Cambridge on a Saturday night: oh. The grads have deserted the town in their droves; the humanities students are panicking about the next week in the library; Spoons remains a last resort. Let’s face it, Cambridge on a Saturday night is shit.

But wait. For us football fans, salvation lies in television’s worst and best program: Match of the Day. Every Saturday night at around ten thirty (barring those international breaks – dark times…) the familiar, bland face of Gary Lineker shimmers into vision. We fall back onto our beds and sofas and let the nothingness wash over us.

There is nothing in this world as gloriously meaningless as football. It’s a testament to the powers of bullshit that grown men and women can cry based on the movements of a small round thing that came nowhere near them. From ten thirty until midnight, on a weekly basis, we can devote an hour and a half of our lives to some sportsing and some supremely-unknowing analysis of the sportsing.

But we don’t watch it for the sportsing, even less so for the analysis. I have yet to come across anyone who genuinely cares what Robbie Savage thinks about anything. And sure, we sometimes watch it for some awesome goals, or to watch our team win. But in reality you barely remember any of what you watch. It’s not a gripping series, nor is it tense – we already know what’s happened.

No, we watch it because it’s comfortable. Alan Shearer and Danny Murphy are probably the most boring men on earth, and their insight generally amounts to “they scored because they scored”. Manager interviews follow a predictable pattern of “things didn’t go our way”, “we’ve got to do better” or “it’s all the ref’s fault”. As for the matches: Mitchell and Webb had it right with the pithy observation: “Looking ahead to March, every football team will be playing football several times and in various combinations”.
In truth, it’s about patterns, and reassuring identities. For football’s mostly male viewership, Match of the Day provides a soothing return to the patriarchy – three men chatting shit. And the permanence of Gary Lineker, aka Big Brother, provides security in repeated identity. Watching Gary (Gary!) and co, you can slowly drift off as Stoke play West Brom and you give no fucks.

And sure, Gabby Logan and Amy Lawrence herald a better era, an era in which football isn’t so incredibly sexist, homophobic, racist and more. But football will remain football – an Andy Warhol art form, devoid of depth.

Cambridge life is shattering, in more ways than one. New ideas discovered, old certainties destroyed, opportunities for sleep and television limited. But no matter what goes on, no matter what goes wrong, you know that there’ll always be a Gary at the end of the tunnel.