The Delayed Pleasure of Saturday’s Football

The excitement of football is one of the many things that lures me in to its clutches and keeps me coming back to it every weekend, for better or worse.

Without the benefit of a ticket to the match or plushness of a full satellite TV sports package, I rely heavily on the BBC’s coverage, with most of my attention focused on Saturday nights Match of the Day.

Whilst the program is excellent and has me transfixed to the goggle box for the duration, its late screening means that I’m often forced by curiosity to watch the scores come in on the vide-printer come 4:45 and this somewhat takes the excitement and anticipation out of my nights viewing.

However this week, being the free spirited rebel that I am (I had chocolate for breakfast this morning) I have taken the bold step of ignoring the weekends results in favour of reintroducing the match day excitement of seeing a game live, but six hours after the final whistle has blown.

The news of this though has produced some mixed reactions amongst my friends, most of who are confused as to how I can avoid the temptation of sneaking a cheeky look at the results. The draw for them is clearly too strong to resist, like schoolboys being told there is naked model behind a set of curtains, but are told not to look.

Accused of being a part-time fan and not caring about the club, I have been ridiculed; tossed aside and I find myself on the periphery of my mates football banter. Now I know how John Wagstaff must have felt when he wet himself in first year primary school.

I don’t see this though as a dilution of my faith. I still believe, although I must admit Villa’s exit from the little boys European League has left a sour taste in my mouth.

This though comes with the territory and if anything fires me up in anticipation for the next game it is hoping that the players will have been giving a hiding after their cup disaster and will give the game of their lives the following Saturday.

When this does happen I don’t want to hear snippets of information on the radio or read a brief description of the game online, I want to get as close as possible to living the moment as if it was live.

If that means delaying the action by a few hours and avoiding all news items from the day with the help of BBC2 then so be it. I want to be able to draw my own conclusions from the game or what highlights of it are shown and then hopefully have them confirmed by Alan Hansen in the post-match analysis.

Of course I can understand people’s curiosity and desire to know exactly what is occurring in the world of football in real time, but does that make them more of a fan than me? Does that mean that mean they have a greater passion for the game than I do?

I can proudly say that I’m still a great lover of the game who’s desire has in no way diminished, but I’m a fan with patience, but also a self inflicted dark side who is willing to prolong the inevitable defeat that surely awaits my team on MOTD.

Like collectors of model trains, there are surprisingly other people out there in every day society who have the same patient desire as I do, unfortunately for me though those other people are Ant and Dec.

Posted By Dan Mobbs - Sunday August 30, 2009.
Tags: Match of the Day, Premier League