It's quite funny listening to people who have no interest in football pontificate at length about the proposed European Super League.
As if they care! I don't, and I really loved football.
As a child I often thought about little else. I played the game, watched it on TV (although there was very little live football) and listened to match commentaries on a tiny transistor radio in my bedroom.
I subscribed to Charles Buchan's Football Monthly, founded in 1951, and began a long habit of going to games – hundreds of them.
The first match I went to was in 1968 when my father took me to see our local non-league team, Maidenhead United, who were in the old Isthmian League.
The following year we moved to Scotland and within a few months he took me to my first professional football match, Dundee United versus Rangers. Capacity crowd (22,000), United playing in tangerine for the very first time. I was hooked.
Thereafter, until I went to university in Aberdeen seven years later, I went to the majority of home games, usually by myself because my father had other interests (birdwatching mostly) and none of my friends supported United.
As a student in Aberdeen opportunities to watch United were limited but I went when I could, although I was usually playing for the university hockey team on Saturdays.
Likewise when I lived in London in the Eighties I was restricted to the big occasions – cup finals, winning the league on the last day of the season, that sort of thing.
Instead I got my football fix by watching Chelsea who I had supported from afar since 1967.
In the mid to late Seventies and for much of the Eighties Chelsea were a yo-yo club, relegation being followed by promotion then relegation and so on.
Stamford Bridge was not the stadium we know today and hooliganism was rife. At one point chairman Ken Bates threatened to put up an electric fence to stop supporters invading the pitch.
But still I went, even when attendances sometimes dropped to four figures in the old Second Division.
Visiting my parents in Derbyshire, where they had moved in 1980, I even developed an affection for Derby County and the wonderful old Baseball Ground. I went there as often as I could, even when the club got relegated to the old Third Division.
So when did I fall out of love with football? It's hard to pinpoint a specific moment because it's been a gradual thing but certainly in the last few years.
I still follow the game. I still support Dundee United and Chelsea (and wish Derby well) but disappointing results no longer keep me awake at night, nor do I look forward to matches with any great excitement, as I once did.
Television has a lot to do with it. The thrill and anticipation of a live match on TV is long gone because there are just so many of them.
When I was growing up there were no more than a handful of live games on television. The FA Cup final (coverage of which would begin on BBC1 at 9.00am, six hours before kick-off), the European Cup final, and the annual home international between England and Scotland.
In Scotland the FA Cup final wasn't shown live because it clashed with the Scottish Cup final. The thrill therefore when Chelsea drew 2-2 with Leeds in 1970 and the replay at Old Trafford was shown live throughout the UK was off the charts, for me at least.
Funnily enough that match has been described as 'The most brutal game in English football history' but that's not how I remember it.
It was two teams, neither of whom had ever won the cup, going for it in a way you rarely see today. No exaggerated or feigned injuries. Proper football!
The following year I can even remember being excited about the European Cup final between Ajax and Panathinaikos. On the afternoon of the match we had our school sports' day and I couldn't wait for it to end so I could get home for the game.
Ajax won 2-0 and I remember it because it was my first big football disappointment. Weeks of anticipation followed by a completely rubbish game!
Today live matches are ten a penny with the number increasing with every new TV or streaming contract.
I catch the odd game but I'm more likely to watch The Great Sewing Bee than Super Sunday or the Champions League. I don't even watch the highlights. Match of the Day? I stopped watching that years ago.
Some of today’s modern stadiums don't help. I mentioned Derby's Baseball Ground, perhaps my favourite football ground with a fantastic atmosphere. Built among Victorian terraced houses (now demolished, along with the ground) it was directly adjacent to the Rolls Royce factory so there was a direct bond between the workers and the club.
In comparison Pride Park, which replaced the Baseball Ground 20+ years ago, feels pretty soulless. There's nothing wrong with it but it's a direct copy of Middlesbrough's stadium, built a few years earlier, so there is absolutely nothing original about it.
