The universal bonding power of ... football?!
Growing up with football, from struggling to fit in to experiencing the passion of the game, all leading to a newfound appreciation for its universal power.
I have a complicated relationship with football.
It’s the early 90s and I’m in junior school. We’ve just moved halfway across the country from Merseyside to rural Nottinghamshire and I’m something of a novelty with my Scouse-tinged accent and—crucially—lack of interest in football.
Each of the school day’s three break times is spent playing football; at least, for boys. There are one or two outsiders who are exempt from this, kids who I’ll eventually discover and become friends with, but for now, I dutifully follow everybody else from my class and we spread into a long line while the two team captains pick their squad. I’m always last to be picked unless I catch the eye of one of the captains and silently beseech him to pick me; try to will him to recall how I helped him with his spelling yesterday afternoon. Sometimes it works.
My dad played football at a near-professional level in his youth and it remains one of my biggest parenting lessons today that he didn’t instinctively raise me in his image. He didn’t try to force me into playing the game just because he did, and with my own kids today I do my best to be led by their interests, rather than try to mould them into mine. But this did mean that I was on the back foot when it came to ingratiating myself with my new classmates.
I remember being mocked when I showed up to after-school football club because I didn’t have football boots, just trainers. My parents went out the next week and bought me a pair, and I remember nervously walking out from the changing rooms in my still-shiny boots to honking laughter from the other kids because they weren’t the right brand (sorry, Adidas).
I’m not replaying these miserable vignettes to beg for pity or write the world’s most maudlin newsletter. It’s more to illustrate that I’m not a natural fan of “the beautiful game”.
Beyond the six-yard box
Twenty years after my schooldays, I’m in a Merseyside pub with my dad when a stranger hails him from across the bar. “That’s Gary”, my dad says to me in an undertone, as a wall of muscle approaches us. “He’s just come out of prison”. The beefy bloke greets us all and grapples me into a rough handshake as my Dad says “this is my son Matthew, he’s just graduated from Leeds University”.
As conversation turns naturally to sport, Gary suddenly turns to me, slamming a fist for emphasis on the Carling-soaked bartop. “WHO’S THE BEST PLAYER FOR LIVERPOOL?”, he furiously demands of me. Football stickers and commentators’ voices fly briefly through my mind as I try to recall strikers, full-backs or even the name of any current football player on any team. “St-Steven Gerrard?”, I stammer. “CORRECT ANSWER!” he beams, and downs his pint.
Later in this period, we end up at a pub somewhere that’s been split into two colour-demarcated halves for Liverpool and Everton fans. It’s done with a healthy degree of irony/humour, but coming from my world where sport rarely figures, it feels faintly hysterical. Why are these grown men so tribally divided about this? Like Louis Theroux, I join the ranks of middle class wannabe intellectuals, patronisingly pontificating about sport and the working classes.
Drums in the deep
A few years after this I end up staying in Glasgow for work on the night of an Old Firm derby. A local colleague had suggested taking me to the game, which I declined, but it was only when I was safely ensconced in my hotel room that I understood why he’d invited me: this was football on another level. I stood at the window listening to the sound of what appeared to be Saruman’s Uruk-Hai army marching to destroy Rohan. There were drums pounding, war-songs being throatily bellowed, and hordes of feet stamping down the rain-soaked streets. This was before the game had even started.
Most recently, it was some kind of World Cup or the Euros or something and England were in contention. A mate of mine texted me to see if I wanted to join him at the pub to watch it. Years ago this would’ve been my nightmare: hordes of pissed-up football fans throwing pints and smashing things when England inevitably lost. This was with a group of friends who were a little more genteel (come on, we met at NCT parenting classes) at a pub owned by one of the group – hopefully a bit less chaotic. I went along.
I had no real investment in the outcome: I was just along for the ride. I remember showing up with trepidation, but when the game kicked off, I was hooked by the crowd, the emotions and the passion displayed by everyone watching. I don’t even remember how the game ended, but I do remember feeling moved by everyone’s emotional response to each kick, the groans of frustration when someone fumbled a pass, and the rising, unmistakable passion when the ball finally cleared the goal. This is why people like football, I thought.
They think it’s all over
This weekend, England play in the Euro 2024 final. Even from my football-adjacent position, I know this is a big deal. I’m not sure yet if I’ll watch it, though my various family WhatsApp groups will be lighting up with excitement or frustration depending on how Southgate’s men perform. England’s women have already won this competition two years ago, and I watched that game – perhaps that’s enough football for me for this decade.
When I kick a ball around the park with my son today, though, I’m taken back to my childhood and those intense feelings of sadness and sometimes elation (I think I must’ve scored at least once back in those schoolyard games) and realise it’s the same thing today. This sport isn’t mine—nothing will steal cycling’s crown—but it’s universal, a proxy for what we’re all feeling, and an increasingly rare way to express something powerful in public. Good luck, England.
Mini-feels this week
The best music ever?
Look, I can’t stop thinking about this. The 80s TV show Thundercats is obviously one of the greatest cartoons of all time. You already know how legendary the “Thundercats, Ho!” theme song is. But are you familiar with the Thundertank theme music? It’s the soundtrack that plays whenever Panthro jumps into his custom-made vehicle, and it is fucking incredible. It’s a kind of blaxsploitation funk thing and you need to stop reading this email and start listening to this instead:
Links to the man feeling web
I keep forgetting to do this, and I promise it’s not all links to the Guardian or Reddit:
Pete Ashton: “Grief and autistic burnout - 2023 was a lot” – my friend Pete is an OG blogger who’s been doing cool things and writing about them for a long time (go read his piece about his zine archive too!). This one is about how he dealt with a bunch of personal trauma and discoveries, and he writes with honesty and insight about struggling with his feelings (and more).
BBC: “Silent Men film asks why so many still struggle to open up” – an article about a movie highlighting male suicide and asking why men still bottle up their feelings.
Guardian: “The sad, stupid rise of the sigma male: how toxic masculinity took over social media” – “It’s pretty obvious that the whole manosphere project is deeply regressive and rooted in concocted nostalgia and the notion of a mythical past”. Yep.