Am I really a Football fan?

Am I a football fan? I certainly pretend and pose to be, but am I?

I have seen only 10-12 full matches that my team has played in the past seven years despite following the team staunchly. Am I a plastic fan? I could be.

So, what defines a true fan? I went on a rampant search spree on Google and came up with various responses, hoping that they would give me clarity. It resulted in even more questions and unfortunately no answers.

Here’s what Google gave me.

“You don’t go to the stadium and watch the games, do you? You can’t be a true fan, no.”

Do you have to go to the stadium to be a real fan?

I live in India and the team I support is in England. There are screenings that happen near my place where a group of people who support the same club as I do gather together and watch the games together. I don’t attend them either.

But I haven’t missed a game for 7 years. The reason why I don’t see the games live is not because I’m not interested in them. It is because I’m too nervous to see them. I find it perfectly alright and even happy to watch a game between two rivals of my team.

So, that means that not only do I not go to the stadium to support my team, I also don’t watch their games. What kind of a fan am I?

But truth be told, the “You don’t go to the stadium, you can’t be a fan” notion was invented decades ago when there was no television and Internet. Now, statistics say that clubs like Manchester United and Real Madrid have fans from more than 160 countries in the world. How do you expect them all to come to the stadium? Although you might define some of them as plastic fans, there are true fans amongst them. You can’t deny that.

So, there is still a possibility that I could be a football fan.

The next thing that Google threw at me was this “A true fan always and at all times knows the scoreline of his team’s match no matter where he is or what he does.”

I don’t. When my team plays a very important match, I go out and do my chores. Although my chores end up horribly bad and I have to do them once again, I don’t sit and watch the game. I know that it is the intensity that makes the game so effective but I don’t like them. It is not pretty. I shout. At my team’s goalie when he lets a goal in, at my striker when he fails to convert and at the ball boy when he hesitates even for a moment to throw back the ball into the pitch. So, it is best for my neighbours and my health if I don’t watch the games.

Then next thing that I found was rather aggressive “When your team loses a game, you start up a fight or at least a fight on Facebook.”

A real fan fights when his team loses?

When my team loses a game, I sleep. Yes. It helps me. I can go on pointing the “facts” on social media. But what does that achieve? My team has lost today. It is depressing. Why should I depress myself even more by engaging in meaningless rants in cyberspace?

So, another answer that has failed me in my quest to prove that I’m a football fan.

“Real fans watch the game not the pre and post match shows” claimed my next Google result. Again, I fail. Like I have said, I don’t the full game. But I do enjoy watching the pre and post match shows. May be because I like the dramatic way that the games are shown in these shows. Or maybe I like watching guys like Steve McMahon or Shebby Singh making earth shattering predictions. I have always liked the soap-opera like feel that comes with these shows.

So, I’m not a football fan once again.

The final answer that came up was “No matter how bad your team is, you support them through thick and thin, through victories and defeat.”

Finally, something that I have done. Not that I have flaunted doing it. It is there subconsciously in all of us. We love some things and we hate others. “You can change your religion, your job, your country but never your favourite sports team” said Eric Cantona once. I have done that. I have supported my team through the worst of times and those times have made the victories even more sweet.

So, the Internet has left me bewildered. I still don’t know if I’m a real football fan or not.

I could be. But, once again, subconsciously, not by brain but by heart, I know that I am. May be that is enough.