Back home in England, when the football season was over I was a grumpy individual. That late-May to mid-July neglect of football devotion often left me looking elsewhere for gratification. A six-week hunt for a new hobby, if you like.
Watch another sport, perhaps? Cricket is excellent, but to watch it with the same intensity I do with football, it requires even more dedication: it’s five days a game. Now, I’m not saying that I wouldn’t be impartial to five days of drinking with the lads at Lord’s, nor would I be irked about sitting and sleeping in armchairs in front of the Ashes with my dad, but I’ve got to go out and earn money at some point.
After sport, I can read a lot; and this is nice. However, the constant parental prodding in my early teens urging me to go outside – when I was clearly content with a box of tissues and a lock on my bedroom door at that age – has actually worked and made me want to seize the day.
But there are only so many afternoons you can spend walking a scruffy Welsh terrier around Shropshire countryside. If Gooch – that’s the dog – wasn’t starting fights with dogs bigger than him or doing phantom pees, I would be regularly glancing at my watch, thinking that most Saturdays at this time I’d be having a pre-match pint, or even celebrating a Manchester City goal (this, until recently, was admittedly wishful thinking).
This drab month-and-a-half didn’t get much better come mid-July. Over the last few years, City have played money-spinning fixtures abroad, with midsummer 2011 seeing them entertain the Vancouver Whitecaps. In a bid to satisfy my football hunger, recent summers have seen me attend the likes of Shrewsbury Town XI (effectively a youth team with a couple of inadequate trialists) play away at Ellesmere Rangers (effectively a pub team). These games left me wanting.
Whether there’s an international tournament on or not it doesn’t really matter. It’s either a summer of contemplating taking up calligraphy, or watching England get knocked out of a World Cup or European Championship by Romania or Sepp Blatter (in fact, I’m probably the only Englishman who is not still peeved with Frank Lampard’s it-crossed-the-line-but-ohhhh-it’s-not-a-goal). For me, practicing some fancy lettering often sounds a better option.
I expect you MLS lot trawl the transfer rumours every morning, afternoon and evening to fill the football void. Have you taken up odd hobbies to counteract the MLS post-season blues? If I was a fan of Montreal Impact, I would be trawling every article and Tweet possible to try to find more about Nicolas Anelka potentially joining in January for their inaugural season. Never mind the dog, I’ll buy it a treadmill.
(On the subject of the Anelka to Impact rumours, I can’t see it. He may have a poor goal tally over the past two years, but with Paris Saint-Germain’s new found wealth they may see Anelka as a marquee signing – maybe alongside LA Galaxy’s David Beckham – in what would be his third stint in the French capital).
I’ve trawled the forums of Canada’s MLS clubs and it’s clear that you’re missing your teams. On the forum of Toronto FC’s Red Patch Boys there are threads about which ex-players of your club you despise the most, discussing the different kits the club has worn, and congratulations to TSN’s Luke Wileman on gaining Canadian citizenship. All very nice, but it’s not a Danny Koevermans tap-in is it?
Roll on the MLS season. Roll on March 10th when Vancouver welcome Montreal to MLS football.
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