Many regional press photographers are passionate about sport, but Stuart Wilde, Chief Photographer of the Derby Evening Telegraph, REALLY needs to get something off his chest.

Right! That’s it!. I can take it no more. THE CHAMPION’S LEAGUE IS A LOAD OF OLD B******S!!! There, I’ve said it.

This is also what I shouted at the telly on Tuesday night, five minutes after settling down to watch the highlights of Sparta Prague v Arsenal (or should that be THE Arsenal).

The reasons for this are numerous. The main one being that it ain’t a b****y league for champions any more, is it?

Wednesday night’s farce in the Nou Camp proved this when Leeds, a team who shouldn’t even be in the bleedin’ thing got a right old kicking. They are just one of many teams who are out of their depth in this kind of company but are allowed in to make up the numbers to give us more games.

But why? The old European Cup was a thing of beauty, a pure cup competition where the champions of each of the continent’s countries played each other home and away on a knockout basis. BRILLIANT!

But not brilliant enough for UEFA and the big TV companies and the so-called big clubs.

“But you get more games,” they say. YES! But out of 30-odd games between now and the knockout stage in March there will only be about six games that actually mean anything.

In 1979 the holders Liverpool got knocked out in the first round, but this can never happen now. Never again will a team like Staeaua Bucharest be able to win it because the element of suprise, which is so important for an upset, is lost because of all the group games.

So for my intake of European football from now on I shall watch the UEFA cup. At least the teams who are in it qualified in the correct way and deserve to be in it (unless they got knocked of the Champions League that is) and at least it is a proper competition.

So, so-called Champions League, I – for one – want nothing more to do with you. You can take your two group stages, you can take your extra matches AND (ITV, this is for you) you can take your Man Utd obsession and you Xenophobic commentary and you can shove it up your Stadium of Light.

© Stuart Wilde, September, 2000

Glad we could be here for you, Stuart, and hope you feel better now. Anything that really gets YOUR goat, or just pushes your buttons? Heaven or hell, tell us about it.
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