Terminal Boardom It all depends on what you hope to achieve and gain from watching football. When one supports a team, it is if an umbilical cord is attached. Eventually, that cord gets cut as mine has with Reading. I genuinely miss the days when I could identify with the players. As a child, Tommy Youlden lived in my village in a house very similar to many in the same road. He drove a normal car and shopped where everyone else shopped. The same can be said up until the TV money started coming in. Now, players are cocooned in their own sterile world divorced from reality. Can anyone really identify with footballers now? Genuinely?
The atmosphere within football grounds has changed. Standing, cheering, making noise and the like are frowned upon by the army of pedants that wear orange and yellow high vis jackets. The costs of getting to a game are also spiralling out of control. Supporters generally have completely unrealistic levels of expectation that has been fuelled by a crazy media with a demand on instant gratification. The evil that is the media is, of course, funded by the ordinary punter with their monthly subscriptions who feed off the media desperate for the merest mention of their team. Social websites make the matter worse. I really don't care what this player or that player is tweeting. Sadly, there are millions out there hanging on someone's every word and utterance. Are people's lives so empty that they have to live their own lives through the banal utterances of others?
The sooner that the tv bubble bursts, the better. The sooner that football returns to being a form of entertainment for the masses the better. Until these things happen, it will just be more of the same and excess following excess.
TB, you are my brother
I would only add, on a personal level
I've fallen out of love, not with RFC: but with pro football (as it is).
I've had many an exchange of views with some on here about what direction the club is going, and how best to perpetuate the forward momentum and progress the club has made during the latter part of my following the club.
It is now crystal clear to me that no matter how much money any chairman pumps in, no matter how much time, effort, personal and family-time sacrifices (and money) are made by fans, both local, and long distant, all this finishes up lining the pockets of footballers and their agents. The CLUB finishes up none the richer. That's plain wrong, in my view.
It's like Vodaphone running at a loss, not because its service is crap, (I know it is subjective) but because the people working in the shops are all on telephone number salaries, driving Audi R8's.
The business model is broken, and I am not going to use my money to perpetuate it.
It's the CLUB I support, and always will.
