Viva Barca

The weekend before last saw thousands of Mancunians and Barcelones descend on London for the Champions League Final, and very exciting it was too if you like football, which approximately 75 per cent of my friends do not - friends who have social lives and see each other on Saturday evenings rather than sit down in front of the TV with a solitary tin of beer and a container overflowing with sweet and sour pork (Hong Kong style, obviously). 

So, thanks a bundle UEFA for scheduling the game when my presence was required at a dinner party, you mercenary, self-centred FIFA-esque bastards.

As a lover of the beautiful game (I've been watching lower league football for 15 years, don't ya know, gracing such footballing meccas as Welling United, Boreham Wood and, shudder, Hereford United), I was naturally very excited, providing I could keep tabs on the game from a TV in the corner of the room (permission granted. I thank you, Merlot, for your existence). Trouble was, being a neutral isn't very exciting. I therefore had to choose which team to support; a decision I arrived at after walking around central London for the day and observing the respective groups of fans.

Both the Mancs and the Catalans seemed a cheery bunch. Despite the drizzle and unseasonably cold weather, there was much merriment and anticipation. Let's take one example. Myself and my companion for the day, who happens to be a devilishly pretty girl, walked out of Hyde Park Corner tube station towards the UEFA Champions Festival, which is essentially a washed-out, over-priced beer tent and hot dog stand with a five-a-side pitch featuring an overweight Jay-Jay Okocha. 

We were approached by a group of enthusiastic, grinning young gentlemen with United shirts on and Lancashire accents. "Look at them," we thought to ourselves, "They look so happy they could cry." 

"Alright love", one of them abruptly shouted at my companion, a shower of his spittle landing on my horrified, moister-than-usual lips. 

"I'd definitely fock you, I'd fock you any way you like." 

"Yeah, I'd fock her n'all," his feral, pot-bellied, vegetable-avoiding scrotal sack of a mate added, before the rest of the group shouted "Wheeeeeeeeey, United! United! Carlos Tevez is gay!" in unison.

Thanks to these untamed, crude little fuckwits - sexist and homophobic fuckwits, no less - I was able to decide which team to support approximately half a millisecond after their words resonated in my ear canals. 

Thanks lads, you made it easy. Tenim un nom, el sap tothom, Barca! Barca! Baaarca! 

Pic credit: Sven Loach on a break (those two are not the untamed fuckwits mentioned above, by the way)