THIS week I fell out of love with football again but, as is the case with beer when the hangover has gone, I won't be able to resist it come this afternoon.
As a kid, despite being no good, virtually every day my mates and I would go over to the school playing field armed with a ball, a pair of goalie's gloves and a couple of tracksuit tops to use as posts, and we would play from morning to night with the only breaks coming when our inconsiderate parents called us in for meals.
On a Saturday afternoon I would watch the village team play while keeping an ear out for the results of my favourite professional teams.
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Then, about six years ago, things changed. Players did not seem to care about the teams they played for any more, kissing a badge one week and leaving for pastures new and more money the next.
One was chaired off the pitch after pledging his desire to stay with a relegated team before pulling on the shirt of the champions come the start of the next season.
I sulked, the realisation sinking in that all anyone cared about was money. Players went, managers went, but the fans were left sitting in the rain having paid out £25 to watch a team full of mercenaries.
I boycotted the game for all of three weeks, before being sucked in again come the start of the next season.
A new manager spouting the usual "I love this club" stuff arrived, except this time it rang true. He would never leave, wanted to build the team up to Premiership standard, loved the club, the fans and the area.
He didn't hold any truck with players who were only in it for the money. He even talked about his family and how well they had settled in the area and how he would not want to disrupt them by moving away.
He said the right things, bought a house in the area and wrote an autobiography, much of it bigging up the club.
When rumours circulated about other teams trying to poach him, he quickly scolded the press, asking them how many times he had to tell them he loved this club.
Then he left. He didn't say goodbye, just upped sticks and went to a "bigger club" with more money to spend, mostly on him, it would seem.
The supporters called him Judas. The local newspaper site had unprecedented hits. Some supported him, saying he was only securing his family's future. You could sympathise with that argument if he wasn't already on thousands of pounds a week, while most of the fans who shell out every week are paid a fraction of that.
I felt let down, used, abused and lied to. Football is a usually rubbish and very cruel game - a bit like real life, actually. It's always been like that, only years ago the players were paid little more than the fans. Indeed, they were fans, not money-grabbers.
Come this afternoon though, I'm sure I'll be hooked to some game or another. I think it's called being taken for a ride.
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