Nothing to speak of in Footieland

Now I love football as much as the next football-loving lunatic and there was a time when I didn’t think I could ever get too much of it - the evocative blend of fried onions and fag smoke down by the Trent on match day, the nervous anticipation of the classified results in a bar on holiday, the transfer rumours via a very reliable close friend of a local estate agent who has just had just posted details of their Executive Collection to a footballer’s wife in Premiershipshire... oh and the matches themselves!

But has the background colour of our beautiful game been bleached beyond repair? I was left considering this point after sitting through 40 minutes of Talk Sport phone-in ‘debating’ the big question of the day: ‘Did Fabregas spit at The Hull City assistant manager in the tunnel after last night’s game’. The fact that none of the callers, nor the two show hosts, could have the faintest clue if he did or not, certainly didn’t slow proceedings down.

My conclusion was football, like so many other vital parts of our life, has become victim to over analysis stemming from an ever increasing number of media channels desperate for content.

I guess this is just one small downside to the information-rich multi-media age we live in, and rather than become a grumpy old ‘jumpers for goalposts’-type moaner I could just switch off. But had I done so last week I never would have known how many times (league and cup) Fabregas has been accused of spitting in the last three years.