H18sry
14-05-2012, 09:17 PM
Five full days to go yet already the native Edinburgh football fan is sick to the pit of their stomach with worry. Nerves are shredding like never before. Dizzy on a potent cocktail of fear, excitement and above all, hope.
Fingernails are devoured, pen tops chewed, floors paced. Every few minutes those precious cup final tickets are checked, re-checked and checked once again. Kept close like a child’s comfort blanket, in the safest of places.
Texts are exchanged with friends, and rivals. The office water cooler or work kitchen becomes a no-man’s land where an uneasy truce is punctuated with the mildest of banter. Conversation with taxi drivers kept a football free zone, just in case.
The common sense in all of us reasons that it’s only a game. Especially among the grown adults who don’t have the excuse of childlike innocence and expectation to offer up as an excuse.
But the late, great Bill Shankly was right. It’s much, much more than that. And the city of Edinburgh knows it.
How can it not be? What else but a football club could possibly instill such ridiculous sense of, well, everything.
What else but football compels us to come together in such a way whichever side we belong to, and talk of nothing else? To consume our every waking moment or invade our dreams. What but football can make us so very delirious?
It makes no sense, yet we football fans are helpless to its seductive charms.
You can see it in the desperation of those still hunting for that elusive cup final ticket: their hand written notes stuck up behind the bar, the pleading posts on fans’ forums, the hanging around the ground ‘just in case’.
Their craving induces sympathy. Friends will scour their networks, handshakes will be exchanged, favours called in, hard cash and bottles of whisky traded. And if it comes to it, touts tracked down.
How many supporters lucky enough to be on the lists from the start will have rushed to buy theirs the moment sales centres opened, booked their seats on the coaches and trains, and reveled in the delight of securing their briefs.
And only then started to do the sums of what would have to be sacrificed or borrowed this month to pay for them.
But that doesn’t matter. If the team wins, how could they possibly not be there? For them, it’s not worth thinking.
Pity those partners not interested in football, that army of wives, husbands, boyfriends and girlfriends, who will have had no say whatsoever.
No matter how much they may be adored, they can never compete with their other’s first love.
They can choose to argue or negotiate. More likely they will simply roll their eyes in full knowledge there is nothing, nothing they can say. All they can do is endure this next week and hope for the right result.
Before then crucial decisions to be made. Which scarf? And even then, should it be washed? Does it matter that the polo top has a thread of the other team’s colour in the stitching? Where are the lucky socks Goddamit?
Getting there will truly be a modern day miracle of logistics with trains, planes and automobiles pressed into action across the globe. Planning manouveres the military would be proud of assembling the fans together in time.
The all important bars to meet in, clubs to stop at. Few, if any caring to jinx the whole thing by daring to suggest an after match venue. You don’t do that. No. Especially not for this game of games.
The final score line is all too important. There is no share of the spoils, no splitting the honours 50/50, no draw. It’s all or nothing, winner takes all. Bragging rights not just for a season, but a lifetime.
Some will claim to be super confident. Others less so. None would put their houses on it.
To the football fan in Edinburgh, the result is everything.
Pubs across the city will have doubled their order for drink. It’s an expensive gamble whichever postcode they are in. Some will be drunk dry, of that there will be no doubt. Let’s have a barrel of fun.
That’s Saturday night. The celebrations will roll on into Sunday and the parade, in some cases they will last for days.
Yet elsewhere there will be no talk, the TV and radios will fall silent. Bar staff will be sent home early, chip shops will turn off their fryers and pull down the shutters. Police will sit in their patrol cars, wondering what comes next.
Come morning in one half of the city newspapers won’t be allowed into the house. No morning chitchat. There is simply no putting a brave face to this bitterest of losses. You just have to pretend it never happened.
But how can you in a city the size of a large town where Crabbies is served in every bar and even the buses are maroon and white. It’s not rational. It makes no sense. That’s just the way it is.
It’s cruel. Worse than that, actually. Yet it’s the way it’s always been.
