Fantasy Football

Today I became the proud part-owner and manager of a football club. A real football club. - Ebbsfleet United of the Blue Square Premier division. Naturally I'm over the moon with my new purchase. I'm gonna give 110% and hope that the boys can show the same levels of energy and commitment out on the pitch. Obviously, all they can do is take it one game at a time but as long as they can concentrate for 90 minutes, week-in week-out, then I won't be feeling as sick as a parrot. Etc etc etc etc........................

It's all true though, and it all happened through this website. 20000 of us have paid £35 each to have not just a share of the club but also a say in playing personnel and transfers. Quite how this will work, or even if it will work at all, I have no idea. It will be fun though. There are plenty of sceptics in the media and particularly among those who spend their days posting on football message boards. They think I'm being conned or that it will end in disaster and I understand this but I think they're missing the point which is that we don't know how these things will unravel until someone takes the plunge and finds out. It's only going to cost me £35 a year anyway which is comfortably less than it costs to buy a football shirt that's been produced for a fraction of the price. Who's the mug?

My motives for doing this stem from a dissatisfaction with the club I support, Fulham. I wasn't born a Fulham fan (but dad tried to get me to support Spurs or Brentford. It just didn't take. I don't know why), instead I chose them. I realised that supporting Liverpool whilst residing in London was wrong and, besides, Kenny Dalglish, the entire reason I started supporting Liverpool, retired in about 1985. So I needed a new team and my mate Steve's enthusiasm led me to Fulham. Who knows, if my dad had shown the same enthusiasm I could be a miserable Spurs fan like him.

I first realised I was a Fulham fan at some point in the mid 90s when I found myself showing enthusiasm for attending a home match against Cardiff City in the middle of winter when we hadn't won in about 14 matches and were second from bottom of the entire football league. We were shit. I mean really shit. But, for some reason, I found myself drawn to this hopeless band of cloggers. It rained hard that night on me and about 2000 other fans but Fulham won handsomely and that was it, I was hooked. There was something about the team's crapness that I found alluring. I think it may have been to do with the (wildly mistaken) belief that I could probably do as well as those on the pitch. They were like you and me. They made mistakes. Frequently. I liked the crapness and I liked the picturesque stadium by the Thames and I liked the fact that I could stand where I wanted and knew all the faces on my terrace.

Things have changed since then. We have a sugar-daddy who has paid for our route to the Premiership and one result of this is that I longer go to matches. It doesn't feel like the same club I started supporting. I love the fact that we're on TV all the time but that is also why I'm less interested. It used to feel like my little team and now I have to share it with millions of armchair fans, and newspaper and TV pundits. There are other factors, such as the vastly increased prices and having to sit where I would once stand but it all boils down to one thing: I no longer feel any great connection with the club. It's not as much fun any more.

I was thrilled, then, when this morning when I received an email saying that mine and everyone else's £35 had been invested in Ebbsfleet United. I'd never even heard of the club but spent a while on its website learning about the players and history and I'm now looking forward to attending matches. I haven't really looked forward to attending a match in years. There'll be loads of other people like me there, new supporters excited about doing something new and interesting which I hope will engender a real community spirit and that's what it comes down to for me. It will be fun again.

Fatigue

I'm really tired and I ache. I'm getting too old for all this. I've got by on very little sleep for two days and today really hurts. I've not been misbehaving though. I think I'm probably reacting to the exertions of the these last two days in a fairly normal way for someone my age. Let's see.

On Monday I played football. Or soccer, depending on your viewpoint. I'm not one of these English people who get all precious when others, normally Americans, refer to our beautiful game as soccer. I know we invented it but most of the rest of the world call it soccer and they're better than us at it so just deal with it. Anyway, I played two games in one night which would be enough to exhaust me at any time but when I've only just started playing again after a year out and am a long way from anything approaching match-fitness then it's gonna hurt more than usual. What also hurt was hitting the deck far too often as a result of A) flat-footed defenders hacking me down after being bamboozled by my fleet-footed ball trickery and B) tripping over myself. As a result I'm afflicted with a variety of grazes, bruises, bumps and strains.

