Football is a bizarre hobby. The commitment it evokes from its followers
is as such that many fans would be wiping rage induced foam from their mouth
just at my suggestion that it is a “hobby” at all. For a significant number of people it is not
just a hobby, but a way of life.
Legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankley once said “Some people believe
football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that
attitude. I can assure you, it is much,
much more important than that.”
There is no form of entertainment like football. Andrew Lloyd Webber fans don’t beat up
Leonard Bernstein fans if they come across them in the West End, Coronation St
has never started a riot, nobody has rearranged their wedding because it clashed
with the release of the latest World of Warcraft game. Popular music can be tribalist at times
(think The Beatles v. The Stones, Mods v. Rockers, etc), but this often
artificially created rivalry pales in significance to that of football.
Now, I like to consider myself a practical man. Someone who is able to stand back and see the
bigger picture, take a scientific approach.
Art though, has its own rules and yes, I am including sport as art.
Football is a mess of contradictions. We pay high entrance fees and TV subscription
rates to watch a bunch of millionaires, made wealthy from the money out of our
pockets. The footballers themselves are
often not just wealthy, but vulgar with it.
Smashing up sports cars like they are toys, getting in to fights outside
clubs, and sexually using and abusing women like disposable play things.
The lifestyle our financial contributions are helping to
fund is often morally repugnant to even the most open minded of
individuals. Yet, it is amazing what
football fans are willing to ignore.
Accusations of rape, racist abuse, and so much more are put to one side
when cheering on your team. Paolo Di
Canio has just been announced as the new manager of Sunderland, and his history
as a proud fascist has fuelled anger at this appointment. And yet we all know that if he wins a few
games whilst in charge, the vast majority of fans will forget all this. In no way am I suggesting Sunderland fans are
less morally or ethically sound than any other football fan, because this would
be the outcome at any football club.
And yet, somehow, football has me. Completely.
I have experienced football in two very different
spheres. On the one hand there is my
first love in football, the most highly supported team in the world and, by the
very nature of football, therefore the most hated as well: Manchester United.
This was bestowed by my family, as is often the
case. Unusually maybe, this inheritance
was in no way forced, or even assumed.
As a child I hated all sport, as it seemed that it’s only reason for
existing was for my Father to deny me the chance to watch cartoons on TV. Sport just got in the way. And yet, by the time I was 10, I felt like I
might be missing out on something.
Perhaps these were the first stirrings of the adolescent need to conform. I don’t remember. I was 10!
So I adopted my Mothers team. As it is from my Mothers side, there was
never any pressure from within my family that this is something I had to
do. Nurturing and caring, my mother
would never have pressured me in to doing anything I didn’t want to do. My dad was neutral on the issue, as he has
always insisted that he supports both City and United (to put this in to a
historical context, imagine the effect of making a lovely cup of tea, and alternating
between taking careful sips of it and then dipping your knackers in it).
So I decided I was going to like football, because it was
just something you should do. Like
drinking beer, the taste at first may seem bitter, yet it gives way to intoxication. That year United won the very first
premiership trophy, their first league trophy in 26 years. With such an excellent sense of timing, you
can understand why I would eventually decide to become a comedian!
Of course it would be expected of many that I would
support Manchester United due to where I was brought up in Manchester. South Manchester. Very south Manchester. Ok... Dorset.
Eventually though the pull of my local team had its
effect, and I eventually started to go and see AFC Bournemouth. Many died-in-the-wool football fans will
insist you should support your local team, but there genuinely was not a pull
for me when I was growing up. Existing
in the third tier of league football, I didn’t know any friends at school who
were Bournemouth fans. I only went the
first time because United legend Mark Hughes was playing for Southampton there
in a friendly. But that summer I started
to go to every home match. At the time I
was just 16, and thanks to my first summer job I had the money and the independence
for the first time to go to football by myself.
This was a very different kind of football to that seen
at Old Trafford. Up front was Steve
Fletcher. A striker who might score 10
goals a season if he played particularly well.
Used as a target man, if he didn’t win the ball in the air he would make
sure he elbowed the defender instead. A
player with little finesse, skill, and certainly no pace. Over time though I would come to accept that
this man is a legend. And I do mean that
in the present tense because he still plays for Bournemouth now, at the age of
40 (Ryan Giggs eat your heart out!).
Such a legend, in fact, that one of the three stands at our
ground, Dean Court, is named after him.
That’s right – three stands. Any
fans of rectangles out there will know that they invariably have four sides, and
yet we only have three sides to our ground.
Three fully seated stands, and a car park. This was not the world’s first “drive in”
football ground as you may think. No, we
didn’t build a forth stand because we couldn’t afford to.
This is because Bournemouth has been paupers for years, a
club constantly under threat of administration.
But now, as the universe has been engulfed by financial despair, the
cosmos has been turned seemingly on its head because Bournemouth now has
money. In fact, we’re one of the highest
invested in teams in the league which is, frankly, mad!
We have a strong squad and a great manager in Eddie
Howe. Maybe in the coming years 10,000s
will flock to see the mighty Cherries, but for now at least we can still be
assured of that “authentic” league football experience of flocking in our 100s
to places like Bury. Grounds so low in
attendance that when you arrive you are not given a seat number, merely allowed
entrance to an entire stand and told to “sit where you like”. Compare that to trying to get tickets to Old
Trafford, and you will understand what I mean when I say that I have
experienced football at both ends of the spectrum. Even then, whether it’s Old Trafford or Dean
Court, and taking in to account all the myriad contradictions inherent in
football, it is still a thrill to experience the beautiful game!
