It’s the two months of the year which sees football fans up and down the country put their Railcards to one side and pick up their trowels and pitchforks. Football’s off-season sees fans go without their football fix and turn into model husbands and wives.
But what is it that we miss so much?
Whether you support West Ham or Yeovil your love for football is the same, your need to be around your fellow fans cheering on your team on is where you want to be.
Here are my top 5 things I miss during the off season.
1. Proper newspaper stories: With stories thin on the ground, Journalists are forced under pressure from their editors to find stories. It not only makes us writers look bad as we attempt to enter the trade, it makes readers naïve and when a real story comes out with superb journalistic investigation people start to doubt it. All the “ITK’s” on Twitter come out to play during silly seasons and football fans are constantly left in limbo. Newspapers start to believe these made up rumours and print them in the tabloids. Roll on match reports, high quality interviews and cracking investigative journalism from September onwards.
2. Away days: There is nothing better than receiving your confirmation email from your club that you have tickets for a big away day. A day in the pub with your mates before entering a new ground where the onus is on you to make all the noise. Fans miss it so much they end up at obscure away days in Germany or Hong Kong in pre-season just to get that fix back. You just can’t beat away days.
3. Banter with other fans: During pre-season the only conversations you can have with rival fans are about the last season or transfer rumours. There is no comparison to that of the banter home and away fans can have in the pub before the game or in the ground. When there is football on at the weekend you can pretty much talk too any football fan in the pub about yours and their club recent results and fortunes and have a laugh about it.
4. Being around your kind and your fans: When I walk up those steps in the Bobby Moore Lower to my seat and see the familiar people you’ve become friendly with around you. From the little kid in front of me, to the cockney behind who shouts expletives at random times during the game. You begin to miss the people around you, the people I go with my mates, and you begin to see them less too. Football brings people together and creates unity. And I for one can’t wait for that first ball to roll in August.
5. Football, Football, Football: It’s simple you miss watching your team week in week out. There is nothing better than celebrating your clubs scoring a goal. Jumping up and down in pure delight. It took me until the 13th of July until the football absence finally succumbed, when I attended Bournemouth vs. West Ham United. A game which saw myself and James alongside our better halves in the home end. As soon as Nolan headed that first goal in, that football fix was back, I punched the air in delight much to the annoyance of those Bournemouth fans around me.
It’s just 24 days to wait now until that first ball is kicked… Not long now.
Roll on Cardiff at Home!
Come on you Irons!
Tweet me @Bowdenwhu
COYI