(I don’t think I can work under these conditions)
The newly lauched CSTB Twitter feed gets another workout tomorrow when I spend an afternoon complaining reporting from Crewe Alexandria’s visit to Brighton & Hove Albion. In light of recent events in Middelsbrough, I can only hope the Seagulls are “snored on to victory by a happily drowsing crowd with blankets round their knees”, a live soccer experience advocated by the Guardian‘s Harry Pearson :
Many readers may feel that if you are going to complain about crowd noise at a football match, then an angry letter about the fact that your view of the pitch has been severely impeded by 22 men in shorts who insist on running about all over it during the entire length of your visit is surely on its way. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the average age of those attending football matches is rising (or at least craning) ever upwards. Soon, most of the grounds will be, more or less, entirely in the knobbly hands of the prostate generation. It will alter the game irrevocably. For a start, the interval will have to be extended to an hour just so we all have time to piddle.
The fact is that when you are getting on in years, you increasingly find high-tempo, all-action entertainment physically and mentally draining. I had to spend the day in bed after watching The Dark Knight, a film that frankly made me feel as if I had been falling down the stairs into a darkened cellar for two and a half hours. No, there will come a time when fans at football matches will no more want explosive excitement from their afternoon match than we do from our afternoon TV schedule. We will want something light, cheerful and familiar, possibly refereed by Hannah Gordon or Alan Titchmarsh.