The decline of society...?

My journey home was less traumatic last night but traffic was bad and I saw two things that made me really angry…

I work relatively near Chelsea FC and as most people know, there was a big match last night. As I crawled through heavy traffic past the pubs where home and away fans were drinking I was amazed at how many police there were. And that was just on foot, there were police vans and cars cruising around as well. Outside one pub the police had literally formed a human chain to keep fans apart.

There are many reasons why I love rugby and one of those reasons is the way we behave - to each other, to opposition fans, to the ref. In no way am I suggesting all rugby supporters are saints (and all football supporters are thugs) and we certainly have one or two idiot supporters, but even under the influence of huge amounts of alcohol we generally tend to look after ourselves and each other and not kick the shit out of people who don’t share our view that we’re great. In fact we’re quite proud of behaving like human beings – albeit human beings that sing badly and fall over. So I was pretty incensed to see the massive waste of police resources and time to baby-sit football fans who apparently can’t watch a sports match without starting a riot. These people operate under the assumption that extra time is what they get to thump people and cause as many problems as possible. And the irony is, the chances are none of them got mugged last night because there were so many police about, but what about the rest of us? What about everyone else who lives a quiet and decent life – we didn’t have personal bodyguards last night so we had to take our chances…

There are many decent footie fans and I’m sure they are quite ashamed that a small minority make it difficult for everyone else but then you go to the terraces and hear the foul language (and the homphobia, racism and sexism) and really aggressive chanting, and then you see players starting a ruckus and swearing at the ref in front of however many millions of fans, and parent’s warned they might be banned from the touchline when their kids plays because of threatening behaviour and it makes you wonder if football really can just blame a small minority of fuckwit mongrels…

I was almost home and breathing a huge sigh of relief when suddenly, two cars in front, I heard the sound that every car driver hates: CRUNCH! Sure enough a Mercedes 4x4 had gone into the back of an Audi. As we were on a roundabout, the two now stationary cars were causing a blockage. The man and woman got out of their cars respectively and had a quick look and then one of them suggested that they pull round the corner to get out of everyone’s way and swap details. The damage seemed minimal but as I’ve learnt, it’s often what you can’t see that’s the problem. Anyway, they both indicated to go left to pull down a quiet street, he went first and then she went to turn left, spun the wheel and drove off in the other direction: thereby committing a criminal act – fleeing the scene of an accident. I could not believe it. I even considered going after her to get her reg number so I could call the police. But obviously I had to wait until I could get off the roundabout and by the time I did she was gone. How low is that? You really do despair of how corrupt society has become – apparently it’s ok to beat the crap out of someone for wearing a different football shirt and you can drive badly and smash into other cars and put two fingers up at them… god forbid people took responsibility for their own actions…

Depressing, huh? Now you see why I want to buy a house in the country! Bad news on that front, I called to put in an offer and other people had already put in offers – over our bid - and they had been rejected by the vendors! So it seems we will have to go to auction, which is a little bit terrifying! Also presumably these people that put in offers and had them rejected, will also go to the auction and they will have bigger budgets than us…

It’s enough to make me want a very large glass of wine at 10:23 in the morning!