Fandom - a life of unfulfilled hope

[Paul Waine]

A good article by Matthew Syed in The Times:

True fandom is accepting a life of unfulfilled hope
If your club are doing badly, why not change to a team who are doing better?

Matthew Syed Wednesday July 29 2020, 12.01am, The Times

A life sentence.” This was the description by Andy, my father-in-law, of what it has been like to have been a Brentford fan these past 60 years; the regular episodes of disappointment, punctuated with moments of hopelessness, with a few right hooks of devastation, such as Barnsley’s late winner last Wednesday, automatic promotion denied yet again after being so close.

Why would anyone do it, one may ask? What’s the point of being a football fan? Why go through the routine characterised so memorably by the author Nick Hornby as “we curse, go home, worry for a fortnight and then come back to suffer all over again”, a description that, to most supporters, failed to do sufficient justice to the general angst and desperation?

A few weeks ago my colleague Matt Dickinson raised the possibility that fans should be a little more promiscuous. I mean, if your club are doing badly, or have had a few bad results, why not change to a team who are doing a little better? So, a Liverpool fan, on this analysis, would have been wise to ditch their club for, say, Manchester United, during the 1990s and 2000s, thus enjoying the long run of success under Sir Alex Ferguson, rather than the drought under various bosses at Anfield.

Of course, Matt was being more than a little arch for he knows that football is not like choosing a brand of soap powder or shaving foam. You can’t move clubs because another team are more successful, or because the seats at the stadium are more comfortable, or even because you have moved home and there is a more convenient place to watch nearby. A promiscuous fan is an oxymoron, a category error. Such a person is not a fan, but a spectator or, perhaps more accurately, a consumer.

I remember talking to a Manchester City fan who was at the Etihad Stadium on the day when they won the league in the final seconds, when Martin Tyler turned contralto as he screamed “Agüerooooo!”, when many fans in light blue wept tears of joy in the stands. “That high wouldn’t make sense to anyone who hadn’t experienced the lows,” he said. “The two things are part of the one, inseparable whole.”

Another said: “When we went a goal down, I wanted QPR to score again so that hope would vanish altogether. It is the hope that kills you. I just couldn’t take it any more”.

Don’t these emotional paradoxes capture the essence of fandom? Don’t they explain why a game of football played in an empty stadium is categorically different from one played before the wreathing intensity of Anfield, or Old Trafford, or the parks of Villa, St James’, and Griffin? The match itself may offer entertainment to people watching at home, but it never transmits the emotional jeopardy. This is why TV directors — in normal times, at least — do not merely cover what is happening on the pitch, but tell the story through the close-ups of cheering, chanting and occasional weeping.

Brentford face Swansea City at 7.45pm tonight in the second leg of their Sky Bet Championship play-off semi-final and Andy will be thinking of little else from the moment he wakes up. He remembers only too well the eight play-off failures of recent years, not least defeats by Crewe Alexandra, Stoke City and Yeovil Town in various finals. He also remembers what it was like when his beloved Bees were awarded a penalty against Doncaster Rovers in the last game of 2013, when a goal would have secured promotion. Marcello Trotta seized the ball from Kevin O’Connor, the usual penalty-taker, and hit the bar. The ball then ricocheted kindly for Rovers, who went to the other end and scored, securing promotion for themselves.

He remembers other low points too, such as when the club was in financial trouble in 1967 and nearly taken over by Queens Park Rangers, who were looking for a new ground. Brentford FC were saved by a trust fund from supporters raising £8,589, many of whom could still be found at Griffin Park this season, at least until it was disrupted by lockdown.

But this is precisely why the high points soar beyond anything that could be experienced by a mere consumer, like the day when he joined 7,000 travelling Bees fans to travel to Anfield for the FA Cup sixth round in March 1989, an experience he still describes as “unforgettable” despite the 4-0 defeat, or his many visits to Griffin Park during the 1960s, watching Ken Coote, a one-club legend still revered by older fans, and Mel Scott, a fine centre half signed for £12,500 in March 1963.

Brentford are a fine club, and stand on the brink of a new era. Next season, they will be moving to an impressive new stadium on Lionel Road, a structure that I have seen going up on my regular drives past the site. Fans are understandably saddened that they will never again see a game at Griffin Park (despite the stanchions that obscure the goals, and the slightly unappetising meat pies at the canteen) but can see the logic of change. They know that there will be an umbilical link between the old ground and the new, between the past and the future.

And they know too that whatever happens tonight, the club will continue to be a part of their identity, an institution that knits a community of people together.

“It could be a painful night,” Andy said ruefully via WhatsApp on Monday. Yes, Andy, but isn’t that the point?

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Good luck to Brentford, tonight.

This article reports the essence of being a football fan, whatever club we support.

[tim_noone]

If not this season....they will make it next. Their current ground is pretty unique. Regards the pubs shame it's going. Oh......and I love my club.

[Redbeard]

Indeed it is the hope that kills you, but as a football fan you can hardly live without it!