An elegy to the winter football fan

If you have ever gone to a football match between November and March, you will know the feeling. Shivering, cold beyond belief, and wondering why you would ever decide to venture out of your warm home on that cold, cold day. It is the atypical experience of a sports fan in the winter months.

At first it seems to be a good idea. It might be a vital game between two teams fighting it out at the top of the table, and one that you feel, as a passionate fan of one of the teams involved, you are almost obliged to go to. You reassure yourself by packing on the layers, a couple of t-shirts, at least two jumpers, and a padded coat all combining to make you look significantly overweight, but at least warm – or so you think. You finally squeeze the kit of the team you support over the coat, causing some of the stitches to burst, but are satisfied in the knowledge that if even hell itself froze over, you would be protected.

This visage of safety and warmth lasts for the duration of the car journey to the ground. When you get out, the wind whips around your top-heavy body, causing you to stumble awkwardly, before steeling yourself for the march ahead, walking determinedly with your head down against the wind and rain, and all the while seriously considering the possibility of turning around and heading back the way you came, to the warmth of home.

This prospect, however, is an impossibility. You have long ago convinced yourself of the fact that you are a ‘true football fan’. The image of the topless Newcastle fan with snow swirling around his flabby chest springs into your mind, and, using this bald-headed Geordie as your inspiration, you jog the last few metres into the warm confines of the stadium. This respite is short-lived. The game starts in only a short period of time, and you only have a few minutes to buy yourself some food – most likely a hot dog or a pie – before you once again head out into the great outdoors.

The prospect of the match ahead, which line-ups the manager has chosen, and which tactics he may deploy have by this point already long departed your frost-bitten brain, which is now single-mindedly and almost animalistically focused upon the 90 minutes of self-imposed torture that lie before you. By this point your food is the only salvation. Less a piece of sustenance than a portable hot water bottle, and your only source of any warmth, you clutch it to your body as you make your slow progression to your seat, which you place your body down on, steeling yourself for the agony which is to lie ahead.

You entertain yourself by holding your quickly cooling hot dog against various parts of your body

The game is, of course, a non-event. The players seem to be doing all they can to add to the cold atmosphere with dull, laborious football, and you entertain yourself by holding your quickly cooling hot dog against various parts of your body, in the hope that it will somehow dull the cold which is seeping into your very core. By this point, your legs are knocking against each other and shivering uncontrollably, and, although you know that standing up and singing in support of the team might help in this respect, the very prospect of such effort leads you only to sink further into your freezing plastic seat.

The first half minutes painfully tick by, as, slowly and torturously, do the second, with no excitement to lift you out of the stupor into which you have fallen. Your fellow supporters provide no support in this respect; they are all in the same state as you. White as sheets, their eyes resting with a deathly stare more on the stadium clock than the actual pitch, waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel which never seems to be getting any closer.

When this light actually arrives, there is no celebration. The game was dull, with little to comment on, and everyone robotically climbs out of their seats, with some seemingly surprised to find that their limbs still work, and head for the exits. When you get into the car, and eventually are home, back in the warmth of your living room, you wonder why you ever went. You gained nothing, and now your entire body feels stiff as it steadily thaws out, but, at the back of your mind, there is the firm knowledge that, for no reason whatsoever, you will most likely be doing the same thing in a fortnight. All, or so you tell yourself, for the love of the game.