More of a thought for the evening than my usual posts…

I was indulged in a familiar Sunday ritual involving (as my Wife would have you understand) far too much Football on the television. The particular game in question involved two of footballs founding members, almighty in Claret and Blue, Aston Villa and Burnley. We won’t talk about the result because, frankly, it still upsets me but during the half-time program, amongst the usual parade of players past, lotteries, tannoy requests and pie-eating (don’t you just love English sports?) something occurred that really pissed me off.

For no good reason at all Aston Villa released 3,000 balloons in an apparent ‘race’ where the ‘winners’ (the balloon found furthest away with a name attached) wins tickets to next weeks Cup Final. Now, I’ve seen this type of thing many times before and have never given it much thought but today all I could instantly think of was the utter pointlessness of the thing as well as the complete environmental contempt shown by Aston Villa. Why not just pull a name out of a hat? Give raffle tickets? Have a text-in? Throw a dart into the crowd? Why release 3,000 bits of plastic that have to come down sometime and somewhere – most likely in the middle of a field so a cow chokes on it? Ok, that might be a tad dramatic but I think the point is sound enough, no?

For something no greater than a half-time entertainment Aston Villa have further contributed to a poor environmental standard set by businesses up and down the country. I know for a fact that if Aston Villa were to put out a dozen bags of waste at the end of the day after everyone has gone home, ready for a collection from their chosen waste contractor, and that waste was to be not properly contained they would be liable for a littering fine under the Environment Act, resulting in a £50 fine as a minimum.

So can someone tell me what the difference is when they let 3,000 balloons loose? As the title of the post suggests something has definitely changed. Either I am getting older (and therefore grumpier) or this is another example of a collective changing of attitude to accepted social etiquette…