My long-held docket is now not worth a ball of blue

The docket I’ve had stashed away was written soon after the first ball in the Premier League was centred. (Well, that’s what the opening of proceedings in a soccer match was called in my days going to Oriel Park. The centre-forward – Dundalk’s was Joe Martin – would be in the middle of the pitch with an inside-forward either side of him. He’d tip the ball to one of them, and off they’d go.)

Ignoring the hold Manchester City had on the competition over the previous few years, thinking that Haaland couldn’t again be as good around goals, and my favourite player, Kevin de Bruyne, might just be getting a little bit long in the tooth – he’s 33 at the end of next month – I had my few quid on the team that took its name from the one I played with as a schoolboy.

The odds on Arsenal were nothing as big as those available about Leicester City a few years ago. Just 6/1, in fact: but as I saw it, it was going to develop into a three-horse race, City, Liverpool and my selection.

My reckoning was, Tottenham would struggle without Harry K, while – I’d better whisper this in case there’s someone around this place listening – the other Manchester hadn’t done enough the season before to suggest they’d be serious challengers. What’s more, it was known Harry M would again be in defence.

All considered, I felt 6/1 was a decent enough price to encourage me to loosen the purse strings. (Was there a squeal when your Score saw daylight for the first time in weeks, asked a friend when I told him about the bet. He should talk. He’s still counting his Confirmation money, and is planning to put it in the Post Office to keep company with what he got on his First Communion day. And would you believe, he’s just a short throw-in away from collecting his ‘Charlie Haughey’?)

I got a good run for my money.

Arsenal were in the top three for most of the season, and when Liverpool lost their way coming towards the end, it became a two-horse race. I suppose it was expecting too much for Spurs to do ‘us’ a favour last week, taking on City. Anyway, ‘we’ missed out by just a couple of points in the end.

My failure to pick up any winnings has been tempered by the news that they might be doing away with VAR. I hope it happens, because this is the biggest spoiler the game has known.

How many times this season has play been stopped for minutes while up in the crow’s nest they looked at replays over and over again? And how often have goals been disallowed because a player was half a boot offside? Either do away with VAR or sideline men.

Similarly, rugby’s TMO is there to pick up an infringement, such as a forward pass, or decide if a tackle transgressed the rules. It’s most called upon, however, to adjudicate if the ball had been touched down for as try, and that’s understandable since it can be near impossible for the ref to decide.

The GAA’s Hawkeye is there solely to see if a ball or sliotar has gone inside or outside the post, and it comes up with a result in seconds. A point from a 65 would have given Tipperary an All-Ireland title a few years ago, but the sliotar was shown to have gone inches wide. There was a replay, and Kilkenny won.