I’ve had an up and down relationship with football. I was never really any good at it, and what made it worse was my uncles, particularly the youngest one, were pretty decent. Also, precocious little nob that I was, didn’t see the point of using feet for something your hands could do much easier. I really didn’t get it.
By the time I’d hit senior school, a couple of things had changed. First, I actually started to play a bit. Most people know the drill. Something like 20 a side, no real formations, with people like me running around like pack animals. I’d also been to my first Saints game and watched my first World Cup finals. I saw the point then.
1990 was another huge year for me, the first time that football had ever affected my life for weeks on end. The World Cup Finals where we nearly did it, or at least the best go we’d had since '66. There was nothing else in my head while we were still in. Utter despair when we were knocked out in the semis.
1994 was another big year. The move to Liverpool really made me realise how much I supported Saints. It’s almost impossible to get by in that city without a knowledge of football. If you’re not into it, you’re weird.
One of my favourite ever moments was in 1996, watching the Euro game against the Dutch with my brothers. We weren’t really expected to progress, let alone tonk them like we did, and of course, surprisingly good results are one of the sheer joys of the game. That’s not my favourite thing about football though.
I like the way it brings people together. But pap! What about Southampton and Pompey? Liverpool and the Mancs? Don’t care. You stick those people in a bar together as strangers and football is going to be high on the list of icebreakers, even if it’s just a platform for piss-taking. That’s at the macro level and all. Widen the scope to the rest of the world, and what you’re really looking is something like a polythestic set of beliefs involving a pantheon of Gods.
Congregations flock to stadiums every weekend. Each team is the god of whatever people support it. Happily, there’s no requirement to destroy all other gods. Just give them a good drubbing in the derby. The game feels eternal, despite its relatively young age. Southampton feel like they’ve existed forever for me, and it is my expectation that barring a huge meteor or something. they (and everyone else) will exist forever. Devotees sing, and say irrational things that cannot possibly be true, except for in their own heads.
Do Southampton fans think we’re genuinely the greatest team the world has ever seen? Probably. That’s religion for you. Irrational belief trumping hard facts.
My favourite thing about football is its the one religion I reckon everybody could get on board with. Even intiniki, the atheist bitch!