A distinction should be made that [American] football is democratic capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialist [sport].

Laissez-faire, Darwinian capitalism is not going to work here. Markets do work, but they need the direction of government in situations like this.

Pro football gave me a good perspective. When I entered the political arena, I had already been booed, cheered, cut, sold, traded, and hung in effigy.

Pro football gave me a good sense of perspective to enter politics: I'd already been booed, cheered, cut, sold, traded and hung in effigy.

Billy has a soccer background and he's applying it to football. He's worked with John Carney (of the NFL) and went to some camps. I like our odds with extra points this year.

As I get older, the tyranny that football exerts over my life, and therefore over the lives of people around me, is less reasonable and less attractive. Family and friends know, after long years of wearying experience, that the fixture list always has the last word in any arrangement; they understand, or at least accept, that christenings or weddings or any gatherings, which in other families would take unquestioned precedence, can only be plotted after consultation. So football is regarded as a given disability that has to be worked around. If I were wheelchair-bound, nobody close to me would organise anything in a top-floor flat, so why would they plan anything for a winter Saturday afternoon.