. I don't want to spend a fortune on semi-final tickets and travel, and perish the thought, the same for a final, only to see us lose in the final minute again.
I'm haunted by that. It's not really the money. It's the dashed hopes I won't be able to stop myself from having. So, well done West Brom. Hope you get stuffed in the next round.
Not really. I'd quite like them to win. But they won't. One of the afore-mentioned three will.
At least it will allow me to concentrate on more important things. Like re-building my form after three weeks enforced time off the bike. As a result of flu. Real flu. Time off work flu. Like I've not had for years and years. Of course I moan about it to excess, and my incredibly patient and hard-working wife has been a godsend (if there was such a thing as a God, which there most definitely isn't).
And
today's ride was the start of that process, and even though it was only 58 flat miles I found it pretty hard. Hopefully my body will remember how to do a lot longer than that next weekend and into the imminent Spring. It was lovely to be outside though, in the fresh air and in the excellent company of Martyn, Jennifer, Paul, James and Alan.
Even getting a puncture didn't dampen my mood. I didn't take any pictures today, so here's one of a group of my comrades changing an earlier puncture with aplomb.
So Spring is on the horizon and marching towards us in a blaze of sunshine. We even had the odd taster today. So lots to look forward to. In particular, we can all look forward to the most complicated election for years. I am fascinated by elections, another really interesting thing about me is that for many years I was a member of the Electoral Reform Society, and I was the Elections officer for the University of London Union. Impressed?
So even if I, like many, am quite disillusioned by all the third-rate politicians, and long for the giants of the past, the psephologist in me is really looking forward to the outcome of the election. I also love a good argument, especially one where I can prick the prejudice of the ill-informed and rubbish the half-baked ideas of the certain.
As I rapidly move towards late middle-age and then old-age and death, I increasingly know that there are very few things that are cut and dried, black and white, right or wrong. Apart from dessicated coconut, Newcastle United shirts and political correctness respectively.
Most of you now are expecting me to say something middle-aged and ranty about PC. But I'm going to leave you with this quote from a man I'm rapidly coming to see as a genius, even more so than Trevor Brooking. Responding to a survey that said 84% of people in the UK thought political correctness had gone mad, Stewart Lee said this:
It
really worries me that 84% of this audience agrees with that statement, because
the kind of people that say "political correctness has gone mad" are
usually using that phrase as a kind of covert action to attack minorities or
people that they disagree with. I'm of an age that I can see what a difference
political correctness has made. When I was four years old, my grandfather drove
me around Birmingham, where the Tories had just fought an election campaign
saying, "if you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour," and he
drove me around saying, "this is where all the niggers and the coons and
the jungle bunnies live." And I remember being at school in the early 80s
and my teacher, when he read the register, instead of saying the name of the
one Asian boy in the class, he would say, "is the black spot in,"
right? And all these things have gradually been eroded by political
correctness, which seems to me to be about an institutionalised politeness at
its worst. And if there is some fallout from this, which means that someone in
an office might get in trouble one day for saying something that someone was a
bit unsure about because they couldn't decide whether it was sexist or
homophobic or racist, it's a small price to pay for the massive benefits and
improvements in the quality of life for millions of people that political
correctness has made. It's a complete lie that allows the right, which
basically controls media now, and international politics, to make people on the
left who are concerned about the way people are represented look like killjoys.
And I'm sick, I'm really sick-- 84% of you in this room that have agreed with
this phrase, you're like those people who turn around and go, "you know
who the most oppressed minorities in Britain are? White, middle-class
men." You're a bunch of idiots.
·
From
"Heresy", BBC Radio 4, 16th May 2007
We are all biased. I am biased, so are you. The big question is not about our inherent prejudices, but what are we going to do about them? And if you were lucky enough to be born in Britain, in the late twentieth century, don't you think it might be a good thing to help the unlucky people in the world? How can we do that then?
