The things that have annoyed me this week

a.k.a…….So why exactly are you against That Modern Football? Part 26

95. In TMF conspiracies are everywhere

The people that like TMF don’t seem to be able to accept simple things. As soon as “their” club loses they start moaning. If “their” club has the temerity to lose a few games they contact radio phone-ins  to squeal  “Why is life always soooooo unfair?!?!?!?!” like teenage rebels.  On the other hand, if “their” club does the unthinkable and narrowly loses a couple of important matches they smell a conspiracy.

For example, if “their” club hasn’t won anything for ages and ages and ages it won’t be because other teams were better, or more consistent, it’ll be because there is a conspiracy that favours of other clubs. In the eyes of this Arsenal arsehole a pro-Manchester United refereeing conspiracy has been replaced by a pro-Manchester City refereeing conspiracy;

“Are the refs favouring Man City? I believe so based on strings of bad officiating in games involving them but with the victims of the bad calls always being their opponents. But there is no way to prove that they are buying their results. To continue to suggest so would lose us the support of other fans who might also believe, like us, that there is something fishy about officiating but uncomfortable with accusation of corruption without proof.

 My position on this matter is based on the team that used to enjoys such benefits: Manchester United. But then nobody ever talked about ‘oil money’, we just assumed that they were in the pockets of Alex Ferguson. And many of them were indeed intimidated or enamoured with the Scotsman. While I agree with the notion (that Ferguson owned the refs), on the other hand, I think that Man United got everything they wanted because of a very compliant media.”

Some Rangers fans look at their club’s punishment and prefer to see a conspiracy against the club rather than their club’s culpability;

“………..I am talking about the vile cancer of Rangers-hating bigotry that so many engage in, from the man in the street to trusted HMRC officials, to journalists and pundits and to those who work in the football authorities.

Rangers-hating is a national disease in Scotland. It has clearly resulted in the obscene persecution of a famous sporting institution and has shown widespread endemic corruption in so many organisations. People have been shown to be quite prepared to risk liberty and livelihood in order to do damage to Rangers Football Club.”

When some people see their club lose it’s down to the referees’ conspiracy against the club;

There’s a refs conspiracy against United, claims Fergie after defeat at Arsenal

“Sir Alex Ferguson last night pulled ‘a Jose’ by claiming referees are biased against Manchester United.

Just five days after Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho ranted about the world being against him, a furious Fergie insisted United do not get decisions in big games.”

In their outraged excitement people are destroying the English language, “Woe is me, everything’s sooooooooooooooooo unfair!?!?!?!”  Calciopoli and Dynamo Berlin’s success and the systemic corruption around the aftermath of Hillsborough are conspiracies, a couple of defeats isn’t a conspiracy.

96. Collymore and twitter trolls

I’ve written about this before and it sadly happened again  last week. Sadly Stan dared to offer another reasonable opinion.

One of the most disturbing things about twitter is the ease that racial and derogatory language comes to some people. To a lot of people it’s merely “banter, mate”. Last year Wales lost to Serbia and a bloke that was following me on twitter tweeted;

“Surely a retarded monkey with aids would be a better manager than Coleman?”

I took issue with the wanker but it turned out I was in the wrong; I was “precious”. After I blocked him he continued to sarcastically refer to me as “precious”. About 18 months ago I spent 3 hours arguing about the causes of Hillsborough with a USA-based Man Utd fan after he’d tweeted something about “self-pitying Scousers” causing the deaths of their own at Hillsborough. Again I was the problem.

I had a real world taste of this casual wordplay when Bangor played in Aberystwyth a couple of weeks ago. Teenaged Aberystwyth fans in branded clothes decided to use economic factors to berate their supposed inferiors – me and my friends – with chants of the following calibre;

“Go back to your council houses”

“Let’s all go to Tesco, where Bangor buy their best clothes”

We stood there while bloody 14 year olds insulted and judged people from the comfort and security of an existence paid for by caring parents. We stood there and took it because they were kids.

Another Bangor fan and I eventually grew weary of their freelance sociology so turned around to ask them what they thought they were doing. To see their faces drop milliseconds after the question “Do actually you understand what you’re singing about?” was posed was rather satisfying.

Why do we have to put up with this crap?

97. Rich clubs list

The “Football rich list” came out last week and what an absolute load of unmitigated crap it is.

Why the hell do the media give this less than subtle appendage-measuring exercise such prominence in the proper news? What good does this knowledge do the general public? All it does is make capitalism and sport seem as though they are inextricably linked. Bollocks to it

98. Illegal decoders

The Man’s trying to prosecute illegal decoders in pubs again. It says a lot about TMF that there are unlicensed ways of viewing it.

99. Twitter again

Some Chelsea supporting arsehole tweeted this;

@Famous_CFC Hard to take the expert opinion of a lower league footballer seriously when commentating on a team of superstars #clarkecarlisle

100. This bloody country

This story say a lot about how we, “we” as in “society”, view footballers;

Adnan Januzaj’s initiation into the ranks of professional football continues, with the 18-year-old Manchester United star the subject of a tabloid ‘kiss-and-tell’.

No bedroom revelations to embarrass young Adnan, thankfully, but rather the source of student Melissa McKenzie’s dissatisfaction was the £30,000-a-week star’s choice of venue – budget chicken joint Nando’s.

Melissa, 25, was also peeved Januzaj turned up in tracksuit bottoms and trainers and let her pay for parking after she had allegedly picked him up from a street corner where his mum had dropped him off.

‘I’ve never met anyone so stingy in my life,’ Melissa told The Sun. ‘I was so excited for the first date. We met on a social network site and I got all dressed up and even got my make-up done – costing me £30.

 ‘I expected him to come to me in a flashy car, but I ended up driving him about in my old blue Fiesta and I was left to pay and display. Then he said he was taking me to Nando’s – my face fell.

‘I usually go there for a quick bite to eat with my mates. I didn’t expect to be going there on a date with a Man United footballer, especially in my dress and heels.’

Yes, dead right, Melissa – how dare he act like us regular plebs.

The paper reports that Januzaj did fork out £18 for dinner before the evening moved on to to a three-star hotel, where the pair watched The X Factor.

Melissa claims the forward then asked to be driven home at 9pm, and alas the romance ultimately led nowhere.

Possibly a lucky escape there, mate.”

I’m unable to find the most horrible aspect of this story as all angles are equally horrible; from the “newspaper” it appeared in to the salacious “kiss and tell” slant; from the depressing way that some people view their fellow human beings to the criticism of a person for acting like a normal human being. The only positive thing about it is the hope that she was misquoted.