Football: One Fan's Perspective

I love football. Such an admission is not so strange at this time of year nor given that it is the world's most popular ball game. What's strange is that it combines the two things I care least about - organized sport and mass entertainment. The Ashes, the Olympics, Wimbldon and Tri-Nations pass me by without even a token hoot of support. Yet, football's many competitions convert me into a statistic quoting boor.

The love started early. As kids we would play matches in the small reserve at the bottom of our street. Boys and girls, small sides, makeshift goals. A familiar scene. The gender mix was not our precocious political progressiveness. We all wanted to get on with one of the girls on our street. Kiss-chasey soon became a more effective way of doing this. Surprisingly, football retained its appeal for at least one nonathletic <!-- @page { size: 21cm 29.7cm; margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } -->kid.

I even took a punch in the stomach for the game in what was the one and only arguments I ever had about sport. Teh kid who lived across from me said soccer was for faggots. I was eight and didn't know what a faggot was but I knew there was no way he could speak about my beloved game that way. For the first time in my childhood, I stood up for myself and argued back. His taunts and my challenges went to and fro as we walked home. Once we reached the alley leading to our street, his hatred of the game couldn't be restrained. He popped me in the guts. One punch and I slid down the corrugated fencing, no doubt proving his point about the questionable manliness of soccer players and their fans.

My skill in soccer was not matched by this loyalty. The round ball didn't transform me into someone elegant and graceful, who could make the ball do whatever he wanted. I could barely dribble, my shots were usually off and I was lucky if I could keep up with an opponent, let alone tackel a ball from them. Soccer was as much a proof of my inherent lack of athleticism as any other sport, yet I was willing to take a blow when usually meekly enduring worse, more personal insults.

Being half Italian is often given as a reason for my affection. "Of course you like the sport. It's in your blood," people say. But my mother who was born in Italy is much more passionate about Aussie Rules. The one relative who was a big soccer fan was my paternal grandfather, who was from Singapore, and who died while I was too young for him to pass on the torch. No, roots aren't an explanation if they are an explanation of anything.

The continuing appeal oddly enough is that for all over soccer's global popularity, it was - until very recently - an outsider sport in Australia. Liking football placed you on the margins and this was a place I gravitated toward. You had to satisfy your interest at odd hours and by watching the special broadcasting service SBS. You were part of a small clique, well versed in strange lore. This alone was part of the game's charm. Even better was that fact that vulgar Australian nationalism didn't get in the way. You could talk about the game with a certain remove. Players and matches were admired for their own merits. In the antipodes soccer had a civility and earnestness far from the hooliganism in Europe.

All this is different now that I live in a footballing nation. Even though the Czechs didn't qualify, people are still following martches. Opinions are still shared over the dinner table. It's different also because for the second World Cup in a row I have had a national team to support. Some of that old remove has gone. My father-in-law had to remind me during the Australia / Serbia match that it was only a game.  Perhaps football like any constant love has fill various needs in my life. As a clumsy awkward kid, it teamed me with other kids who struggled at sport. As a surly adolescent, it gave me a nother way to be on the outside of a nation drowning in sport. Now on the cusp of middle-age it is that little bit of escapism - chance to enjoy skills and talent I never had.