Wednesday 9 May 2018

My Really Favourite Thing!

Spiritual home?

I’m a bit hooked on Instagram - I don’t really know why, but I am. For the past week I have been taking part in Allison Sadler’s #freeupmyinsta challenge. The idea is you can post whatever you like in response to the prompt without overthinking it, and worrying about how perfect your post is. Anyway, today’s prompt was “Favourite Thing”. I scrolled through my photos, wondering what to post - family times, memories, my garden…so many things. Then I found some photos of Yorkshire Sculpture Park and thought ‘art, that’s my favourite thing’ and posted an arty picture with a suitable arty comment. 

I do really love art...

My Instagram family were sure to be impressed…
Then I remembered the point of the challenge - don’t overthink, don’t say what you think others want to read, be honest. Now I honestly do love art, but my very very very favourite thing is football. Cue loud groans from the majority of my ‘instafam’.

I love it!

I have loved football since my early teens and I’m not even sure how it started. I do know that, at some point when I was about fourteen, my uncle started to take me to matches. He didn’t stay with me - he left me at the turnstile and went to sit in his seat in the South Stand, while I stood, on my own in a corner of the ground. It’d never happen now - for a start you don’t stand! But it formed the beginning of a life long love affair with my local team Norwich City - the Canaries.

It really is a love affair

If you know anything about football, it is clear that I am no glory hunter - City’s trophy cabinet is remarkably compact - but I have never seen how anyone can claim to ‘support’ a team like Manchester United or Chelsea when they never see them play. I went to college in Liverpool, and in my final year I lived on Anfield Road, a stone’s throw from Liverpool’s ground. I saw some amazing matches. That year Liverpool won the league and the European Cup, and I dressed in red and white and cheered at the victory parade. But my favourite match in my whole time in the city was in November 1975, when I saw my team beat the mighty Liverpool on their home ground, 3-1. As I was sitting in a home stand, I had been warned not to cheer but, when Ted MacDougall scored that third goal I risked the wrath of some fifty thousand scousers and jumped up and down (a little bit)
My football adventure went awol for a while when I met my first husband. He didn’t like football so, true to the person I was then, I stopped going. When, some eighteen years later, we split up, I started going to watch my team again, this time with my daughter. My son, like his father, was not remotely interested, although he was always pleased with the happier household when we won!

Glory days!

In the years that have passed since then we have watched our team in the Championship, in the Premier League and, in dark, dark days, League One. My daughter now lives ‘oop North’ so my second, more enlightened husband comes with me, although Beth’s name is still on the season ticket - it would be unlucky to change it! 

More enlightened, but silly hats!

To help my team I have many superstitions that must craze the people that sit near me. I always say ‘We never score from corners’ whenever Norwich get a corner, I always sit in seat 168, even though strictly speaking that is not my seat. But if I sat in 169 and we lost, I simply would not be able to bear it! I even have a ‘lucky loo’, although this season its powers have mysteriously waned!
It is difficult to quantify what it is I love so much. I suppose, in a time when ‘community’ is less apparent, supporting a team feels tribal - approaching the ground in team colours with the common desire of watching our team win. Chanting with twenty six thousand other people, singing our anthem ‘On the Ball City’ is simply one of the best feelings in the world. For ninety minutes I get to shout, clap, cheer and, occasionally, swear and be one of a crowd most of whom want the same thing. It is such a joyous release.

Joyous!

Many seasons have come and gone since I was fourteen. Some have ended in the most marvellous way, with promotion and a victory parade, some with the disappointment of relegation, some with the whimper of mid-table anonymity. 

No other team is an option!

But while I am sometimes glad to see the back of a season when we have not performed particularly well, it’s not long before I start pouring over the transfer rumour sites and start looking forward to the next campaign.

Supporting Norwich City is not always easy, but, for me, other teams are simply not an option!

No comments:

Post a Comment