Roger Alton Roger Alton

Come on you blues. Or, er, reds

Politicians and football — it’s a minefield

Here’s an election-winning idea for Dave: forget about Aston Villa (or West Ham) and become a full-on Bournemouth fan. They were on the telly the other night, all but sealing promotion to the Premier League, and played a bit like Brazil: fluent high-speed passing, wave after wave of attacks. They play in a very smart red-and-black strip that’s not easily confused with anyone else unless AC Milan come calling. A few years back they were nearly out of the Football League: now they’ll be mixing it with Manchester United and Arsenal. And I’ll bet they won’t go back down. They have their own reclusive Russian petrochemical billionaire, a cove named Maxim Demin, about whom it is almost impossible to find anything. Mark you, and this is probably due to the bracing sea air, nobody has a bad word to say about him, in contrast to another reclusive Russian petrochemical billionaire, currently resident of west London.

Easily done, confusing Villa and West Ham. It’s a wonder the Prime Minister hasn’t done it before really. They’re both pretty crap teams, both have a two-word name, both play in claret and blue and both have seen better days. Maybe he’s just got coalition on his mind and all teams who play in similar colours should have to merge, part of an economy drive. Norwich, another team with a big support from political heavyweights (that’ll be Ed Balls then) and Watford could be next: they both play in yellow after all.

It’s something of a minefield, politicians and football. Tony Blair’s self-proclaimed passion for Newcastle always seemed like total tripe, though much of the Labour top brass really did love soccer. It was impossible to shut Alastair Campbell up about Burnley, and Gordon Brown loved Raith Rovers so much that he gave them money.

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