The football’s back – you must be thrilled! If you see me around, please don’t say this to me. I find it very hard to respond with the required enthusiasm. I often joke, in these pages and elsewhere, about how stressful and enervating I find the whole business of supporting my team. I’m not joking though. I’ve been pretending I’m joking, even to myself, but it turns out I’m deadly serious.
There are a few things I’ll miss about lockdown, the greatest of which is the absence of football. I’ve realised just how much emotional energy I expend on it in the normal run of things. To have been without it has been to find peace.
When it looked like football wouldn’t be able to restart any time soon, there was a debate on how relegation and promotion issues should be resolved. It turned out that, however you did it, West Brom would get promoted. I made all the right noises about how this would be an unsatisfactory way to proceed, and it would be much better to resolve matters on the pitch. I take it disingenuousness is a grave sin, in which case, my brothers and sisters, I confess to you that I have sinned.
25 June 2020, The Tablet
Peace is an empty football pitch
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