On Being a Fan...

Here is an article you may also read in today's matchday programme v. Hereford.
On Being a Fan...Football fans are funny creatures. It takes a certain slightly-odd mindset to be one.
I’m not talking about the people that turn up to the pub on a Sunday afternoon in ‘their’ Premiership team’s current replica shirt, have some mild banter with like-minded people in other team’s shirts as they watch their teams battle it out for Premiership seniority on Sky.
No, I don’t mean these kind of people. It’s very easy to be this kind of person. All it takes after all is a trip to JJB Sports, £50 for the shirt and perhaps a lobotomy. These Shirt-wearing, TV-watching, “I’ve never been north of Birmingham but my heart is at Old Trafford” types are not football fans in my eyes. The terminology I use for them is ‘watchers’ of the game.

A real football fan – or supporter, or follower or whatever you wish to call yourself – is someone who has a team they love, normally for a reason other than “they are quite good” or “I like the way they play”, and as often as they are able to they actually go and watch them play. You know, pay money and walk through one of those turnstile thingummies and actually sit in the ground. Someone like you and me (assuming you are reading this at the game and haven’t picked up this programme in a jumble sale in a few years time that is. If you have, you have probably got yourself a real bargain – nice one).
Now, what makes us do this, I don’t know. For all the distaste I sometimes feel for the glory-hunters, you have to admit that to an outsider, it makes a lot more sense to be sat at home watching it on your sofa, or in a nice warm pub with a frothing lager in your hand, and to be supporting a team that wins the trophies every season.

So what is it that makes thousands of people still stream through the turnstiles every week here to watch Fourth-tier football? Surely the easiest solution to frequently being guffawed at by the ignorant Premiership fans in the pub is to get down to JJB, get that replica shirt and join them in their title-winning revelries.

What an easy retort it would be to the Man Utd fan boasting about how great their team are to say “Well actually, I have just decided I support Spain, who are better than Man Utd and current World Champions. I have based this decision on nothing more than that they are really good, and retain the right to change my mind if they start being rubbish again and support someone else. So ner ner nah ner ner!”

But we don’t do that, do we? Instead most of us come back week after week, regardless of how good or bad Oxford results have been, regardless of who Oxford are playing, regardless even of what division or standard of football Oxford are playing in.

That kind of loyalty is of course a wonderful thing – but it is you must admit, also an odd thing. At times it’s also a loyalty that keeps you going to watch them when you’ve not even enjoying the experience.
Although in recent years we have certainly been right-royally entertained by our current crop of stars, I don’t need to tell anyone who has been coming for years that the majority of the last decade has been less than value-for-money entertainment.
I lost count of how many Saturday mornings I spent less in anticipation of an exciting afternoon of football, but more in grudging acceptance that I simply had to go up and watch them play crap football out of ‘duty’. Many a day I left a nice warm bed and passed up the chance to do something else that afternoon that might not have put me in a foul mood or left me shivering on a cold terrace and contracting food poisoning from a manky burger.

FMO: “Oh god, is it Saturday morning already? Christ I’ve got to go up the Manor and watch David Kemp try to assemble something resembling a football team again.”
Girlfriend: “Why do you do it if you don’t enjoy it? Why don’t you just stay here? I’ll make you breakfast in bed, then we can go to the cinema, have a nice meal, a few drinks, it’ll be lovely.”
FMO: “Nah. I’ve got to go. I’d feel like I should be somewhere else all day if I don’t.”
Girlfriend: “Please yourself. But if you go I won’t be here when you get back.”
FMO: “Sorry I didn’t catch that – I’m gonna miss my train. Talk later. Yellows!”
Ex-Girlfriend: “What a mental.”

That’s the mentality of the real football fan and as I say, it is slightly odd and those that don’t subscribe to our strange passion often wonder why we do it.

Well, we all know why, don’t we? The feeling of belonging to something, being a part of a group, is of course a very strong bond. The camaraderie between others around you that you see every week but wouldn’t probably have even considered socialising with were it not for your mutual love of Oxford. The shared experience of the many, many, (way too many) disappointments makes the elation felt and shared in the highs all the more enjoyable. A passing fan could not enjoy the promotion party at Wembley as much as we did because they never felt the lows of all the Tonbridge Angels and Droylsdens.
Quite simply – the glory-hunters would never understand nor be able to appreciate the joy of supporting a team like Oxford on anything like as many levels as we can as regulars through the turnstiles.

That’s right – this is deep intellectual stuff right here. Feel good about it.
And up those U’s!