There will be pockets of the city that don’t care a jot. The non football fan, newcomer, rugby supporter. For them this week will range between nuisance and intolerable.
But surely even they can understand?
:thumbsup:
Fingernails are devoured, pen tops chewed, floors paced. Every few minutes those precious cup final tickets are checked, re-checked and checked once again. Kept close like a child’s comfort blanket, in the safest of places.
Texts are exchanged with friends, and rivals. The office water cooler or work kitchen becomes a no-man’s land where an uneasy truce is punctuated with the mildest of banter. Conversation with taxi drivers kept a football free zone, just in case.
The common sense in all of us reasons that it’s only a game. Especially among the grown adults who don’t have the excuse of childlike innocence and expectation to offer up as an excuse.
But the late, great Bill Shankly was right. It’s much, much more than that. And the city of Edinburgh knows it.
How can it not be? What else but a football club could possibly instill such ridiculous sense of, well, everything.
What else but football compels us to come together in such a way whichever side we belong to, and talk of nothing else? To consume our every waking moment or invade our dreams. What but football can make us so very delirious?
It makes no sense, yet we football fans are helpless to its seductive charms.
You can see it in the desperation of those still hunting for that elusive cup final ticket: their hand written notes stuck up behind the bar, the pleading posts on fans’ forums, the hanging around the ground ‘just in case’.
Their craving induces sympathy. Friends will scour their networks, handshakes will be exchanged, favours called in, hard cash and bottles of whisky traded. And if it comes to it, touts tracked down.
How many supporters lucky enough to be on the lists from the start will have rushed to buy theirs the moment sales centres opened, booked their seats on the coaches and trains, and reveled in the delight of securing their briefs.
And only then started to do the sums of what would have to be sacrificed or borrowed this month to pay for them.
But that doesn’t matter. If the team wins, how could they possibly not be there? For them, it’s not worth thinking.
Pity those partners not interested in football, that army of wives, husbands, boyfriends and girlfriends, who will have had no say whatsoever.
No matter how much they may be adored, they can never compete with their other’s first love.
They can choose to argue or negotiate. More likely they will simply roll their eyes in full knowledge there is nothing, nothing they can say. All they can do is endure this next week and hope for the right result.
Before then crucial decisions to be made. Which scarf? And even then, should it be washed? Does it matter that the polo top has a thread of the other team’s colour in the stitching? Where are the lucky socks Goddamit?
Getting there will truly be a modern day miracle of logistics with trains, planes and automobiles pressed into action across the globe. Planning manouveres the military would be proud of assembling the fans together in time.
The all important bars to meet in, clubs to stop at. Few, if any caring to jinx the whole thing by daring to suggest an after match venue. You don’t do that. No. Especially not for this game of games.
The final score line is all too important. There is no share of the spoils, no splitting the honours 50/50, no draw. It’s all or nothing, winner takes all. Bragging rights not just for a season, but a lifetime.
Some will claim to be super confident. Others less so. None would put their houses on it.
To the football fan in Edinburgh, the result is everything.
Pubs across the city will have doubled their order for drink. It’s an expensive gamble whichever postcode they are in. Some will be drunk dry, of that there will be no doubt. Let’s have a barrel of fun.
That’s Saturday night. The celebrations will roll on into Sunday and the parade, in some cases they will last for days.
Yet elsewhere there will be no talk, the TV and radios will fall silent. Bar staff will be sent home early, chip shops will turn off their fryers and pull down the shutters. Police will sit in their patrol cars, wondering what comes next.
Come morning in one half of the city newspapers won’t be allowed into the house. No morning chitchat. There is simply no putting a brave face to this bitterest of losses. You just have to pretend it never happened.
But how can you in a city the size of a large town where Crabbies is served in every bar and even the buses are maroon and white. It’s not rational. It makes no sense. That’s just the way it is.
It’s cruel. Worse than that, actually. Yet it’s the way it’s always been.
There will be pockets of the city that don’t care a jot. The non football fan, newcomer, rugby supporter. For them this week will range between nuisance and intolerable.
But surely even they can understand?
:thumbsup: