May 17th 2005

Apparently, an elderly American billionaire with a ginger chin-strap beard has bought himself a football club. Well I say bought - he's got the whole thing on credit, really - but it seems to belong to him now, so that's nice. He must be thrilled - I mean, it always feels lovely when you really, really want something, lots and lots, more than anything else in the world, and you can finally afford it and it's yours. There's that magical, excited, precarious feeling: "Ooh I've got it now, what am I going to do with it?"

Obviously for Malcolm Glazer that feeling is magnified somewhat by his almost complete lack of interest in the 11 sweaty bank accounts who run up and down the green pitchy-shaped thing hoofing a bladder about in the hope that it will end up in the big net at one end or the other and make the thousands of shouting, jeering singing people all say hooray at once. I should probably declare my hand at this stage and say that I do not like football. I never have. In fact, the first school I was expelled from, at the age of six, showed me the red card for attempting to burn down the school goalposts. It's a long story. Suffice to say that fat thighs, a lack of coordination and an unhealthy interest in fire were the big players and that, to the joy of the groundsman, creosote - despite smelling a bit petrolly to the six-year-old nose - doesn't actually burn.

Part of my problem with the national sport is that I've never understood the nature of the pre- and post-match collective bellowing. I did learn in Chelsea one afternoon that if a group of 30 people all ask at once, "Who are ya?", it's a rhetorical question and that on no account, even if they ask several times in rapid succession, should you attempt to answer. Especially not with "Who is any of us?", which, for the record, is almost guaranteed to get you a kicking.

So my distaste for the game does colour my view of the Glazer takeover. Which is: stop complaining, this was inevitable. I do feel for the fans a bit. Not loads, but a bit. I mean, I hope it works out for them - and that the current arrangement of the team with the most money always coming out on top is able to continue, "for the good of the game".

But let's face it, the game is jam-packed full of money-hungry, opportunistic, greedy people. There are sums of money changing hands faster than Wayne Rooney changes his mood. Didn't someone think that at some stage a vulture or two circling the financial skies above would notice the feast on the ground and flap down to see if there was a bit of meat to rip off the rotting, corrupted carcass? I don't get football, but from the little that I do understand, publicly owned clubs are available to the highest bidder, and that, at least for this week, seems to be Manchester Malcolm. Perhaps he and I should go and watch a game together - see if we can't whip up a bit of enthusiasm for it. No, on second thoughts, probably best not.