I’ve come to the conclusion that supporting a football team is a lot like having a child. Bear with me whilst I explain the analogy.
Something I’ve noticed that many parents do is to believe that everyone else’s kids are little angels, whereas their own children are little horrors. This most commonly happens when the parent’s child’s friends are all round at their house, and are usually on their best behaviour towards their friend’s mum/dad.
At least, this was the case in my youth. My friends would be absolute tearaways in their own houses, but good as gold when they came round mine. No doubt I was exactly the same, which lead my parents to believe that I was a pain in the ass but my friends were just fantastic.
Then, when the parents bump into each other, they inevitably end up complimenting the other’s kids (which logically also means the other person’s parenting skills) and somewhat belittling their own. You know the type of conversation:
“Your Johnny is such a good lad. I really like it when he comes round for tea.”
“Ha, you should see him 24/7! But Timmy is just great, you’ve got a star on your hands there.”
“Timmy?! You wouldn’t believe what he gets up to in the house…”
And so on and so forth.
But turn the tables for a minute, and you’ll notice that actively criticising someone else’s kids to their parent’s face is massively frowned upon, and that parent will quite vociferously defend their children against these accusations.
A parent is able to belittle their own children, but woe betide anyone from outside the immediate family who dares to criticise them.
This is where the similarity arises with supporting a football team, or any sports team for that matter. When you support a team, especially for a long period of time, you develop the kind of intimate connection that is somewhat analogous to that between a parent and a child.
I’m not suggesting for an instant that it is in any way as strong as that connection, but in style and effects it is similar.
By being so close to our teams, we know more about them than any outsider, just like a parent with their child. I, for one, devour any news I can about Arsenal, and am constantly thinking/talking about them. This means that I am much better informed and can have a much more valid opinion about them than a non-supporter, even if the non-supporter does follow football as a whole.
Incidentally, I’d say that this analogy can be extended a little: a supporter of a different team is the same as another parent (i.e. they should have some kind of understanding of where you are coming from with regards to opinions), whereas someone with no interest in football at all is a childless adult.
This intimacy with your team, and your insider knowledge, for want of a better phrase, is what qualifies you to criticise your team. You know them better than anyone else, and so are able to recognise their shortcomings and failures. You are allowed to point them out and gently berate your team in the company of others, but if someone else criticises your team then you give them both barrels and defend them completely.
It’s here that we see the biggest similarity between parenting and supporting a football team: by virtue of our close relationship, we feel able to criticise. However, this close relationship also means that we will defend them almost unquestionably and sometimes blindly. We don’t see the faults that others do, but we also see the faults that they miss.
I got thinking about this whole subject last night, when some random on Twitter responded to my criticism of another team with his own critique of Arsenal. Being a last word kind of guy, I had to give him some stick back, which lead to us going back and forth a couple of times, neither backing down or giving any ground.
I know I’m stretching things to compare the love of a football team to the love a parent feels for their child, but I think the similarities are worth pointing out.
