Football, and why it annoys me so...

They call it the 'beautiful game', then again a lot of people can use adjectives...

This blog is about some of the things that stem from football (soccer) which make me think ''oh dear'', ''why?'', and ''please don't do that''.

Don't get me wrong here, and see me as someone who has never played/watched football, I LIKE football, more the participating element; I just see it as more fun. From a fairly young age I liked to play football, up until year 11, I haven't played a game since.

Whereas the watching element suggests some sort of interest in the going-ons in football, and I will say that I support Newcastle United (yes, feel free to laugh), and would follow transfers and so forth a lot; sorry if I'm going on, I'm trying to set the scene. Simply, for the most part I'm a fan of football.

Right to the niggles, one such annoyance lies with the fact that if a player ''appears'' to commit a 'handball' (as an example) there is a giant up-roar for something to be given, be it a penatly, a free-kick, a card of some sort. My problem with this is it just seems a very childish thing to do, if I was a manager I'd instruct my players just to play on for God's sake! The phrase 'don't cry over spilt milk' comes to mind, ok in the grand scheme of things ''3 points'' will be worth more than the milk ever was, but I hope you can see my point, just get on with the game, I'd be far happier to say I got an honest 0 - 0, rather than being able to say ''ohh our team won 1 - 0, based upon our powers of moaning in order to get a penatly''.

The second thing is one many people will raise their hands in agreement with ''money'', be it transfer fees or players wages. Personally money in football, leaves me with a bad after taste in my mouth, I think everything that can be said has been said, but still here's my take. I'd like to see some sort of system whereby clubs are ''capped'' that is they can only spend so much money on wages, futhermore in a transfer window each team can spend up to ''£XXX'' amount; you can buy as many or as few players as you like, as long as you don't go past ''£XXX'', the point being that I believe that you would see teams developing their young players more than for example the Real Madrids and Man Citys of this world paying giant sums of money for players, who are only going there so they have loads of money at hand (not like I'm saying anything groundbraking here).

See I admire teams in England like Everton, and Aston Villa, because a few years ago they were mid-table teams, but a few good buys, and new exciting youth players have launched them within touching distance of the ''Big-four'', simple hard graft has been used here folks, not the ''Big-Money-Teams ways of doing it; trying to ''buy success''.

The last choice, wont be shared by a lot of football fans, but do hear me out. The thing is, with 11-a-side there is a tendancy for alot of ''bore draws'', games which move very slowly at times etc. My crazy idea, would be to make it 8-a-side, this way there would be goals galore and if you are a season ticket holder you'd get your money's worth (hopefully). Games would be able to be played faster, as there would be larger amounts of space due to the lack of 3 players for each side. I'd allow five subsitutes a game, in order to compensate for players running more, and I'd even be tempted to make games 80mins apposed to 90mins...some people may turn their noses at this and think I'm just changing things too much, but look at it, there are still two teams trying to get a ball into a net to score a goal, subsequent points, or going through to the next round of a ''cup'' and there still would exsist that bag of footballing clichés, puns, and word play that make football what it is, what some call, 'The Beautiful Game''.

Do hope you enjoyed.
Let me know what you think.

Callum.