Can you be too thin, too rich, too popular, too old, too handsome, too prolific, too lovely? In my long-legged life, I have been all of those things, oh yes. Not always easy.
But can you have too much football? Until yesterday I’d have said no: impossible, it’s the icing on the cherry.
My week totally revolves around football, organising my family, my work, my everything to fit. For example, tonight – Monday – I am going to give a talk to the NUJ Freelance branch at Friends House. Dunno why. I never do such things, but months ago I got an email from someone I don’t know asking nicely if I would. Months ago, you think today will never happen. First I checked to see there were no Prem games on telly tonight. Which is why I said yes.
But at the time I didn’t think I would feel like I do this morning, never having checked what was happening yesterday. I spent a total of 11 – repeat, 11 – hours watching football. Is this the way madness is?
Early doors, I watched Match of the Day, which I’d recorded. I go to bed at ten, so never watch it live, desperately avoiding all scores in order to have virgin, unsullied eyes. I can whizz on and miss all the studio stuff, daft talking points, pointless analysis. I have my own daft, pointless opinions.
At midday there came three live Prem games, one after the other, all on Sky Sports. Often there are days when there is only one live game, alas – then once every few weeks they bludgeon us over the head.
I watched every minute of each, though the moment one was over, I couldn’t remember the score, or who was playing, the time or day, what is the capital of England, who is the Prime Minister, yet I had been concentrating – really hard. Football might not rot the brain but it does deaden the senses.
That took me to 6.30pm and kick-off for the final of the Africa Cup of Nations, hurrah, between Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. I didn’t watch the earlier rounds, as they were on Eurosport. By some oversight, it’s the only sports channel in the world I don’t subscribe to. But I’d discovered that the final was on ITV4. Not many people know there is such a channel, lurking away.
It went to extra time and penalties – which Côte d’Ivoire won – so it was precisely 30 seconds to ten o’clock when I collapsed into bed. Oh, you’re still alive, she said. Thought you’d popped it.
A whole day, glued to the football. Thank God for half-time. A chance to take sustenance and go to the lav.
Now, do I need therapy? Is there something lacking in my life? What am I escaping?
Growing up, I wouldn’t do this, as there was no live football on the telly except the Cup final. Instead, we crouched round the family radio, which was connected by a wire to the light socket above the kitchen table (how on earth did we not set fire to the house?), while my little heart pounded, willing on Scotland to beat England. Perhaps my deprived childhood is to blame for my overdosing today. That’ll be five guineas.
I couldn’t do it as a young dad either. Having three kids screaming round the house made it harder to crouch in my room with the door barricaded, though God, I did try. Anyway you didn’t get wall-to-wall TV until twenty years ago when the Prem began.
Now there’s only about five days or five minutes in the middle of August each year when it is impossible to find football on the telly somewhere. Should there be a health warning? To save the vulnerable from themselves. You get barren patches when there’s just one game a day – then suddenly, like yesterday, there’s four live games in a day. What can an addict do?
I could have stayed up even later and watched Barcelona, done 24 hours’ solid football and made the Guinness World Records.
The current sale of Prem games to TV is going to include Friday-night games as well. Brilliant. I’ll be dancing in the street, if I can find the strength, and the street.
Next week – can you have too much sex? A doctor writes …
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