Most of my writing is for the reader. I hope they learn something, chase links I don’t have time to pursue, or use my ideas as a whetstone to sharpen theirs. There are some instances, though, when I’m not writing for the reader, I’m writing as a way to clear my mind—a therapy session in black and white. Throughout this project I’ll make it apparent when that is happening.
This is one of those times.
I don’t like my football club.
The attachment doesn’t create happiness. From the smallest to the most significant things I find myself irritated, yet my feet are bound by sentimentality. Some would suggest: “Daniel, I know why! Your club is ninth in the Premier League and aren’t playing well. It’s no longer what it was. Hang on and you will come back around.”
I would thank them for their concern, but my problem is more profound.
I haven’t missed a UEFA Champions League final since 2004. It’s the biggest match my football club can play, and they’ve played three finals. In 2008, my football club was at its peak. The list of players demanded a victory, but they played another club who were at their peak and lost a rainy shoot-out. My favourite player saw red for slapping someone in the face. He wasn’t there to take his penalty. Instead of winning the final, the captain of my football club slipped and hit the post. I was 17, but cried like a toddler. When my eyes ran dry, I strangely felt hope: Football isn’t finished; there was next season. The 2009 Champions League semi-final (second leg) is the most furious I’ve been watching television. It was emotional. From an outrageous opening goal to a devastating equaliser, and all the decisions missed or ignored throughout, steam exploded from my ears. Making matters worse, the 2009 final would’ve been a rematch of the 2008 final. My head was hot. It will get hot on this couch if I think about it long enough.
Years passed, the team got older, and the once-certain Champions League seemed distant. Then, by some miracle, 2012. A quick narration of that campaign is impossible, but suffice it to say, the happiest I’ve been (maybe ever, but definitely) inside a footballing context was May 19th, 2012. My favourite player was available for all 120 minutes and penalties. He scored the equaliser, and converted the winning spot kick. I honestly can’t tell you what I did so intense was the joy. I found myself outside without a shirt, which my self-conscious mind would never allow unless its faculties were somehow broken. They were.
I give these anecdotes to explain I know what sadness feels like, I know what anger feels like, I know what joy feels like. My football club has ran me through an emotional gamut. When the 2021 Champions League final arrived, it didn’t feel the same. Something had changed. My football club played against a favoured team; the chance to revel in being an underdog was there, but I didn’t have it. My football club scored 1-0. I didn’t celebrate. They won the final. I felt like a neutral. If this were coming from a place of “your team is ninth, just hold on,” the Champions League wouldn’t have felt the way it did. The best way to describe it is detached, but in the worst way. The happy things don’t make me happy, but mistakes and poor decisions at board level still have the capacity to upset. It’s an uneven relationship. You’d think if you feel the annoyance, you’d feel the joy, but that isn’t what’s happening.
From what I can gather, the first piece is age. I was a 21-year-old university student in 2012. I didn’t have a working life, and the players felt like superheroes. I was 30 in 2021, and had somehow made football writing and podcasting part of my life, which meant regularly engaging with football fans (of my football club in particular). Also, the constitution of the team had changed. I no longer saw superheroes the way I did as a teenager into my early 20s. I saw players younger than me. Hero worship doesn’t quite work the same when the players are younger than you.
The second piece is ideology. During those ten years I’ve become more politically conscious. My views on race, racial identity, capitalism, socialism, and pan-Africanism were set on a certain course from birth in many ways, but they’ve crystallised around specific principles since 2012. Those principles and my football club stand in direct opposition. Contradictions are part of life, but some are more difficult to square than others. How can someone who claims to want the best for all African people be wed to a football culture steeped in racism? When the Parisian train incident happened in 2015, I was writing for Bleacher Report as a columnist. Many of the comments I saw as part of my job were jarring. Fans claimed the club didn’t have an issue with racism, and those who didn’t allow that brother on the train weren’t “real fans” (despite them using the club’s name to reject him entry). It gave me a dilemma, and I decided to take a step back. I asked my editor if I could stop writing about my football club exclusively, and focus on football more broadly. To his credit, he agreed. I’ve since seen myself more as a football fan or thinker, rather than an ardent supporter of my football club. If asked who I support, I give the answer, but it comes with so many conditions by the end it doesn’t feel like support, it feels like jail.
I still love football. Whether international competitions, big clashes in the top leagues, or European nights under the floodlights, making and consuming football content bring me happiness, but my football club isn’t part of that enjoyment so much. When a French prodigy scored his second goal in the 2022 World Cup final, the scream I released was proof something in me is a fan, but the emotion doesn’t register for my football club. They’ve become an anthropological and sociological study to me. It is the club I watch most and the club I know best. I use them to formulate broader concepts about tactics, fan culture, and how money is being spent or allocated. Tracking the progression of football is easier when you know one club well. That expertise is useful, so I haven’t abandoned the post, but there are not moments (and haven’t been for some time) where I’m jumping for joy when watching them.
I suppose all relationships go through phases and stages. The inherent problem with picking a football club is in most cases you’re choosing at an age you shouldn’t trust anyone to make a lifelong decision. Eleven-year-old me had no right, with the information at hand, to choose the club he chose. He didn’t understand the commitment he was making. There is nothing on earth you would let an 11-year-old choose for you as a permanent decision. Twenty-one years later, I’m writing to myself about that choice, and despite some undoubtedly exciting times supporting the club has offered, the journey feels anticlimactic.
I thought it plausible in 2015, but it isn’t possible to completely divorce yourself from a football club. Even if the emotions are negative, they are real nonetheless. I suppose modern football fans who change clubs every two seasons or who follow their favourite player are capable of detaching fully because the passion transfers. No energy is wasted. My values are from an older school. I can’t pick a new team (I don’t think I’d want to), you sink or swim with the team you selected at the beginning. As it happens, I’m sinking. My only sense of peace is that I’m choosing to sink. Rather than happening without my permission, this is my own doing. Others who fall out of love or like with their football club might not have that rationalisation. 🎯