I did it today, I cancelled my Sky Sports subscription as part of my stand against the hype and excessive lifestyle of Premiership chairmen, managers, and players that was ruthlessly exposed during a mercifully short and shambolic World Cup campaign. I can’t buy in to the argument that the players don’t care, I actually believe they try hard, but they have, like the masses, been brainwashed by the likes of Sky TV in to believing they are fit to compete on a world stage. It must have been have been a shock to get battered by a supposedly inferior Germany side in such a manner.

Anyway, it’s done now, and to be honest I should have done it some time ago, as I have been somewhat of a hypocrite slagging off The Premiership whilst paying each month to watch it. However anyone who has tried to cancel before knows what a tough job it is to carry out this task on the telephone, you have to be particularly brutal, because SKY are not stupid, they have their HQ in Fife, and make a point of employing softly spoken, friendly, middle aged ladies from Dunfermiline, Kirkcaldy or Glenrothes who are experts at sounding genuinely hurt by your attempts at cancelling. In fact if you are not careful you will end up not only keeping SKY SPORTS but also signing up to a SKY MOVIES package you will never use.

It doesn’t help that my late Mother’s side of the family were from this area of Scotland making the accent of my telesales lady (Mary) more appealing, as she sounded just like my Auntie. As I tried to cancel, Mary tried to stop me with various deals, it was awful, I started having pictures in my minds eye of her walking up to the front door of her pebble dashed home with it’s small but immaculate lawn, a tear rolling down on her cheek and on to her pastel blue M&S jacket as she put her key in her door contemplating unemployment at 56 years old, sacked by the ruthless Murdoch regime for losing customers, and it would be all my fault. I don’t know why, but I assumed that Mary’s husband was dead (for some reason asbestosis came to mind) and her children had long left for Australia, her only communication being a cheap Christmas card each year. All she had was a 14 year old cat on it’s last legs, I had to let her know it wasn’t her fault.

“You see what it is Mary, as nice as you are, I hate the Premier League, I hate SKY TV and I hate Rupert Murdoch”.

“Och my wee pet, are you still a wee bit upset aboot the fitba and England losing.”

“In fact Mary, yes I am, and being Scottish, I am now giving you a free opportunity to laugh at me”

“Och noo I widnae do that, I am not supposed to tell you this but if ye stay on my wee pet, ye can keep Sky Sports for just three poonds a month for the next two months.”

“Please Mary no, don’t loose your dignity, I’m ending it and not coming back, it’s a matter of principle, plus money is not what it was.”

“Och I noo, I havnae got much money myself pet, okay, I get your point it’s now cancelled, but did you know that for ju…………….”

“Leave it Mary, please.”

So that’s it then, I have got rid of that monkey on my back, and I feel so liberated that I can now slag of the Premier League, The FA, and all the wankers associated with football as much as I want without feeling two faced. The whole system stinks, and that thrashing on Sunday has been coming for decades, and it was everyone associated with the FA deserves.

Listen to the catchy “Three Lions” song released in Euro 1996. At the beginning it has punditry from Trevor Brooking (We’re not creative enough, we’re not positive enough) Alan Hansen (There’s got to be something wrong with the English game) and Jimmy Hill (We’ll go on getting bad results). That song was 14 years ago, and the punditry clips undoubtedly date back further still. Chris Waddle said yesterday that he has been harping on about lack of structure at the grass roots of football since 1990, but no one listens, this isn’t a modern problem, but it is one that the FA sweep under the carpet at every competition, and I am not falling for it anymore.

As for the Premier League, come August there will be “Clash of The Titans” adverts on SKY when Chelsea play Manchester United, and the like of Rooney and Lampard will be treated as heroes again by brainwashed fans paying a good proportion of their salaries on season tickets and SKY subscriptions, this time round I won’t be one of them. I just hope I am not the only one who has seen the light!