Ten(ish) things I f*****g hate about modern football

I used to love football. From being a kid I was obsessed with it. Like many, playing and obsessing over football was all that used to fill my head for the majority of my waking hours.

Thing is, as I’ve gotten older though, something’s changed. These days more and more things about football seem to irritate me. From the buffoons running the game, down to the namby-pambies on the pitch – it’s now gotten to the point where almost everything about modern football gets on my wick.

You’ll probably have your own, but as far as I’m concerned, these are the ten most irritating things about the modern game…

1. Greedy, overpaid players

An obvious one I know, but footballers really do get on my t*ts these days. Most are nothing more that hired guns that go exactly where they are told by their mercenary agents. Top players now earn six figure weekly sums, but even your average shambler now earns an absolute mint. It’s little wonder that players from all over the world are falling over themselves to join a PL club. Many will never have even heard of Hull or West Brom, but that won’t stop them from declaring it a dream come true to play at The KC!

2. Trophy presentations

Trophy presentations used to be quite elegant affairs. The winning skipper leading his victorious side up the steps, humbly shaking the hand of The Queen or Lady Di, before jubilantly hoisting the cup aloft. Not anymore. These days, shoddy looking cardboard platforms are erected on the pitch before the entire winning squad hop aboard to create some sort of rugby scrum around the trophy (usually with some crap, peripheral squad players parking themselves right next to the cup!). It’s then left to some moronic figure – usually Blatter or Platini – to try to force their grinning mugs through the melee of players in attempt to present the cup to the captain. Farcical.

3. Jim White

Remember when all transfer deadline day involved was checking teletext sometime in March to see if your club had made any late signings?!? Oh how I miss those days, because nowadays we have to put up with this complete t*t. As Sky Sports’ deadline day coverage has grown into the insufferable monster it has become, so has Jim’s ego. I’m not sure when it happened exactly, but these days old Jim has evolved into some sort of bizarre, Ron Burgandy-esque parody of himself, selflessly guiding us all through the last few hours of the window.

4. D*ckhead owners

George Gillet. Tom Hicks. Carson Yeung. Venkys. Vincent Tan. Randy Lerner. Mike f’ing Ashley. Freddy Shepherd. Assem Allam. Shahid Khan. Flavio Briatore. Tony Fernandes. Peter Ridsdale. GFH Capital. Massimo Cellino. Charles Green. Craig Whyte. Eggert Magnússon. Charles Koppel. Alexandre Gaydamak. Balram Chainrai. You get the gist.

5. Hideous identikit stadiums

As a youngster I used to pride myself on being able to recognise a ground within seconds of tuning in. I could do it because, good or bad, each ground had their own unique look and features. Ok, so they mightn’t have been as functional, or even as pleasant as their modern counterparts; but I miss grounds like Filbert Street, Highfield Road and The Baseball Ground. The worst part is, all these new edge-of-town, flat-pack stadia, like The Riverside, Madjeski, Stadium of Sh*te, etc are all exactly the same – just with different colour seats

6. TV channels running roughshod over fans

These days it seems that the TV companies have all the power and not two tosses are given regarding the travelling fans. Booked a train & hotel for your away trip to Southampton on Saturday? Tough, we’re moving it to Monday. Can’t get the train home from London if we move kick-off back to 5pm? Tough. The diehard fans that travel the length and breadth of our county to support their teams are the life blood of our game; yet time and time again get royally shafted by the cash obsessed TV channels. Which brings me nicely on to……

7. Modern cup final times

Whoever came up with the idea of moving the CL Final to a Saturday can take a long run off a short cliff as far as I’m concerned. People do things, like have weddings, parties and celebrations on Saturday nights, especially in May. Just managing to watch it feels like an achievement these days. Then there’s the poor old FA Cup final. Shoved back to 5pm to help generate a few more pennies; what was once our showpiece event on the last Saturday on the season, must now make do with being shoehorned in somewhere between the more lucrative PL finale and CL final.

8. Sepp Blatter

Do I really need to go into detail regarding the egotistical maniac in charge of the most crooked and corrupt organisation on the planet?!? Thought not.

9. Sam Allardyce

Speaking of egos; is there anything more irritating about modern-day football than “Big Sam”? As the money involved in the PL has grown, so in turn has the desperation to stay there. Sam’s hideous blueprint for not getting relegated has given him the longevity that his brand of anti-football surely doesn’t deserve. In fact, the only thing worse than Allardyce making millions from his heinous style of football, is his arrogance that he simultaneously manages to exude whilst serving it up.

10. FIFA/Football Manager based football scouts

A relatively new phenomenon this, but annoying none the less. Such is the quality of detail of these games now that a whole new genre of annoying people has emerged. You know the sort, all these who have from nowhere developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of world football – based solely on what their computer games tell them. Maybe if they turned the PlayStation off and actually watched a match, they might realise that the Stuttgart left-back they keep gushing about is actually utter sh*t!

Oh, and one more I forgot about…”Since the Premier League began”

I think we’re all quite clear now, as far as the cosy bed fellows of Sky and the Premier League are concerned, football in our country didn’t actually exist prior to 1992!