Premiership football is repulsive in every respect

Praise where it’s due. This opening to Russell Brand’s Guardian column about David Moyes is very good: “(His) face has now experienced the fate for which it looks like it was designed. The deep grooves of grief in his brow, his sunken, woeful eyes and dry parched lips, a perspicacious sculpture carved in anticipation of this slap of indignity.” Very nice.

I’ve written about the Moyes business this week for the magazine. I do think it is hilarious the speed with which all the football writers have moved from describing the bloke as the best young manager this country has ever seen to “disastrous” and “not up to the job” and so on. Clearly, he should have been given more time in the post, insofar as anyone cares. But football at the highest level has become a repulsive spectacle, with outlandish expectations, outlandish salaries, outlandish treatment of individuals. If your kids are showing an inclination to support one of the gilded whores of the top division, despite having no connection to them other than a wish to be associated with vicarious success, they need a long and very stern talking to.