What It Means To Be A Football Fan

I don’t have a great memory. That’s why I don’t remember that much about childhood, apart from it being very pleasant and normal. I can’t recall every moment like some people can. There was plenty of French cricket, Juicy Lucy lollies and those bubble-gum balls at the bottom of the ice creams. Wembley in Heaton Park when they decided to keep the posts up off-season. Cycling up that really tough hill and the ride in the ambulance when my mate decided to go no-handed over some speed bumps. Grounded for HIS fuck up. Much more snow in those days, building igloos using shopping bags. My progression of bikes, the scrapes that resulted, kicking a football against the house side wall for hours at a time during summer boredom, being called home from my friend’s back garden to hear my gran had died and being too young to know how to act. A girl wetting herself spectacularly on my first day at primary school. Holidays in England. Blackpool illuminations, Scarborough and its funicular, the trek down to Devon and summers in Torquay and the model village in Babbacombe. Chippy on Saturdays, when I had to be different and have chips with sweet and sour sauce.  My fold away snooker table, box rooms and Superman wallpaper.

And that huge sodding rhododendron in the back garden that ate footballs for fun.

Sadly, my intermittent memory means that I do not recall my first ever football match. It probably wasn’t City. Growing up in north Manchester, my dad took me to United, City and Bury, where you could get a lot closer to the action, and where at that age the toilets that resembled a scene from Trainspotting were seen as an adventure rather than a crime against humanity. I settled on City from an early age, but cannot state why, definitively. Maybe I just like the colour blue, or was hypnotised by Tommy Caton’s hair or Neil McNab’s ‘tache.

Nevertheless, the football memories since remain largely intact. I fell in love with football immediately. And I fell in love with football in the 1980s, a decade full of decrepit grounds, violence, ID cards and tragedy. That wasn’t going to stop me, nothing was. I loved the sport itself and the joy of watching your team with your “football family”. The misshaped stands, the albatross, the atmosphere, the smells (most of them), the swaying mass of humanity. Can’t say I gave much thought as a child or even young adult to ownership models or financial disparities within the league. This was the sport I loved, warts and all.

The memories filter through. Listening to the 1983 relegation on the radio. Doing the same for a Full Members Cup final during a family gathering. An 11-year-old struggling to comprehend how Heysel or Bradford could be allowed to happen. Sitting in different stands and being blown away by the difference 100 yards could make. Wanting to stand in the Kippax rather than taking in the Main Stand serenity.  The Football Pink (and Green) at 6pm, and never knowing what happened after the 83rd minute in a match. Evening games and massive floodlights, chips and gravy and the 41 bus home. Why is chippy salt so much better? Ten goals against Huddersfield, who were the better side for 20 minutes. My dad suspiciously claiming he caught the match ball that was kicked into the crowd at full time, then threw it back. My parents picking me up from Ewood Park after a 4-0 thrashing as news continued to filter through about the tragic deaths at Hillsborough. Listening to City beat United 5-1 on the wireless as I worked a Saturday job with two United-supporting friends. The eternal hope of the 1990s that our time would come. Watching England v Scotland in a dodgy Whitefield boozer because the IRA had blown up the city centre. The depths of 1998-1999, that rainy day at Wembley when we forgot United had won the treble and the club rose from the ashes. The emotion taking its toll and falling asleep on the way home, before watching the whole match again on VHS at 2am. The crazy match at Blackburn, and the hilarity at their own goal when I knew we had done it, they had done it. “Back In The Big Time” bought from HMV soon after.

Linking everything in life to football, life’s timekeeper for many. Holiday cheer dampened by another England tournament exit, until you stopped caring. Being present at the dullest games the sport has ever produced. A 0-0 at Bloomfield Road as the winter sun blinded me throughout, protecting me from the awful fayre on the pitch. A 0-0 at home to QPR in the FA Cup that was supposed to introduce my sister to the joys of the beautiful game. That defeat to Bury. The despair. Playing for a draw when we needed to win. The team scapegoat. Managers just passing through like ships in the night. Wondering why I didn’t support United like my dad, but deep down aware of the perverse relief that I didn’t. Are they really that happy winning all the time? Turns out they were.

My first credit card meaning my first proper season ticket. The last game at Maine Road. City lost of course, and the send-off was messy and confused. I left the ground with an emptiness that I cannot describe. It all seemed necessary and yet so wrong. Then soon after the open day at the new stadium, whatever you wished to call it, and I sat in my seat, bumped into friends whilst nursing a vicious hangover, looked out over the pitch and felt that hope again. The hope that keeps you going, that makes the start of a new season so special, if only for a short time.

