The Beautiful Game
Control The Ball, Shoot The Goal.
I, like most fans, have a love-hate relationship with football.
Football has been responsible for some of the highest highs and the lowest lows of my life. The impact that a Manchester United result can have on my mood is absolutely pathetic. I am 31 years old; I am a grown man with a full-time job; I am a homeowner; I am engaged. And every weekend between August and May, and sometimes over the summer, I am a slave to the whims of a few select millionaires.
I just hand over the reigns to my emotional state to them — there you go lads, please don’t hurt me again. If you don’t like football, the closest real-life example I can give to this is voting for the Conservative Party.
I know for a fact that I am not alone. Often, having an allegiance to a football team is akin to being a religious zealot (those who are especially keen even go on crusades, or ‘away days’ as they’re better known). Football takes a place in peoples’ hearts above everything else. At Manchester United’s home ground, there is a flag which reads:
“United. Kids. Wife. In that order.”
Now, that is a joke, but many a true word said in jest.
A perfect real-life example of this is the Netflix documentary Sunderland ’Til I Die. In its two series so far, that show has shown better than anything what it is like to be a football fan.
Sunderland Athletic Football Club are RUBBISH. They are AWFUL. They have free-fallen in the last few years to League Two, the fourth division of English football, and even there they are struggling. And yet, their fans follow them with an unquestioning passion and commitment than even dogs think is a bit keen.
In one episode, there is a pre-game interview with a well-spoken middle-aged man. He comes across as reasonable, level-headed and fair. Then he enters a football stadium, and loses his mind. The next time we see him, he is running down the steps of the stands, brandishing his wallet and shouting:
“Everybody get your money out, they’ve paid the ref! Come on ref, what’s your price!?”
He is absolutely hysterical.
But I can guarantee you every football fan has found themselves acting like that at some point. Even people who don’t regularly watch football aren’t immune — the sub-title of this post comes from my usually unflappable sister-in-law who at the London 2012 Olympics found herself getting frustrated that the footballers were overcomplicating things. “Control the ball, shoot the goal” she explained, exasperated.
Football does something to people’s brains. I am a reasonable man, but if you try and tell me that Frank Lampard was a better central midfielder than Paul Scholes, I am liable to strike you.
It is not entirely my fault; I have been told since I was a young boy that Manchester United are the goodies and that Liverpool and Leeds are the baddies. Even now as an adult, if somebody tells me they support Liverpool I will involuntarily clench and pause to compose myself. It’s ok James, it isn’t their fault they weren’t raised right — give them a chance, you might like them really. I invariable do.
(For those who don’t like football, the closest real-life example of this feeling is someone telling you they vote Conservative).
At this point, non-football fans will be switching off because football is stupid and just an excuse for idiots to shout at each other. But that is only half the story. There is more to football than just rage and tribalism. There is a beauty in both the game and its fandom — a game of football can, more regularly than any other sport, be a beautiful, dramatic spectacle. I have on numerous occasions witnessed late drama and thought to myself “imagine not liking football, you are missing out on so much.” Sure, it has its problems, but nobody is perfect.
But the real beauty is outside of the game, the things that happen around football. I have been asked to be someone’s best man on the way to a football match (Crystal Palace at home, 0–0); I got engaged in front of a game I wasn’t watching (Newcastle away, 3–2); Every time United and City are playing away, my mates from both sides combine forces to go and watch Stockport County. Pies, pints and silliness (the result doesn’t matter, does it?)
Personally, I have never seen real violence occur because of football, but I have twice been punched in the face in a football ground. Once by my uncle and once by my brother — both of those were the result of celebrating goals scored by Manchester United. Honestly, I could not have cared less. If anything, I was glad of it. They were important goals.
For me, football is about the rituals and about the people you perform them with. When I had a season ticket at Old Trafford, the pre-match routine with my dad was absolutely enshrined in stone. Two pints at the Trafford Hall Hotel, a KFC Zinger Burger on the way to the ground, arrive at our seats as the teams come out onto the pitch.
Every. Single. Time.
It cannot be changed — even when you are running late, even when it is an evening kick-off and you’ve already eaten, even when the hotel was undergoing renovation and the only bar was a truck in the car park.
Have you ever stood in a wet car park in Salford at 11:30am on New Year’s Day and tried to force two pints of Boddingtons through the murk of a festive hangover? Because I have. I have done that more than once, and I would do it again in an instant.
I can still feel the chicken burger sloshing around in a litre of creamy bitter as I bound up the stairs of the North Stand to reach my seat, just in time for kick-off — I pray there isn’t an early goal so I have time to settle. (Once Javier Hernandez scored after 42 seconds and I thought I was going to be sick).
Football has its issues, yes, and I’ll take my share of the blame for that. But football is also the facilitator for genuine quality time spent with my dad, my brother, my family and my friends. And if I can trade a few spoilt millionaires for that…?
Well, fill me full of Boddingtons and punch me in the face — I’m ready for kick-off.
