Fifty Years Of Hurt (Well, Almost)

I have a confession to make. I am a forty-something Englishman who has never been to a professional football match.

When I mentioned this to a Beautiful-Game-loving friend, adding that I should maybe rectify this by going to see my local team, Sheffield Wednesday, his memorable quip was, 'But then you still wouldn't have seen a professional football match.' Badoom and, indeed, tish.

You're looked at in a bit of a funny way in this country if you're a Bloke Who Doesn't Like Football. But it's not that I don't like it, really - it's just that I feel the obsession over it and adulation for the players in this country gets totally out of proportion. And, unlike a great many of my friends, I can't understand that flipping offside rule. I refer you to Laura, who not only can but makes it the title of her blog.

I was amused to hear recently that some people had to have time off work for stress because their favourite team didn't qualify for some competition or other... I'm sorry, run that past me again. Time off work? For stress? About FOOTBALL? Why didn't I think of that one when enduring the slightly disappointing Season 5 of Babylon 5? Couldn't I have I used the anguish caused by Doctor Who's enforced 1985 hiatus as an excuse for my O-Level performance? (Not really, because I got all my O-Levels. That one doesn't work.)

It has to be said, though - Doctor Who fandom and football supporters have more in common that we'd like to admit. Battling evil opposition on a Saturday afternoon, often with cliffhangers and moments of tension, and wearing long scarves... and demanding the head of the guy in charge when it all goes wrong.

I think a lot of my aversion to sport comes of not having grown up with any particular attachment to a local team (my dad was always more of a rugby man anyway), and also from being rubbish at it. I was That Person who was always in the last three or four picked during the dreaded Team Selection at the start of a games lesson. (Why did we not get to do this in French? Or Maths?)

But I don't actually dislike football all that much, at least not when the national team are playing. I think it was Euro '96 which dragged me in (it even gets a largely-accurate scene based around it in Losing Faith), and even football-haters got interested in the 1998 World Cup tournament in France - the last time England looked like doing anything remotely interesting. As I understand it, on paper 'we' (it always has to be 'we') have about the tenth or eleventh best football team in the world - which isn't bad out of two-hundred-odd countries, and means that getting to the quarter-finals three times with Sven-Goran Eriksson was pretty over-achieving. It's just that it's something there in the background on the level of, say, Midsomer Murders as far as my interest goes.

While we're on the subject of that 'we' - I love this sketch by Mitchell and Webb:

Looking at the posters in my local pub advertising the upcoming football matches, I was reminded that another World Cup is imminent, and perhaps that people's expectations are quite realistic - even low - for the first time in decades. This has been the curse of the sport-lovers in my generation - the idea that some kind of  Buggins' Turn system operates, that England win the World Cup once in a generation, and that the time has been due to come round again for the last 20 years. And, to be fair, in 1990 'we' got quite close. But that's it. It won't happen again in our lifetime. Really.

I hope you enjoy the World Cup, football-lovers. I won't deny you your pleasure and I may even watch some of it. But it's not a matter of life and death... and yes, I know how the rest of that quote goes.

Meanwhile, here's my favourite football anthem - from that infamous 1998 tournament. It has Echo and the Bunnymen! And Ocean Colour Scene! And the Spice Girls! It's as 90s as TFI Friday, Tamagotchis and a night on the town with the Appleton sisters... Enough to make me feel 28 again.