FOOTBALL'S DAWN OF THE DEAD

Football is barricaded inside a shopping centre with dwindling supplies but lots of product, and is surrounded by zombies hammering at the shuttered shop fronts with malicious intent. The zombies are intent on feeding on the vertebrate organs that have developed axially from the midline dorsal nerve cord as a vesicular enlargement at the rostral end of the neural tube, with centralised control over all body segments. Yes, they want to eat football's brains!

The Zombies are sub divided. There are the VAR zombies, shambling with inevitability towards their intended target, then there are the media content creators looking for perceived structural weaknesses to exploit. The Sky/TNT/Amazon zombies fight amongst themselves for supremacy, to see who will get the first juicy mouthful, while the Oil money zombies have gained the upper hand over the oligarch zombies. The FA zombies are reliant on the Premier League zombies for their leftovers but all of these parts of a whole bow to the alpha zombie.

The alpha zombie is the PGMOL, wielding it's power with impunity and god help any dissenters.

As we all know in most zombie/survivor scenarios there are only really two outcomes; the zombies win or the survivors escape and live to fight another day. But in either scenario there are always survivor casualties.

Football has managed to stay intact but it's taking some heavy hits, football has managed to retain some element of sporting endeavour and integrity, but desperate circumstances can lead to a situation when one turns against the other.

According to the rules of surviving a zombie apocalypse rule 15 seems the most apposite

"Rule 15: Keep an exit free"

Football needs to remember that it has an exit (and I don't mean the back door of WH Smith on the ground floor) I'm talking about the game itself. It's lasted over 150 years by having the principles that make it the world's greatest game along with a simplicity of laws governing a game of great complexity.

Football maybe needs an Ash from The Evil Dead, to save it, but that's unlikely, therefore it has to save itself and in order to do that, the fans and supporters need to feel connected, we need to feel that we are not on the bottom rung of consideration. The beautiful game is in the hands of ugly, greedy, parasitic individuals and those people are getting closer and closer to infecting it. Advertising zombies, marketing zombies, Tech zombies and radio Talkshow zombies are coming to feed and we could be seeing football's last stand playing out over the course of the 23/24 season.

I think these two quotes from zombie movies sum up the position football finds itself in. Lets hope that the second quote rings true

“This is the way the world ends; not with a bang or a whimper, but with zombies breaking down the back door.” ― Amanda Hocking, Hollowland

“In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally start living.” ― Robert Kirkman