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As we cheer on our teams, yelling for out heroes, cursing that new signing with two left feet, shrieking at the manager who wouldn't know how to make a substitution if his life depended on it, we won't give a thought to imminent financial implosion. All that will matter to us is that our lot win and the neighbours lose. Preferably comically. At home. Without getting on the score sheet.

And that is the brilliance of football. If it can make you forget that your own team is doing a passing impression of a banana republic, then it can help you get over the petty disagreeables in your own life: the ridiculousness of your boss, the stinginess of your pay packet, the fact that a couple of blokes with clipboards from a brand consultancy has just turned up to modernise your local into a Thai eaterie. None of that matters once the football starts and you can get together with a couple of mates and have a chinwag about who is going to win the league.

- Jim White

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