Why I stopped Being a Football Fan

Some years ago, while leaving for the place where I usually read at night, I met an airtime vendor in front of my Hall. He wore a black singlet with green stripes around its sleeveless edges, and the way the singlet molded his body, his chest muscles pushed out and the packs on his stomach traced noticeable outlines on the singlet. He was of the kind of height which is considered average, and because together with this he was stout, he was no doubt ladies’ favourite. That night, he wore three-quarter jeans which went slightly pass his knees. He sweated on his forehead because he had affected an obvious agitation in attending to his customers.

I had just passed the busy common room, filled to the brim. Students hung against the windows of the common room with broken glass-panes. The noise from the common room was threatening: it poured out, past the bar and bursary, unto the veranda of the frontage. But it was the magnitude of heat emanating from that common room that scared me, and while I was wondering whether it was worth the stress for those dedicated football fans to mill themselves in a heated room with poor ventilation just because a match was being aired, I met this airtime vendor of a man.

After he had sold airtime for me, he asked if I was coming from the direction of the common room. When I nodded my head in the affirmative, he asked what the match’s score was. Other time, I would have answered a simple ‘I don’t know’ to this question, or just keep quiet and watch the agitated soul run back to the common room to get the score for himself. But this night, for a reason I didn’t know, I told him I didn’t like watching football, and then added solemnly that I was not a pious football fan, when he gazed at me for a long time as if he were pitying the young man I had become. He spoke at last; his accent flared with disappointment: ‘In this age, what sort of a young man doesn’t like watching football?’ This statement struck me; it made it seem like not being an ardent football fan was a crime of the same magnitude as felony or murder. So that night, while walking slowly to my destination, I pondered when football and I parted ways; when I stopped being a football fan.

In the years that preceded this very one, I had begun to nurture a keen likeness for football. In 2008, when Chelsea and Manchester United played the UEFA Champions League final, I was in Class Four in Secondary. In the morning of the day the match was played, after the assembly tradition, there was an exhilarating argument in my class over who would win the big one that year. Because the most powerful in class supported Chelsea, the whole class seemed to pitch their abode with the club as if that would sign off their wining. Because I hated to go with the crowd, I openly declared my support for Manchester United. Before now, I wasn’t emotionally tied to any club, although I had begun to watch football many years before then. When I came to join my brother in Secondary, some nights, we followed the Corpers in the lodge we lived in to Viewing Centre and paid to watch matches, yet I wasn’t a fan of any club. But my brother had become a Manchester United fan, and it may have partly influenced my decision that morning in Class Four.

In the night the match was played, the lodge we lived in was empty: corpers, our teachers and co-students moved out of the lodge to Viewing Centres. We watched the match in a guest house in the beginning of our street. Where we watched the game was a large round shade built of thatched roof at the middle of the guest house. With iron poles as supporting pillars and a cemented floor, the sides of the hut were left open, guided only by iron balustrades. The TV was placed in one corner of the hut-house, while the crowd surrounded it like a half-moon. The crowd was not as large as the one in the common room I would experience years later and there was no heat emanating from the venue because of the perfect ventilation. It was a venue in which ardent fans bought large Manchester United and Chelsea posters, and spread them side by side on the floor between the TV and the fans.

Manchester United won that match via penalty kick-out and also won my heart. I started becoming a religious fan: I could go to watch their matches for money or simply ask those who have the media to get football news what scores were and who was topping the league. Little by little, I discovered I had become emotionally drawn: when Manchester United won a match, I felt uplifted, when they lost, I would feel a sharp pang on my chest and become moody for a long time. It began to affect me psychologically, and like a bad relationship, it was difficult to cut the chains off.

I think I finally broke the link between football and I the last UEFA Champions League Final Manchester United played with Barcelona, in which they lost to the Spanish giant two goals to nil. I had left my comfort zone to watch that match that night, having high hope my erstwhile club would win. I felt heartbroken when they lost; it affected me for many days and I became scared the disappointment would never wash off. Then later, when I finally escaped the spell, I decided to retrace my steps and stopped being a football fan before it would ruin me. I realized that no matter how wonderful a football club maybe, it must suffer defeat. And since the defeat affected me negatively, I decided to leave the football-sphere.

I seldom watch match now, but the ties with Manchester United has not been completely severed. I still feel excited when I hear that they are doing well. But that bitterness which covered me in those days when they lost has completely gone.