Tomorrow is the start of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and I have never felt this underwhelmed about a football tournament since I started following football in the late eighties.

And I am not alone. I have yet to see a single England flag hanging out of someone’s bedroom window or flying proudly from a car. In fact, I have only seen one pub with the traditional World Cup bunting outside.

I’m not entirely sure what it is that has seen this lack of enthusiasm descend upon us. Even the Welsh don’t seem particularly excited about their first foray into the competition.

Is it because of the fact that Qatar used slave labour to build the stadiums in appalling conditions?

Is it because homosexuality is illegal in Qatar and they have VERY harsh penalties?

Is it because the tournament is happening at the end of the year instead of the traditional May-July?

My return to fitness seems to be coming along, albeit at a much slower pace (excuse the pun) than I thought it would. I attended Mile End Parkrun this morning and finished with a time of 22:04, which is much better than the 22:30 I was hoping to scrape under.

A combination of putting on three stone while my missus was pregnant, and then rolling my ankle, has seen my running struggle recently. But now the times are slowly starting to come down and the weight is slowly coming off.

I promise not to go too much into my running journey because I’m starting a separate site for that. I will link it on the site as I start my master’s athletics journey in the new year.

Image by Rosy – The world is worth thousands of pictures from Pixabay