Fantasy Football - B.A.R.F.
Having flicked through Yin Ping’s medical book, I recently diagnosed myself with a disease yesterday. The acronym is B.A.R.F. and people who suffer from it are typically 20-30 years old, usually male, with a slightly obsessive personality (usually perfectionists). Sufferers, in the main, have some sort of family history of football although this isn’t always applicable. However it has been noted that those suffer from this disease only experience the symptoms from late July to early February. Striking those people in particular who have temporal awareness, they are prone to clicking onto teletext every 30 minutes or, if that is unavailable, surfing the internet in search of constant updates of information.
Symptoms include sleeplessness (or an inability to fall into the subconscious state), repetitive strain injury in the right forefinger (from pressing keys/remote control) and sweatiness or palpitations having heard any confirmation of rumours that are true. Although there are no standardized tests to identify sufferers, taking away the remote control or losing an internet connection can result in unusual and abnormal behaviour, sometimes leading to violence.
Certain words or phrases have also been found to trigger brainwaves and rapid heartbeats in recent research. Among these are:
- Brazilian
- experience
- transfer deadline
- exciting young talent
- proven international
- a regular for his country
- good footballing brain
- the Maradona of the (insert name of region or country here)
As it is still a new disease having only come into England several years ago, B.A.R.F. (or Buy All Recent Foreigners) has no known treatment. Chanting mantras such as - Lauren Robert scored sixty six points in the 2000-1 season - , - Juninho plays for Brazil - , - I do not need any more strikers - , - buying Roque Junior will NOT help my clean sheets column - and - Luis Figueroa is not the new Gabriele Batistua - have been tried with some subjects to varying degrees of success.
Although sufferers can be distracted by short term activities such as watching a film or listening to music, they will normally return to type within an hour. Usually their symptoms are more pronounced towards the end of a week which can lead to many weekends being spent in a bar or watching a television connected with satellite system.
However as a sufferer I am prepared to start a self-help group where we shall share our fears and try to uphold each other in all that we do. I would like to start by offering my hand to Jyoti and saying - Christano Ronaldo will come good…
