Football unfocus

Sport Relief Mini-World Cup
Originally uploaded by The original SimonB

You can always tell when Ipswich Town are playing a home evening game. Large chunks of the office get up and leave early in order to go home, have a bite and get changed before coming back for the match. An equally large proportion stays late at their desks then goes straight over (the office is literally next door to the ground). This leaves the rest of us wondering what all the fuss is really about. Especially the way they have been playing recently.

With every result, hiring or firing of manager or players reported across the local media and discussed endlessly around me during the day I know far more about the workings of football than I ever thought I might pick up. While I may have watched the odd cup final or other game on the tv there is no way I could ever be described as a football fan, and yet I do seem to care about what goes on inside the stadium next door.

And good luck to the new manager as well - I can't imagine why anyone would ever want to take on a job like that. More to the point, I don't understand why it is always the manager that seems to get all the blame when things go badly, but the players who are praised when teams are winning. Surely they are both equally responsible either way?

I have been inside Portman Road on numerous occasions for meetings (it being a handy venue and all that) and also to see Bryan Adams back in 1992, but the only football I have been in to view was a charity tournament on the practice pitch. That's where the picture above comes from - a team from the office entered and did fairly well (but quite how well I can no longer recall).

I have tried to catch the bug properly in the past in order to fit in with friends, but it just doesn't grab me. Perhaps I need to go to a proper professional game but at those prices I'd rather take MrsB out to the theatre AND have a good meal as well.

So while I won't be joining those shivering in the stands tonight I will keep an eye out for the result later, if only so as not to put my foot in it when I get to work in the morning.