Wembley is another modern stadium with very little personality. When it was built a lot was made of the arch but when you're inside you're not really aware of it and it feels like many other modern stadiums, albeit larger.
The old stadium had the 'Twin Towers' and the long walk from the dressing rooms at one end of the ground. The current stadium has more toilets and much improved sight lines but far less atmosphere. How did that happen?
The old Wembley was no longer fit for purpose but I can't imagine the 'new' stadium will ever have the same iconic status, and the same is true of many other modern stadiums.
But I could overlook that if the football was more entertaining. By and large however it's not.
A clip was posted on Twitter recently that showed Dundee United playing Hibernian in the mid to late Sixties.
In those days United were a very ordinary middle of the table team (much like they are now!). The club had been fully professional for less than a decade and had never reached a single cup final let alone won anything.
The clip was quite short but it was a revelation.
It showed wave after wave of attacks on the opposition goal. As soon as United lost the ball they would win it back. Old-fashioned wingers and inside forwards ran at the defence at every opportunity.
At one point United appeared to score a perfectly legitimate goal, the ball rebounding from a metal stanchion at the back of the net into the goalkeeper’s arms, but the referee didn't give it.
There was no VAR (thank goodness) but here’s the thing. Apart from a few questioning looks and the mildest of appeals there were no complaints from the players, nor did they surround the referee. They just kept playing.
Their movement was non-stop and the crowd (much larger than United's average attendance today) appeared to be very appreciative of the team's efforts.
Compared to the football we often see today it was exhilarating. Yes, today's game at the very top level is more skilful, more athletic and better organised tactically, but it can also be very boring.
I’ve been watching football for over 50 years and the poor matches have always outnumbered the good, but for me there is something rather sterile about a lot of today’s football. Aside from isolated moments of great skill, it rarely gets you on your feet.
That's the real elephant in the room no-one wants to address. More often than not modern football is not a great spectacle.
Remember Real Madrid versus Eintracht Frankfurt in the 1960 European Cup final at Hampden Park (Real won 7-3)? No, nor me, but journalists who were there talk about it still. How many of today's matches will be remembered in 60 years' time?
Despite that I still support 'my' teams and as readers of this blog know I travel to Scotland several times a year to watch Dundee United home or away. (Not this season obviously but I hope to put that right next year.)
The reality though is that I rarely enjoy the actual football because it's generally atrocious. I go because I support the club and the area is where I grew up so for me trips to Tannadice are an excuse to visit Dundee and St Andrews (where I went to school) and the fishing villages of Crail and Anstruther, home of the best fish and chip shop in Scotland.
It's that package, not just the football, that draws me back time after time.
Meanwhile VAR is slowly strangling the game, denying goals and the chance to celebrate when the benefit of the doubt should always be with the team that scores.
And that’s just one of my gripes about the modern game.
So where does that leave me with the European Super League? Truthfully, I don't know and I don't really care. What will be will be.
The idea of an American style league that has no promotion or relegation does not sit easily with me. On the other hand I've experienced – from a fan's perspective – the annual battle to avoid relegation and/or get promoted and rarely does it lend itself to entertaining football.
Fear of failure often has the opposite effect and promising young players are frequently denied an opportunity to play and develop because the under pressure coaches take the conservative option and go with experience.
That's not to say I'd get rid of promotion and relegation because sporting integrity demands that all clubs – not just the rich or well-supported ones – should have an opportunity to rise to the very top.
Nevertheless I'm not convinced the government (let alone Prince William!) should be weighing in as they are.
Anyway if you too are undecided I recommend this article by Paul Goodman, editor of Conservative Home and a former MP.
It’s an alternative and probably minority view but worth reading.
PS. As I write I'm reading that Man City and Chelsea are preparing to withdraw from the ESL. That was quick!
Below: With my son at Tannadice Park, Dundee, in 2019. To be fair I still enjoy going to Tannadice and as soon as spectators are readmitted I’ll be back. Heart over head every time!
