nick manho

sunday is sport day here in italy. i was just watching the afternoon football programme with the "celebrities" who entertain you while you're waiting for the results to come through (it's for poor bastards who can't afford pay-per-view). one of the celebrities was a footballer who's injured at the moment so he's on tv entertaining people instead. i noticed that this guy was pulling all the same wacky faces and stupid expressions that the real entertainers were doing. he was learning the trade. no prizes for guessing what he'll be doing when he hangs up his nikes for the last time. i could give you the link for this programme but i won't because it's a pile of horseshit and doesn't deserve the free publicity.

of course, sport and show biz have always rubbed shoulders. you only have to think about marilyn and joe dimaggio:



joe thought he'd met his erotic muse but, as in all these cases, he'd just found a neurotic, fame-obssessed, ball breaker. i remember in the fifties the big story was billy wright, the golden boy of english football:



marrying the beverley sisters:



the beverley sisters were a sort of 50s female beatles. in those days it was sport and cinema, or sport and the music biz, now it's been dumbed down like everything else and it's sport and tv.

if you're interested in knowing why sport isn't as good as it was in the past, why the sporting heroes of today are whingeing, moronic, spoilt brats, remember that while you're watching them playing, they are daydreaming about television exposure.