Has the craze for minute's silences before football matches reached your parts yet? If not, you don't know what you're missing. Now no self-respecting Liga match can be without one to mark the passing of Alderman Mumble (sorry, the PA system isn't all it might be), now as sadly forgotten as he was then improbably corrupt. Yes, you know, him.
The key features of the new default modality for the minute's silence are that (a) it doesn't last for a minute and (b) it's not silent either. Presumably to save us from our baser instincts - particularly our unfortunate inclination to shout "Just bloody get on with it!" - the minute's (sic) silence (sic) actually consists of a twenty-second random snippet from some petrol-station-sourced K-Tel-equivalent of Herb Karajan's Adagio compilation, while the players all gather round the centre circle and link arms like the Tiller Girls with snoods.
So, football clubs, here's my proposal. If you saw fit to put on a testimonial match for the commemorated one way back when, fine, give them a minute's silence now. Under any other circumstances, isn't that what that half column-inch on page 14 of the programme is for?
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* On the rare occasion when the deceased actually did have a connection to the club, it's likely to be the son-in-law of Betty the Boiling Bovril Lady or the bloke who used to hang up the alphabet-coded half-time scores before the advent of video screens proved that truly none of us are indispensable.
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