Euro 2008 begins.

I love watching sport of all descriptions. The more arcane the sport the better, usually. Football is alright too. A lot of my friends, however, dislike football, more specifically the watching of it, intensely. I think they have more of a problem with the supporters who can be, let’s be honest, a load of fucking toe-rags.

Four years ago on a weekend such as this Euro 2004 was starting. As was the first Venn music festival in Bristol. I was walking with my friend Ray along Stokes Croft when I had one of the most memorable encounters of my life.

I think we were off to get some audio cables or something for Venn. We were almost at Maplin, deep in some conversation or other under the baking sun, when I noticed loads of cheesy wotsits on the pavement under my feet. Then I saw a can of Fanta open and apparently undrunk by the shop-front we were passing. The third thing I saw was horrific. It was an England supporter, reduced to putrid bestiality.

This dude was completely fucked up. He was no aryan pinup to begin with. But by the time a dozen or so lagers and the raging failure of an England match had sunk in he was truly a work of human shit. The thirty year old bastard was bull-necked and barrel-bellied with an insufficient thatch of oily hair. He was covered in grease and sweat, sliming up his cherished England shirt. There was a vile yellow paste of mucus and vomit flowing down his face from his nose into the folds of his double chin. He stank of Lynx spray and bile (although it could have just been the Lynx I suppose). As his body trembled under the crippling paralysis of the booze, his eyes stared into a distant void. At least that is what I thought until I realized he was actually staring at me (or at least trying to).

So, having stumbled from the pub to the corner shop in search of some nutritionally negligible snacks, and having decided to spill his crisps and lose his drink within ten seconds of leaving the shop, this depraved zombie of spunk had sadly turned his attention on me. Presumably he wanted to punch me. Or wretch on me. Whatever his intentions, I am pretty sure he wasn’t going to perform the Japanese tea ceremony.

I was trying to figure out how to break it to him that I had already found love, when he made what appeared to be an attacking movement. I almost vomited myself at the very thought of coming into physical contact with the walking offcut. So Ray and I turned away and walked on to Maplin. When we had reached the shop door, about twenty metres away, I looked back and saw the oaf coming at us like a ball of used nappies rolling along the pavement. He ended up running into a load of bikes chained against a lamp post. I had never felt sorry for a bicycle before.

We left him there to his fate. I dread to think how his family/mother found him when he eventually made it home. Covered in blood, dirt, and tramp semen. Yuck.

Essentially the moral of this is that a. humankind has no boundaries when it comes to self-abasement; and b. supporting England in the European Cup can really turn you into a cunt, if you aren’t one already, so it is probably a good thing they did not qualify.

p.s. I would be disbelieving if anyone could suggest an example of a more disgusting state of filth, depravity, and self-pollution. But I would love to hear it anyway, especially if it is really gratuitous.

Posted on June 8