I don't understand the thrill of the game

[venta]

Today I've had Xfm on, streaming from my computer. It's sufficiently cool today that we don't need the aircon on, so I can hear music properly. Most of the DJs have talked about the football, everyone who's called in has been asked about/mentioned it. Some of the adverts are football orientated. There's even been adverts for a club which is "the only place to be after the match".

Over on elle_'s journal, it's clear that companies all over the place are using the match as an excuse for a jolly. Someone else mentioned that their company is shutting up shop early this afternoon.

Now, I'm not a football fan, not even at times like this. I come from a family of sport-despisers. When a passing French bloke tried to take the piss on Sunday night, it was completely lost on me because, though I knew there was a match on, I hadn't known it was against France, and at that point I didn't know England had lost.

I know there are plenty of people out there who're not bothered about footy. So, without wanting lots of frothing comments along the lines of how the match tonight is getting in the way/sodding up your plans/annoying you: what percentage of the population cares ?

The prevalence of the little car-flags, the quietness of the streets when there's a game, everything else suggests "near 100". But a surprisingly high percentage of my friends are rabidly anti-. Is this just me knowing an unrepresentative sample ? Is it that the football apathists are just much quieter about their apathy than the supporters are about their support ? That people are worried they'll be deemed sad, uncool, unpatriotic or pummelled if they admit they don't give a stuff ?

I'm genuinely curious.

Comments

[surje.livejournal.com]

i find the whole concept of nationalistic pride quite scary. and veneration of the flag even more bizarre. there are many other countries that should be celebrated ahead of our own, if you choose to delineate groups of people by such arbitrary criteria. however, since the development of transportation in recent decades, the whole notion of a country having any kind of collective identity is rapidly eroding, and thankfully communications in general mean that media and art are able to cross geographical cultural boundaries more easily than they used to.

however, that doesn't mean that there aren't things that are uniquely british that i love... there is some common collective consciousness because of our shared television and artistic culture, which in general we're quite good at exporting, in contrast to many other products. but international sport (whilst good at encouraging economic growth) simply encourage celebration of ethnic and historical differences. other such forms of inciting hatred are considered taboo...