Monday's matches were notable for the appearance in one of the opposition teams of a girl. A girl. This was a source of apprehension in our team, particularly among the younger members who started to giggle like schoolboys who had just discovered the lingerie section in their mum's catalogue. They all apologised in advance for any injuries they might cause or parts they might inadvertently grab during the match, as if this were some delicate flower they were dealing with. I knew better than that and suspected that this girl was probably a world beater, someone who could make fools of us all, and I was nearly right. She was good. We survived any real embarrassment though by each of us suddenly taking the game very seriously when she was on the ball. Being nutmegged by a girl would be impossible to live down and we all survived unscathed.

I returned home exhausted and looked forward to a night of deep sleep, my first in a while. I was to be disappointed. All through the night every subtle movement caused me to wake up in pain as if being prodded by a snooker cue. I didn't sleep well.

This fatigue endangered my plans for last night which was to go see my mate Jody's band, High Priests. The decision to go was made easier by my flatmate's declaration that he would drive me into London in his dad's Porsche. It's a fair bit better, and quicker, than the other option which involves getting a bus and two trains. I'm really glad I went, not just because High Priests are excellent but because Jody's a lovely man and I hadn't seen him for a few years. They released their debut album on Monday after years of hard work (My mate's for sale on Amazon!) and I felt really proud in that strange way that you can feel pride in something over which you had absolutely no influence. I also saw a few other people I hadn't seen for ages and was very glad I went.

I didn't get home until gone 1am and was again looking forward to a deep, if somewhat abbreviated, sleep. Once again though I was woken throughout the night pretty much every time I did so much as move a muscle. I could barely open my eyes in this morning.

So here I am. It's early afternoon and I don't feel too bad but I'm certainly tired. Am I getting too old for football one night and a night in London the next during the working week? I don't really care and it really doesn't matter. The point is that it's cool for me to still be playing football (and not letting myself down!) and it's even cooler to have a friend whose face is on the cover of an album that's for sale in all good online music stockists. And probably some rubbish ones too.

The Kick-Off

The Greatest Show on Earth, or so it itself believes, rolled back into town this weekend and provided us football junkies with a much needed fix. Premiership football is back! Rejoice! Here is what was learnt last weekend:

Arsenal has a soft centre and won't win anything this season. Chelsea is a kind of football juggernaut, demolishing all smaller vehicles but maybe struggling with those of a similar size (we'll see soon when they play Liverpool). Tottenham are bottlers. A top class team needs a top class striker. Man United take note. Liverpool can look promising at times but will ultimately disappoint. The same four teams as last season will share the top four spots this season.

In other words, everything was the same as last year. Sure, there'll be an occasional foray into the higher echelons of the league by some spunky usurper but they'll be banished the very next year. We had managers bemoaning the quality of referees. Commentators doing the same. Players diving in order to gain free kicks or penalties. Nothing changes. And we'll all still keep watching, no matter how distasteful we find the behaviour of all those just mentioned, plus those who run the game.

It used to be the fans that let themselves and the game down. Football was really ugly then and the crowds stayed away. Now it's everyone else letting the fans down. And as long as we continue to demean ourselves by swallowing it all up then nothing will change and the beautiful game will eventually disappear up its own arse forever.

Heart Attack Man

Football wasn't fun on saturday, something that's bothering me quite a bit. My shoulder was fine but my legs and lungs let me down badly. Most troubling was the feeling that I really didn't know what I was doing out there. I felt quite lost in an environment that was for many years where I felt most at home. Feeling like an outsider in your own home isn't a pleasant feeling but I'm sure it won't be that way after I've a few games under my belt.

So I now face a scary prospect: getting fit. It will mean some pretty major lifestyle changes. Exercise, for example. Not smoking. And if these two mammoth tasks weren't enough I've decided to reduce the levels of sugar and caffeine in my bloodstream. The amount of beer I drink will, however, remain constant. One step at a time, eh? Coca-Cola is out though.

As of today I take one sugar in my tea instead of two, with the intention of cutting it out altogether as soon as I can tolerate it. Buying decaffeinated tea is the next thing on the list. When I get paid next week I'm going to stock up on nicotine substitutes (patches, gum etc) and try to stop smoking. The exercise will start once I've myself of the pneumonia-like symptoms that will surely follow this massive upheaval. My body will be severely displeased with me for a while but will hopefully soon realise that all this is for its own good.

I normally like to put a few funny bits in my blog entries but, quite frankly, I'm scared right now. My life has for many years been characterised by avoiding those things that might be called a challenge. Anything that requires effort, basically. This is a big thing for me. Hopefully, normal service will be resumed shortly and I can get on with making snidey comments about stuff.