City even got to win the odd derby or two and watch one of our own break into the England side. Kevin Keegan brought fun football and Ali Bernarbia. The Stuart Pearce years, where the highlight was winning on Silver Birch in the Grand National mid-game v Liverpool. The match ended 0-0, naturally. My friends being in the same spot by the same bar every time I entered the ground. The reassurance it gave me to see them, the wonderful routine that football supplied. The City wreaths when one of them sadly passed away, and me contemplating how utterly unfair the world is sometimes, and him not being by the bar at the following home game. And thinking how unfair the world was a thousand other times whilst watching City, though it really wasn’t that important in the scheme of things. And walking into the Waldorf pub to meet some people from a message board, understandably unaware that I was about to make friends for life.

And then there was Sven and Thaksin’s free curries in Albert Square and Elano’s free kick and everything was crazy and then it changed forever for us all in a single afternoon.

And so to those cherished moments since 2008. So, so many. Yaya’s goals that broke the barren run and ripped down that banner. Ferguson knocked off his perch, and then 2012, and the shift in power and the memories from that season that can never be matched, it’s just not possible. Meeting Roberto Mancini and forgetting how to speak, just days after embarrassing myself in front of Tim Booth. Somehow finding myself on parade bus number 2, and later watching a grime artist, whatever that is, announce a kit launch at midnight on Sunday in a warehouse near Piccadilly Station. Listening to Tommy Booth’s brilliant stories whilst sat in a box at City (so posh!) and doing a ground tour and feeling like a little boy all over again as I naughtily stepped onto the pitch for a few seconds. Four league titles, and the stress that accompanied three of them, the Wembley visits, the Wembley triumphs, the legends that have emerged and often still remain. Special memories, special days, with special friends. Shared memories.

And the low points too, from Wigan to Wigan, an essential part of being a football fan. It builds character, after all. What doesn’t kill us….

Is there a point to all this reminiscing? Kind of. Basically, I’m not sorry for enjoying this ride, not one bit. This speck of sand on life’s beach is going to get what he can out of this ridiculous footballing journey. It is often said that long-suffering blues have paid their dues, but it would make little difference if I hadn’t. I don’t have to justify my conduct as a fan, and neither do you. If Vincent Kompany does not have moral concerns about playing for Manchester City football club, nor every player that dons the shirt or Pep or every member of staff that is happy to remain at the club, then I certainly won’t have any about continuing to support them. And why would I? The idea that everyone concerned with City lost their moral code in 2008 is laughable. I will never stop supporting my football club, I will never support anyone else, it is the one definitive relationship that will endure throughout my life. And I will never fail to celebrate a victory, whatever the circumstances, however it may have been achieved. We protested and eventually got rid of a chairman for little gain, but essentially we are voyeurs, our destinies as fans mapped out for us, with little say in matters. It is separate from necessary geopolitics discussions and investigations.

The guilt of putting a plastic bottle in a general rubbish bin feels similar to thinking supporting my football club is helping develop a (non-existent) sports washing project led by an owner who is not really the owner because he is just a front for really bad people. A sport that has been awash with corruption, dodgy money and ne’er do wells since the dawn of time. Imagine looking to football for moral guidance, when its own governing bodies are full of crooks and charlatans. Football’s ills should be fixed of course, whatever its history, whatever the ills are perceived to be. Just don’t lump any shame on me, thank you very much. I’ve got my own battles to fight. You just wish that some of those that do judge from their moral high horse applied those morals to their own private lives rather than using serious issues for point-scoring. Hey, I even wanted Newcastle’s rumoured takeover to occur as it would have been fun, it would have annoyed further the old status quo and the world would have been no better or worse should it happen.

Whatever. No one will temper my enjoyment, no one will diminish those memories when I look back on it all should I make it to that rocking chair in the care home. I picked my particular roller-coaster in 1982, buckled up, and set off on the ride, with no say on the ups, downs or occasional nausea. Every fan made that decision at some point. After all, I have no need to justify my support any more than anyone else living in a country awash with investment from the same region, or as a fan of numerous other clubs who receive millions of pounds in sponsorship deals from similar sources.

There’s no such thing as eternal life, yet, so my group of grizzled veterans that meets every week pre-match will be whittled down over time and we’ll take our memories with us, unless you stumble across a little-read blog site in the ether. And those memories will be richer, more fulfilling and emotional than I could have dreamt fifteen years ago. I’ll keep drinking it in, whilst I can. And I won’t be asking anyone’s permission to do so.

And most importantly, I’d hate to miss out. Because there’s so much more to come for all of us bitter blues. And if I can’t enjoy my football club right now, then what’s the point of anything? Days like these, that is the point. Not just supporting your club, your team, but the hope that one day you’ll have your time in the sun. It’s why the dawn of a new season reinvigorates us all.

Great, isn’t it?