Big news of the season. Clearly and obviously the most dramatic moment, turn up for the books, event of the season so far – oh, do get on with it – is that the Blessed Gary Lineker is giving up Match of the Day. Will Saturday evenings ever be the same again?
Makes no different to me personally. Never watch it on Saturday. Stay up till after ten? On your bike. I am in bed by nine most evenings. I record it and watch it at my leisure on Sunday morning with my muesli – so I can whiz on, avoid all the chat, and just watch all the action .
Very often I am listening to Sunday Worship on Radio 4 at the same time. I do love the hymns. I sing along right lustily. All on my own. Knowing that my lady friend Miranda in her little house on the Isle of Wight is singing along as well. So sweet.
But Gary has done a great job – a national treasure. Not sure if he gets paid? Remind me. Or does he see it as charity work? When he began 25 years ago he was hesitant and nervous and I feared his Leicester accent would count against him. But goodness, didn’t he do well? So fluent, charming, at ease and self-aware.
I wanted him to succeed, as I admired him as a player, and I respected his determination. I remember going to interview him when he was still at Spurs and living in a Georgian gem in St John’s Wood. Or have I made that up? Back then (and now), star players tended to live in horrible, flash, modern, gated mansions.
I had to wait as he finished talking to two, rather scruffy lads. I thought they were autograph hunters. After they had gone he told me they were running their own football fanzine. Yet he had given them so much time. Which was kind. He said he hoped to go into the media so wanted to experience all sorts of interviews.
Best hair of the season. Marc Cucurella of Chelsea. Or did he win it last year? I can’t remember that far back. He is the little weedy defender for Chelsea with the long curly hair down to his bum. You can’t miss him. I can never work out why he does not wear a hairband like Haaland. He does fuss and push his hair back, giving it a dainty flick when looking around or about to take free kicks.
His hair was his only noteworthy feature at first, but he is now a fan favourite: capped for Spain – left back or left wing – fast and enterprising, throwing what little weight he has into tackles.
Player of the season. Not, alas, a Prem player, as he plays for Real Madrid: Jude Bellingham. But he has been the best player in the England team, the one most likely to turn it around or do something creative, now that Harry Kane appears to be in the doldrums. That’s a suburb of Munich. Look it up.
“Hey Jude,” I shout. “Well done!” He is taller and better built than I thought. Perhaps he has grown in confidence. Or with Harry’s fading.
Best club. Liverpool is the surprise leader – a silly thing to say, as they have been a top team for decades. But post-Klopp they were expected to go off the rails, which usually happens after a star manager leaves, such as Fergie at Man U and Wenger at Arsenal. Perhaps Man City going off the boil has propelled Liverpool up the Prem.
Good clubs. Well done to Nottingham Forest. They were predicted to be bottom by now, but they’ve found themselves in the right half of the table. Brighton and Brentford, meanwhile, have kept up their good form and canny housekeeping in the Premier League these last couple of years.
Flash git of the season. Tony Adams. Sorry. that’s rude. He is a good bloke, but what a jerk he looked at the England-Ireland game wearing an amazingly huge, technicolour yellow coat. He looked like an end-of-the-pier clown, or a Christmas pantomime dame.
Interesting adverts. There seems to be a quasi-political element creeping into the hoardings and banners and slogans. On their shirt fronts, the Greek team had the message “End Child Poverty”. I wonder who paid for that?
A change from betting and beer…
[See also: Why be depressed about the state of football?]
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This article appears in the 05 Dec 2024 issue of the New Statesman, Christmas and New Year Special 2024