Quote Originally Posted by splott parker View Post
The sheer number of players involved is all a bit too much for me at my age. I’ve definitely become more Citycentric as the years have gone by. There’s players getting international caps that I haven’t heard of. It does take the shine off it a bit when I watch a Premier League match and I don’t recognise the line ups. I think it’s an age thing, I imagine youngsters, who are definitely out and out City fans, still have their finger on the pulse of the top division and enjoy it as much as I did in 60s & 70s, even though Cardiff City were my team.

Perhaps TOBW has fallen out of love with the game in general as time has gone on if he’s anything like me. Years ago if a match was on, usually late night highlights in those days, there wouldn’t be a chance of me missing it. Nowadays my missus will say ‘There’s a game on, I’ll go in the other room if you like’ and I don’t bother and we carry on watching what’s on.
There’s a fair bit of me that I recognise in your message. I can trace my change in attitude back to when the Pozzo brothers took over at Watford. Before that, I’d have some knowledge of every player in the top two divisions especially, but Watford would come here or in a televised match and, probably because there was such a rapid turnover of players at that club, I wouldn’t have a clue about their team and it’s kind of spread from there.

Saturation TV coverage has definitely changed my attitude. I’d always watch the midweek late night highlights programmes without fail, but, despite them being on at much more convenient times, a live midweek game that I watch as a neutral has to be very good for me to stick with it for the whole ninety minutes. I can’t explain my attitude towards the Champions League - I’d watch it religiously when it was on a Wednesday night highlights after 10 pm, but I just never watch it these days until it gets to about the Quarter Final stage. I’ve missed some brilliant football because of that, but it makes no difference in terms of me watching live games before March/Aptil.

It’s not that I’ve gone off football, I still always watch nearly all of the Premier League and EFL games on Sky over a weekend, but, as I get closer to 70, I’ve seen a tremendous amount of football in my life and I’ve reached a stage where I think football has nothing left to surprise me with, but the reason why it really is the best game in the world is that it can still prove me wrong on a pretty regular basis.