Boring? More Like Irritating or Profligate

Southampton 0 Charlton 0

Charlton's Boxing Day fixture this year was moved back to start at 12.30, so by the time I surfaced after the Christmas Day celebrations (very nice thank you, I travelled over to the eastern edge of the city and spent the day with some cheery hospitable friends and their family) the game was just starting. Unlike my friend the Inspector, who was also staying home this morning, I didn't try to follow the progress of the match, having convinced myself that it is unlucky, though when you come to think about it, the idea that me following or not following a match from afar is going to make any difference to it, is preposterous, really, but there we are. I've always been a little bit superstitious; it's the Welsh in me, and there's nothing much I can do about it.

The result was, as you can see, a goalless draw. These are invariably described as 'boring' in reports, and so it proved in the two I read. Or at least in the headlines, which were of the "Southampton and Charlton play out boring goalless draw" type.

As a teacher of English, I was instantly struck by the use of the combination, 'play out'. Adding that one little adverb to the verb tells us much. That the draw had been previously decided on by someone else, possibly a far-Eastern betting syndicate, and all the teams had to do was pass the ball around St. Mary's and for God's sake don't let it go anywhere near the goalmouth. Either goalmouth. Or the two clubs had decided amicably that one point each would do as a kind of Christmas present to each other. Or Alan and 'Arry were indulging in some kind of old pals' act on similar lines. Or health and safety officials had decreed that if anyone scored a goal, people might light cigarettes by way of celebrating, or the infrastructure of St. Mary's wouldn't be able to withstand all the jumping up and down, so goals were banned in the interests of everyone's continued wellbeing (or being well, I suppose).

And the word 'boring' makes it sound as though the game had no near-misses or dramatic moments and the crowd were in danger of dropping off to sleep en masse, despite the cold.

But I then read the reports underneath these headlines, and discovered that Charlton were unlucky not to have won 4-0, being infinitely better than Southampton, and having attacked quite a lot, narrowly sending the ball just the wrong side of posts, hitting woodwork, side-netting, grazing the top of the bar, winning loads of corners and so on. So not boring at all. Just annoying that Charlton have squandered two points and thus slipped one place down the table, and as the Inspector says, Southampton are poor and we should have beaten them; after all next up are two home games, one against the 2nd, the other against the 3rd side in the table (not in that order as it happens, but still). Charlton have the ability to win these, and I believe they might; the defence is greatly improved: just one goal in four games conceded, and that was a silly gift to Fulham the other night; just got to fix the accuracy at the other end now; going to bring Euell back, I wonder?