Fans Just Wanna Have Fun
‘Out of all the unimportant things, football is the most important’
Pope John Paul II / Arrigo Sacchi
There is some dispute about who said the above line. It’s even attributed to Carlo Ancelotti by some people. Maybe the reason is that a lot of people have said it. Because it’s certainly true.
For all the hours we obsess about the game; the endless coverage, the growing column inches, websites, podcasts and TV programmes, it is still a game. Where twenty-two men or women run around a field kicking a ball.
And despite it seemingly being played purely on financial grounds these days (and probably has been since the start of the twentieth century) it is actually a form of entertainment. A game that people pay money to watch, in the way they might have done to go to the circus, or attend a play, before football was invented. That’s partly what makes it professional. Paying spectators is what separates the game from one being played on a park just for the fun of it.
Fans are giving some of their hard-earned cash to the club in order to be entertained by them.
I think. Revered author and football historian, Jonathan Wilson, says the focus in football should mainly be in the pursuit of winning and that’s a fair point. Why have league tables otherwise? But what about fans?
Do they want to be entertained or just that their team to win?
It’s very difficult to say. If pushed, I’d have said the latter. But last week, watching as Scotland qualified for the World Cup, I began to wonder if that’s actually true.
I also realised that it’s impossible to write an article about the fans’ perspective without mentioning the dreaded VAR (the single biggest issue that’s ruined the fan’s enjoyment of the game in my opinion). But I’m going to try.
Jonathan Wilson also wrote the foreword to Daisy Christodoulou’s book, I Can’t Stop Thinking About VAR, and having listened to her on the It Was What It Was podcast – which I’ve binge-listened to for two weeks now – with him and Rob Draper, I’m happy to say that Daisy’s views exactly match mine, so I’ll just urge people to read it, or at least listen to the podcast, and say no more.
Checked and cleared. The words that make me swear at the telly at least half a dozen times every Saturday evening.
Pointless refereeing interventions aside, I realised as I watched Scotland and Denmark fight it out for the automatic qualifying spot in their group that what it meant to be a fan was etched in the scenes during and after that game. The videos that did the rounds as adults were reduced to lip-quivering wrecks or blarting their eyes out.
Before FIFA made Scotland’s fan groups take them down, then apologise for doing so, they showed people enjoying themselves. Having fun. Even the Danish fans to a point. As I’d also witnessed - 48 hours earlier - how Ireland captured a World Cup play-off spot in a similarly dramatic way. It showed that football can occasionally deliver some incredible moments that make all the dashed hope and heartbreak somehow seem worthwhile.
Rare Events
It also reminded me of how seldom England have had moments like that. The Ollie Watkins last-gasp winner in the Euro 2024 semi-final should have been relished more because it doesn’t happen very often.
Of course, fans of Denmark - and Hungary - might disagree. But that’s how it works. You win some, you lose some. The ones you lose are the ones that make the wins so much bigger and better. When Kieran Tierney, and then Kenny McLean, scored incredible – but not the best – goal of the night in added time at Hampden Park, their fans let loose. The hurt of missing out on World Cups since 1998 was finally released.
Yes, it was a painful, of not yet mortal, blow to Denmark. But they know what it’s like to ride the highs and lows. They had Euro 92 remember, which they won without even qualifying for the final tournament. Ask any of their roligans if they’d trade that experience.
And yet I’m not sure if clubs realise that. At the end of last season, my own club lost a huge lead at the top of their league and, ultimately, lost the play-off final at Wembley. I went to the play-off semi-finals, and both had been won well. The away leg was an unforgettable day in the warm sunshine with continuous singing and that perfect away day feeling. The home tie was more precarious, but two late goals saw us home, the winner in added-time was wonderful and one I watched countless times on replays.
After the low of Wembley, someone said they just wished we’d gone up automatically, and I expected to agree but couldn’t. I’d have never had that perfect away day, or the winning goal in the second leg and that magical feeling of knowing you’re on your way to Wembley (we’ve been twice in our history). And I wouldn’t have traded them; I realised that the Wembley defeat was part of my bargain with the footballing Gods. You can’t have it all.
But what if you do?
This week, Liverpool suffered a third successive three-goal defeat when PSV stunned them at Anfield. The team that won the Premier League at a canter was being humbled on the domestic and European front. But their dans had loved last season, when Arne Slot gave them a season to remember. It also showed me that winning can bring out the worst in fans.
To hear some – definitely not all – of their fans calling for the manager’s head, for quickly landing on the ‘how dare he not win every game’ angle and forgetting 2024/25 as if it pre-dated World War II, reminded me of how spiteful fans can be, and how short their memories are.
We Can See You Sneaking Out
Fans who only know winning can be awful. Jeering when their team concede a corner, booing if it’s level at half-time and leaving early because it’s not all going their way (some Scotland fans left at 2-2 apparently – what is that about?). When their team becomes too used to success, they lose any sense of grace and of humility. And it takes a long time to find it again, usually long after the memories of the success has left them.
I hope, for my sake and that of millions of regular fans, that football doesn’t forget that making fans happy – and occasionally unhappy – should be its primary aim.
As England qualified for another World Cup, this time with a perfect record and no goals conceded, it struck me just how bloody boring that is. We last lost a qualifier in 2009. No dramatic David Beckham last minute free-kicks, no blood-stained shirts as we hang on for draws in Italy and Poland, no genuine jeopardy for a long, long time. That can quickly become replaced by a sense of entitlement; one that means that failure of any kind is over-blown and catastrophised.
Scottish and Irish fans (and maybe some Italians) might say they should be so lucky. I’m not 100% sure they would though; not if it meant forsaking the incredible moments they experienced last week they wouldn’t.
And when you do get there, just have fun. That’s the whole point of going, isn’t it?
Jonathan Wilson also said it was better to win one World Cup and crash out of the next, than to lose in the quarter-final of both. I’d wholeheartedly agree with him on that. Put another way, from a fan perspective, enjoy it while you can. You might win some, you’ll almost certainly lose some, but at least you can say I was there when we did.
And that’s all that matters.
We began with a quote, so we can end with a quote too. One we’d do well to remember. It’s from another author, Terry Pratchett.
‘The thing about football – the important thing about football – is that it is not just about football.’
