Rage

Rather uncharacteristically I find that I suffer from bouts of uncontrollable rage.

A typical example occurred during the World Cup in 2010. England were playing the old foe Germany. Having made an abysmal start we had gone 2-0 down after Terry and Upson had decided to let Klose and Podolski waltz past them in a display of tactical naïveté reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy. This was much to the delight of the German fans, still smarting from the 5-1 mauling we had given them nine years earlier, who were singing “Wo ist Michael Owen jetzt?”. Great.

However rather against the odds we fought our way back into the game and a somewhat fortunate rebound from Steven Gerrard off Matthew Upson’s face had put the game back to 2-1. Fifty seconds later in the thirty-ninth minute Frank Lampard (never one of my favourite players) then hit an absolute peach of a shot which looped over the keeper, rebounded off the bar and landed a good two feet inside the goal, prompting delirious scenes of wild celebration amongst all England fans in pubs and bars the length and breadth of the country. I had leapt from my chair and was dancing around my lounge with glee. As you’ll no doubt be aware, unless you’ve been living under a rock, in a monumentally inept piece of refereeing the goal was unbelievably disallowed as the ball had allegedly not crossed the line. The referee who perpetrated this outrage was Uruguayan Jorge Larrionda (oh to meet him in a dark alley one night).

However at this point my rage was totally uncontrollable; a seething cauldron of righteous anger and misguided patriotism.

I fully accept that we might well have gone on to lose anyway (given the total ineptitude of our so-called “defenders”) but that goal should have stood, and we should have walked in at half-time on level terms, which could have changed everything.

My rancour was intense and ugly, sanctimonious and xenophobic. The sense of injustice still burns in me and can be ignited by any similar incident in any football match. What is it about football that can turn an otherwise intelligent man into The Incredible Hulk?