The Devil In Me

“When I were a lad”, as begins the famous Monty Python skit with four Yorkshiremen. Various tales of hardship are shared out between the grumpy old gits about how tough it was growin up tup north.

Who’d a thought United’d struggle without young Wayne? Well, everyone actually. Unfortunately, some of also thought that Berbatov would step up to the plate. Certainly he has stepped up, but his stride is yet to break out into a sprint, not even a steady jog.

Well it ain’t easier for any of us at the moment. Just looking around locally, Burnely fans could whinge about Brian Laws being on a one-man mission to take them down. City can’t exactly scream from the rooftops about Garry Cook and Blackburn are, well, in Blackburn.

Wigan remind of the resident space cadet at school – highly entertaining when they turn up, but that ain’t much. Arsenal are unappreciated elves losing their battle against a platoon of Robocops (or Barcelona) and Liverpool are under the charge of a man with dodgy facial hair who has clearly lost his mind.

So when I want to launch into a long tirade about how terrible it is that Rooney is injured, I spare a thought for every fan in the country – because this season we are all suffering. And at least we’ve got a cup.

People talk about the neutrals wanting Arsenal and Fulham to do well because they are “well-run clubs”. Arsenal, fair enough, but Fulham? Mohammad Al Fayed’s plaything, with a moneyed up owner and little historic soul, are everything that is wrong with English football. You can’t put Roy Hodgson in front of something and tell me that it is pretty, even if he is a lovely bloke.

It begs the question, who are these neutral fans? Some kind of grey-clad, Swiss people only interested in the welfare of good in the world? Nope. They actually don’t exist. In my book, you either have some kind of stake in the game or you’re not really that bothered.

I’ll concede that it is exciting. There are plenty of sumptuous fixtures left, and if anyone can correctly predict the formation of the top 8 now I shall happily give you the religion of my first born.

Lining up in the following fixtures we need a turbo charged Berba, the 1999 Neville, Macheda with Michael Owen’s brain and Fergie to plan his team selections better that he plans his post-match whinges about the ref.

Will City do us a massive favour? Will Spurs help Arsneal? How will Liverpool feel if they have to beat Chelsea to finish fourth but hand us no.19 in the process?

Spare a thought for all the football fans in this country, because mostly we suffer from football rather than enjoy it. In a few weeks though, some of us will be drinking Chateaux de Chaselet and saying, “who’d a thought?” I hope it’s us.