The making of a football fanatic

I've seen passing glimpses of football fanatics on the news. Slightly overweight, middle-aged men squeezing their beer-bellied bodies into a football jersey....a jersey that is always a couple of sizes too small. Beer in one hand while the other hand is raised in either a fist of celebration or a finger to the ref....depending on how the game is going.

They've always struck me as being a curious case study of what happens when males bond. I can almost hear David Attenborough's voiceovers...."the football fanatics are divided into two species, those in blue and those in red, each sees the other as a threat. When provoked they will attack using loud taunts about the other species' mother. Both species like to congregate around a big patch of grass and observe the very finest physical example of their own species fight it out. Instead of antlers, the football fanatics rely on the round ball as their main weapon."

To my untrained football eyes, the game itself seemed like a lot of hysterical falling to the ground, clutching at phantom injuries and then bouncing right back up once the ref walked away.

This somewhat dismissive view of football changed when I watched the Liverpool versus Manchester City game. I made a solemn promise to Mr Y at our wedding, that I would now support his football team, Liverpool. At that time, I thought that promise involved feigning an interest when he gave me a blow by blow account of the game.

And in large part feigning interest stood me in good stead for the majority of the football season. I nodded at appropriate intervals, I remembered the names of key players and I looked sufficiently impressed when he told me about Liverpool winning a game.

But then he slowly and insidiously turned me into one of those...a football fanatic. It started innocently enough, he started talking to me about the history of Liverpool. Then he went into details about a player called Gerrard, a great player who showed loyalty to his club. He made me watch reruns of the 2005 Champions League when Liverpool came from behind to win. Initially he lured me into watching it by saying that we'd just watch the goals that Gerrard scored....then a few weeks later he made me sit through the whole thing, more than 2 hours of football footage. First there was regulation time when Gerrard led his team to draw level after initially conceding three goals, followed by extra time and then finally the penalty shoot out, I watched it all.

Admittedly, this Gerrard fella and Mr Y's efforts piqued my curiosity in this club. Then came the season of 2014. It started off like any other season, Mr Y would recount a couple of Liverpool wins and losses, I got to know some more players like Suarez and Sturridge. Then things started to change slowly....after watching a Liverpool game Mr Y's mood seemed happy...joyful even. He started to be consistently happy after each game. Things seemed to be looking good for Liverpool, they might make it into the top four and perhaps play in next year's Champions League.

Then he said one day, Liverpool just need to win this game to be number one on the league table. Do you want to watch the game with me he asked? It was on at a reasonable hour....
I watched as Liverpool beat Tottenham 4 - 0.

Then they played their biggest rival for this season....Manchester City. The more fancied and cashed up team that had finally emerged as the premier team from Manchester. They were helped to that position by the overnight demise of Manchester United, under the watchful eye of Moyes. It seems replacing one Scot (legendary Alec Ferguson) with another Scot (the dumped David Moyes), scotched the chances of a winning Man U season...and therein lies my first football joke.

During this match I saw a range of emotions in Mr Y that I never thought were possible. Anticipation, solemnity, empathy, happiness, pure joy, unease, tension, despair, ecstasy.
The game started with electric anticipation as a choir of thousands sang a heartfelt rendition of the Liverpool FC's song, "You will never work alone". The emotions were even more heightened for this game because it fell on the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster.
This one game of football represented so much. It carried the hopes of a community that had been fighting 25 years for justice against a major government cover-up. The team captain Steven Gerrard had lost his cousin in the Hillsborough disaster. Gerrard was Liverpool. The prodigal son who was nurtured through the junior ranks, stayed loyal to a club that was unlikely to give him the one cherished prize he so wanted....a premier league title. Here he was leading the 'unlikely' team to their biggest game since 2005. The sporting commentators were going crazy with the grandiose prose that only sports can elicit.

"It's fate, it's destiny."

A hashtag had been coined and caught on #makeusdream.

In a perfect storm of sporting-lore, Liverpool were up 2 - 0 in the first half. All they had to do was defend....but this was the team that had conceded the most number of goals all the season.

Alternating between hiding behind me and then his hands, Mr Y caught glimpses of Liverpool's woeful defensive line-up as they let in two goals in the second half. The frustration of this game became nail-biting clear to me. And a player who looked like he was 15 came out of nowhere to clean up a defensive error from Man City and scored. In that moment I felt like I was speaking fluent Portuguese. His name Philippe Coutinho rolled off my tongue with an appropriate 'r' sound and lilt.

Gerrard's tears and impromptu speech to his team on the pitch - hooked me. Mr Y's ecstatic dance around the living room - reeled me in. And Liverpool's loose grasp of the top spot of the English Premier League - totally caught me.

And it was with this early morning football match that I turned...into a football fanatic.
It was one small slip, literally, against Chelsea that saw the premiership title slip, figuratively, away. But I'm hooked now...just in time for the 2014 Football World Cup.