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I Can't Help Falling in Love With

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I Can't Help Falling in Love With I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You Growing up as a Football Addict Greg Whitaker Contents Introduction . 9 ‘This is getting better and better and better!’ . .17 . Handbags at dawn . 20 Fer Ark, Lawrie Dudfield and raining rust. 25. The first cut is the deepest . 31 Change . 38 The Galacticos: A footballing masterclass . 45 Block E5, Seat 151 . .51 . ‘E I E I E I O! Up The Football League We Go!’ . .57 En-gerrrr-land, Wayne Rooney and the Sol Campbell conspiracy . 64 Away days: Pies, bets and Michael Keane . 72. Hullsborough . 78 Stepping up . .88 . The winker, the stamper and the end of the ‘golden generation’ . .96 . Survival. .105 . Daring to dream . 113. Que será, será .... 120. One day like this . 127 Premier League? We’re having a laugh . 139 London 0 Hull 4 . 145. Almost heaven, Barcelona . 156 Modern football is rubbish. .163 . Vuvuzelas and disillusionment . 171. The grass isn’t always greener . 180. Ups, downs and the one German that misses penalties. .190 Why I dislike Kieran Gibbs . .201 . European blues . 217 The gloomiest promotion. .224 . Rock bottom . .231 . The final pilgrimages . .238 . Salvation in a blue waistcoat. .247 . Introduction THERE was a time, not all that long ago in truth, when it was all I could think about. My life could well have been falling apart around me, and relatively speaking, at times, it was, but during those years I probably didn’t notice half the time. Relationships suffered, work would often deteriorate in quality, and my health, perhaps mentally more than physically, took the brunt of it all. Like an addict craving their next hit, waiting for Saturday afternoon to come became a living hell. Football was my drug of choice and Hull City AFC was my preferred strain. Well, this is what I imagine addiction in its simplest form to feel like. Of course, as someone who has never taken an illegal substance in his entire life and is describing a period of his existence that started at the age of seven with his father, perhaps this is where the drug analogy should stop. Despite my tendency to overanalyse every single aspect of my life – a habit which will become more significant as this story unfolds – I have yet to come up with a better comparison. Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch describes football fandom better than anything else I’ve ever read, and a hell of a lot better than I will ever be able to. Hornby quips, for him, the process of falling in love with football was similar to that of falling in love with women: ‘... suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, [and] giving no thought to the pain or disruption it would bring with it’. I agree wholeheartedly. Yet, I have come to associate my relationship with football far more with addiction than with love. Indeed, it’s worth noting that Hornby’s comparison works just as well 9 I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You when imagining it coming from the mouth of a heroin addict desperately trying to justify their habit. Of course, football addiction doesn’t affect everyone. Some ‘fans’ can happily live their lives without checking their chosen football club’s Twitter hashtag every other hour. Some so-called supporters can even go shopping on a Saturday afternoon rather than committing to biweekly pilgrimages to their stadium of choice. With this in mind, football fandom can be plotted on a spectrum. At one end are those heathens who can only list David Beckham when asked to name their favourite footballer. At the other end, bearded, usually anorak-wearing, stereotypes, that can, and often will, name Hull City’s entire 34-man squad that was relegated at the end of the 2009/10 season. Can you guess which side of the spectrum I fall into yet? The topic of football spectatorship, and all the culture surrounding it, is something I have thought about a lot. Indeed, I believe it was during one particularly long 3pm–11pm shift working at an unnamed bank – my first full-time job out of university – that my mind drifted, and I began to form a theory about how supporting a football club fits into modern life. Specifically, I wanted to find an answer for why, after nearly 20 years of being truly fanatical about football myself, apathy was beginning to sink in for me personally. Sitting on the bus home after my shift, here is what I came up with. While people from all walks of life fill my crudely thought- up spectrum of fandom, there are four distinct subgroups in which all football fans fall into: casual football fans, fans who love football, football junkies and the disenchanted ‘former’ fans. Firstly, casual football fans. These are the people who like the beautiful game; however, not enough to go to every home match. This group, admittedly my least favourite collection of people on the planet at one point in my life, will often claim to support the more successful football clubs – Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, and even Manchester City more recently. 10 Introduction As kids they would often justify their claims of support by constantly reminding you that ‘their dad’, who suspiciously had a strong Hull accent and went to the local comprehensive with your mum, ‘is from [insert city with successful football team] and never missed a game as a kid’. Yet, infuriatingly, these people will often be the first you see on Wembley Way, clad head to toe in black and amber, when little old Hull City reach the FA Cup Final. Sickening. Next come the fans that love football. People who pride themselves, not only on their knowledge of the game, but also their loyalty to a chosen team. Football lovers will usually be season ticket holders, and occasional travellers to away games. These fans, of which I classed myself a part of for the vast majority of my Hull City supporting life, tend to be the happiest and most content group of supporters. They read, listen, watch, breathe and live football because it makes them feel part of something to which they truly belong. Football is their chosen form of entertainment, their method of socialising with their friends and their passion. I envy those who remain part of this group. Then there are the football junkies. These are fans who have spent most of their football-supporting lives in the second of these groups but have gradually, without ever truly being able to pinpoint when the change actually happened, transitioned into football addiction. While there are many similarities between those who love football and those who are addicted to it – supporting a chosen team home and away, desperately keeping up to date with transfer rumours and religiously buying every overpriced new home shirt each season – there is one key difference. While fans who love football, as my not-so-subtle title suggests, actively enjoy the sport and everything that comes with it, paradoxically, football junkies tend to resent it. Most of the time they follow football because they feel they should. Like a religious cult brainwashes its members, the global church of latter-day soccer never allows you to leave. Finally come the disenchanted ‘former’ fans. I do hesitate to say ‘former’ fans, as, like I’ve just said, football never really allows 11 I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You you to lose interest completely. Yet, these fans are those who are completely fed up with the modern game. They have often been through the football lover and addiction stages of fandom, and their love has turned into resentment and now, quite tragically, disinterest. Money, television, commercialisation, sanitisation, lack of atmosphere, or all of the above, have ruined football for this group, who never really know if their fanaticism will ever return. Being a Hull City fan, it’s hard not to respect this group – I’ve experienced it first-hand. Seeing a veteran fan you’ve seen every Saturday for the past 20 years being told to ‘earn their stripes’ by their club while, at the same, having their concession ticket prices taken away after 60 years of loyal support, for example, is enough to turn anyone against modern football. However, luckily, I haven’t yet reached this stage. Hopefully I will never become part of this group. As you are reading right now, you may think you still love football. Why else would you choose to read this book? But, just for a second, humour me. Really think. Can you all honestly say you pay the extortionate prices for tickets, away travel and Sky Sports subscriptions, for example, or buy a third choice away shirt each season, because you love football? Love the game in the same way you love your family, or your partner, or going out with your mates, or seeing your favourite band live? If you do, I am eternally envious. That was me once. You see, if I’d have asked myself the same question just, say, five years ago, I would have said absolutely. Outside of my family, football was my greatest love and my passion. Now I can honestly say I have fallen out of love with football. Yet, this hasn’t stopped me being fanatical about the game, and about Hull City specifically. Hi. My name’s Greg and I’m a football addict. They say falling out of love is just as easy as falling head over heels, it’s just that society doesn’t want you to know this when you’re growing up.
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