As something of an expatriate Hull KR fan (having emigrated from family territory in East Hull to, well, more of the Westward fringes) I'm obviously seething from the recent loss to the monochromatic bastards. Tight one mind you, and we're still leading in terms of total derbys won, but it's always a sore blow. As I was just going downstairs to fetch a cup of tea though, it occurred to me how absurd the fanatic, die-hard loyalty that surrounds clubs can be. While the hardened Rovers fans scream for the will of the Robin-God himself to be unleashed on t'other bastards, the righteous fury is actually coolly delivered by what looks more like a touring Australasian bodybuilding group.
Although it's something I have little to no interest in, football is much the same, if not worse. Quite simply, why cheer for your city out there when nobody on the pitch is actually from the bloody place? Yet the bloody-minded fanaticism of most suggests that most fans haven't factored-in that their team is essentially just a superfluous badge for a succession of preening dicks in hairbands. Since I rarely take note of football, every time I look it seems a uniquely Heraclitean experience: as he tells us that you can never step into the same river twice, I can never seem to look at the same bloody club twice either. Actually, Roberto Bolano prefaces his Nazi Literature of the Americas with a cute refutation of this by Augusto Monterroso: 'If the flow is slow enough and you have a good bicycle, or a horse, it is possible to bathe twice (or even three times, should your personal hygiene so require) in the same river.' So, I'm pretty much guessing that this is how Talksport phoners-in still manage to stay bothered then.
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