Hmm. What's your objection? Football is watched by morons and is thus to be treated with contempt, or football turns "so-called intelligent people" into morons?
The first point is absurd: morons watch TV, go to the cinema and listen to music, but that doesn't make all of those activities unworthy for us self-appointed intelligensia types.
The second argument is more interesting. I know a number of people who I like and respect with whom I won't discuss football at any great length. As a fan myself I know the levels of poorly defined bitterness that my team can inspire in me, usually towards opponents. On the other hand, I don't hurl abuse at opponents except under extreme provocation, and make a special effort not to act like a tosser at away games, whether this is overseas with England or around the UK with Sunderland (or working at West Ham as a neutral). I'd suggest that the NAC Breda fans who were drinking with some of our boys before a pre-season friendly out there a couple of years back would have been left with a positive impression of Sunderland and their fans - I know one of them was left with a tape of a Nick Cave gig and kept pouring Guinness down my neck for the rest of the evening. Does that absolve the muppets? No, but I suspect they'd probably be muppets if they were doing something other than watching football, to be honest. There's one born every minute, and all that.
As for why I like football, as a "so-called intelligent person" (I'll take that as a compliment, thanks!), I guess there are lots of reasons. Some of it is basic, tribal stuff: the sense of belonging and shared experience that comes from joining a crowd with common hopes and mutual fears. Also, having moved away from my home town, following my team is my last tangible link with where I grew up.
In a more general sense, the reason why I decided to follow a career in sports journalism and spend much of time watching games as a neutral is based on the sheer magical unpredictable excitment of watching a match.
Think about football-based films for a moment: Escape to Victory, When Saturday Comes and the like. You watch them and you know they are Roy-of-the-Rovers hocum where the good guys win against the odds and Sean Bean stumbles out of the pub to win the Cup for his underachieving heroes while Sly Stallone liberates Western Europe by saving a penalty. It's pure Hollywood and it's totally contrived.
Now watch the real thing as the underdog has its moment. Because it's unscripted and unpredictable there's something magical about seeing the over-inflated self-importance of Lothar Matteaus (sp) reduced to pawing the ground in helpless rage after his side concede two stoppage time goals and lose the European Cup. It takes a heart of stone not to share in the joy of Ashia Hanson after she wins Commonwealth gold with the final leap in the long jump, winning by a couple of centimetres a minute after her previous best effort had been topped by an Aussie.
Yes, a lot of sport is unadulterated mediocrity, and yes it is now largely a commercial enterprise ruled by obscene wealth, especially at the highest level. But as a means of channelling emotions into something brilliantly meaningless it is up there with any art form. And unlike a drama, a song or a painting it is changing forever. Triumph and disaster, hope and despair, potential achieved or squandered: it is a mirror for life and an enriching force.
So that's why I love it ... and will still love it even after we get beaten on penalties in the play-off final
I fear the above now qualifies for
pseuds.corner@private-eye.com 
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