THE BETTER PART OF VALOUR

Yesterday was a conspicuous day.   The nation gripped by the fever of the Olympics, the financial world continuing to reel under the Eurozone crisis, the appalling carnage in Syria and so on.   And on the south coast, whilst the blue few of Portsmouth continue to lurch, like lemmings, towards the cliff edge of liquidation, I had an e-mail from Southampton advising me that yesterday was the very last day when I could purchase a season ticket for the coming Premier League season.

So I pondered on the conspicuousness of this invitation and the decision with which I was faced and tried to put it into some kind of context.   I thought about the 65 years of following the Saints since my Dad first took me to the Dell in 1947, about the enjoyment of meeting up with good friends, revisiting my boyhood village and retracing the steps of my many pilgrimages to follow the red and white.

And then I thought about the season ahead and the daunting prospects that await the return to the `best league in the world (tm)` and any enthusiasm I might have had began to melt away.   First, the cost of it all.   If I were to accept the invitation to purchase a season ticket, even as an old age pensioner struggling to survive on a fixed income during the most difficult of economic times, it would set me back around £600. 

Add in the cost of petrol for my 250 miles round trip, a matchday programme, a sumptuous repast in M. Hulot`s Patisserie on Town Quay, the odd `incidental,` and the expense involved begins to approach arm and leg proportions.   Never mind the tediousness of a long drive home in the dark winter nights, quite possibly after the occasional crushing defeat with only Alan Green and the assorted numbskulls of 606 for company.

But in the end what really made my mind up was the Premier League itself and I asked myself whether I really wanted to part with a shed load of cash to watch all the usual suspects invading St. Mary`s Stadium - the millionaire poseurs of United, Citeh, the Arse; the Neanderthal management of Ferguson, Pulis, Allardyce and their ilk accompanied by their Mongol hordes; Wenger and his incessant whingeing; the strange kick-off times to accommodate Sky television; the rampant greedy, excessive commercialism of it all and the added distaste left in the wake of the Terry/Ferdinand scuffle, the instant conclusions of the Twitterati and other unseemly appendages to what was once the beautiful game.


And it occurred to me that even asking the question of myself, provided the answer for me.   So, whilst my loyalty to and my affection for the Saints will remain undiminished, my preference will be, for this coming season at any rate, to follow their progress from a discreet distance, as I have concluded that I really can do without the Premier League and all it has to offer.   I suspect Mr. Scudamore and his chums will feel the same about me but sometimes considered discretion is better than some strange kind of compulsive, misguided `valour .`