What the fans are chanting is: “We all hate Leeds scum.” They are chanting this over and over again, slamming hands on tables, stamping feet, sloshing beer across the floor.
I’m so used to this emotion from childhood, from football grounds, from the school yard. The sweetest of feelings. We fucked you over. We succeeded, but what’s better, you failed. We succeeded because you failed. We are alive. You are dead. Fuck you. You’re scum.
It’s a weird way to live, no? A weird choice as the culmination of a season’s worth of consternation and heartache and hope. What was the zenith of your life this year, mate? When were you most authentically alive? When I was chanting about how much better some sports stars that work in my town were than the sports stars that work in the next town along.
Christ. I couldn’t give a shit about football, but I don’t mean to belittle it. The fact that you care about it is cool. The fact that you get a sense of self-worth from it is fine.
But having so little pride in yourself that you can only express happiness when others are dragged into the mud and destroyed is a sad and weird and crap way of existing, don’t you think? There’s no elegance to it, no magnanimity; your joy is sullied by what is correctly in all of the major religions referred to as sin.
Which word is an old archery term, by the way, and just means to miss the mark, to fail to hit the gold at the centre of the target.
You’re missing what is best about life. Not dragging others down, but building yourself up. Your players don’t live like you do. They get all the beauty from a victory, while swapping shirts and patting backs with the vanquished foes. Maybe it’s easier for them, being paid six-figure sums while you work for minimum wage in the sandwich packing factory in Worksop. But maybe I’d posit that’s part of why they earn so much, because they have dedicated themselves to something, because they don’t hang their hopes on others but strive to succeed, because they finish a day thinking about their own progress, not the failure of others.
But maybe that’s not fair. The world needs sandwich packers as much as star strikers. Far more so, in fact.
But do you ever think about these things, football fan? Do you worry at night sometimes about the malice and aggression and fear that infuses all of your joy?
I’m so used to this emotion from childhood, from football grounds, from the school yard. The sweetest of feelings. We fucked you over. We succeeded, but what’s better, you failed. We succeeded because you failed. We are alive. You are dead. Fuck you. You’re scum.
It’s a weird way to live, no? A weird choice as the culmination of a season’s worth of consternation and heartache and hope. What was the zenith of your life this year, mate? When were you most authentically alive? When I was chanting about how much better some sports stars that work in my town were than the sports stars that work in the next town along.
Christ. I couldn’t give a shit about football, but I don’t mean to belittle it. The fact that you care about it is cool. The fact that you get a sense of self-worth from it is fine.
But having so little pride in yourself that you can only express happiness when others are dragged into the mud and destroyed is a sad and weird and crap way of existing, don’t you think? There’s no elegance to it, no magnanimity; your joy is sullied by what is correctly in all of the major religions referred to as sin.
Which word is an old archery term, by the way, and just means to miss the mark, to fail to hit the gold at the centre of the target.
You’re missing what is best about life. Not dragging others down, but building yourself up. Your players don’t live like you do. They get all the beauty from a victory, while swapping shirts and patting backs with the vanquished foes. Maybe it’s easier for them, being paid six-figure sums while you work for minimum wage in the sandwich packing factory in Worksop. But maybe I’d posit that’s part of why they earn so much, because they have dedicated themselves to something, because they don’t hang their hopes on others but strive to succeed, because they finish a day thinking about their own progress, not the failure of others.
But maybe that’s not fair. The world needs sandwich packers as much as star strikers. Far more so, in fact.
But do you ever think about these things, football fan? Do you worry at night sometimes about the malice and aggression and fear that infuses all of your joy?
Or am I utterly missing the mark?
I’m curious.
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