It may surprise my loyal reader, who should by now be aware of my preference for the League version of Rugby to Union, that I am currently approaching the final pages of a book written (or ghostwritten?) by a former Union player, but it’s true. Loose Head, by Joe Marler, has been a cracking read, more a collection of mainly funny stories than an autobiography or even a memoir and I suspect that your average punter who has no interest in the author’s former profession would also enjoy it. I have been struck by many of his views on the sport and one of them was to do with his admiration for the supporters who pay to watch Marler and his team play.
He notes that many of the fans are verging on obsessional, my word, not his. They travel to all games, home and away, and often at huge expense. He describes the positive affects these fans have on both the player and the team, turning up at a game at the other end of the country, or even in Europe, standing in the pouring rain, just being there for the team. As someone who followed a team, Bristol Rovers, for much of my life, I made what I felt was a significant commitment to my club by going to pretty well all home games. My diary revolved around Rovers home games. I no longer feel that way, mostly for reasons I won’t bore you with (again) here, but I still have the ultimate admiration to those who happily give up at least 23 Saturdays and numerous midweek evenings to support their team. Those who attend every single game, home and away, that is something I have often said I don’t understand, but when thinking about my own obsessions, then maybe I can?
I have known, and still know, people whose entire lives revolve around their football team. People who think absolutely nothing of spending the best part of a whole day travelling the length and breadth of the country, leaving home when it’s still dark, arriving back home when it’s already been dark for maybe six hours and longer. And they think nothing of it, because that’s what they do.
I was never someone who enjoyed away matches, going back to my footballing formative years in the early 1970s. I have attended a few distant grounds with the Rovers, like Liverpool, Brighton and Ipswich and others not quite so far like Derby, Plymouth and Walsall. I looked forward to the journey to the ground, rarely the games themselves because we usually lost and loathed the return journeys. Once the away game was over, I dreamed of teleporting myself back to Bristol because the prospect of the coach journey home was simply too much to bear. I came to dread that latter part of the away game day and regardless of the importance of the game, I would happily make do with listening to the radio instead. That way, I could follow the game, wallow in a few moments of misery after the final whistle and be at home, rather than contemplating the long road home. Even on the rare occasion Rovers won an away game when I was listening, I never wished I’d been there.
I think most of us have obsessions about something. I’ve always been obsessed by music, I’m slightly less obsessed by trains and commercial aeroplanes, but not by much. I was seriously obsessed with football, not just going to games but also wasting my time on internet forums debating and indeed arguing about it. In my case, and there were extenuating circumstances, I burned out. I was enjoying the things I did on alternate Saturdays more than I was the football. Other than meeting up with friends, the football itself was becoming a chore. I kept going to games for longer than I really wanted to because the friendships I enjoyed required that I go to games. Now I see friends a great deal less than I used to, some indeed barely at all, and that’s something I hugely regret. I suspect for some, though not all, fans who go both home and away, or indeed those who just go to home games, the pull of friendships, that weekly camaraderie, is too much to let go. If you still love the club, you support the team and you go to watch.
Joe Marler gave the professional player’s point of view, that fans really matter. That must surely apply in most team sports, professional and semi-professional ones anyway. When someone has driven for say five hours to the arse end of beyond to watch your team get thumped in a quagmire, they deserve all the praise from the participants they can get. The elite players will fly to games, or travel on luxury coaches. Your average fan will be on a rattling old bus, travelling on dreary motorways, standing in an uncovered shit hole of a ground and still they cheer on the team they love. Perhaps, some folks are a little lonely in life or have few other interests in life, but my feeling is that they simply love it and it’s as much part of their lives and eating and going to then toilet. It is something they just have to do.
I can’t even be bothered to watch any ‘live’ football at the moment. And frankly, watching football whether live or on the telly is a low priority in my life. It’s strange to watch an old obsession fade and die, but that’s where I am. To those who live for the day every second Saturday, or those who live for the day every single Saturday, it appears your effort and commitment is noted by the players. And I hope you all enjoy every second of it, even the mammoth drive back home after yet another grisly defeat.
