A girlfriend’s guide to football

I hated football - but my boyfriend’s brought me round

Written with the help of Miles Nicholson.

My boyfriend’s first love is Manchester United. His first love is feeling a bit under the weather at the moment from what I can gather. Not on top form. Internal turmoil. Debt. Plans to start over (£2 billion stadium). My boyfriend opened Twitter, as he does obsessively, in the evening of the 11th March. His search history was as follows:

yoro… twitter…

I started teasing him immediately.

‘Yoro ok!’ I exclaimed.

‘Yoro safe and warm?’ he giggled. Poor Yoro. He is aware that his concern has an element of the ridiculous, the parasocial, and that his personal concern for poor Yoro probably wasn’t going to do anything for Yoro, who might have hurt his foot exacerbating a previous metatarsal injury, knocking him out for this season. Nightmare for the FPL team. (‘I don’t own Yoro in FPL. I would never own a United defender in FPL unless we had a double game week.’)

My boyfriend knows everything about football. His knowledge is insane. Last summer he was bored and tried to write down every player ever and filled 13 sheets of paper. Not only does he know what appears to be everything about football, he loves all aspects of football. Watching it. Listening to it. Playing it. Playing it on Fifa. Analysing it. Analysing it and then constructing FPL teams on it. Watching analysis of it. Writing about it. Tweeting about it. The man doesn't stop.

So it has proved a bit tricky that not only do I know nothing about football, but I actively dislike it. I associate it with abandoning children, ignoring wives, unpleasant shouting, general violence and unjustified, if not immoral, expense. How can a player be worth £60 million? Also, what do you mean you can buy people and their whole family has to move too? (What if, I propose, we simply dropped two ‘0’s from every sum involved in football or had a handicap, like in rugby?) I dislike football such that I ignored it almost entirely, prompting this anxious conversation:

Me: Why don’t you have any hobbies?!

My boyfriend, undeservedly patient: I do have hobbies. It’s football. You just don’t like football.

It’s true. I cannot deny that it’s his hobby, and it’s brought me round. Football now makes me think of Miles rather than misc hooligans who abuse their wives. I still don’t like football. It’s ok. I can appreciate the intricacies of it and that it’s a business and the theatre of it all and really I want to go to the new Man U stadium in 2031 because it looks sick. But if I refuse to take an interest in football, how can I fairly expect my boyfriend to take an interest in my hobbies? Refusing to engage with football for personal reasons that are disguised by the name of feminism (used wrongly) actually results in ignoring someone’s passion and interest, something which is probably crucial to their family’s identity and something they have been insanely passionate about since they were eight (‘five, actually’).

I believe that there is some tension when women take an interest in men’s hobbies and that hobby happens to be football. Theoretically, it’s just the same as a boyfriend taking an interest in their girlfriend’s hobbies. Listening to my boyfriend talk about football should be no different to him listening to me talk about Life of Pi or why Stacey Solomon is a genius on Sort Your Life Out. But the dynamic is different because it is charged with many years of alarming male-female dynamic where the beautiful game cannot be disrupted and fetch me a beer please and no I can’t look after the kids on Saturday because I’m watching the game with Carl and Simon. The individual man doing their individual hobby is connected to the larger abstract of Men and Sport that has a culture associated with the larger problem of Sexism Generally. Football to me is just so stereotypically male.

Obviously not all people who like football are men, and not all people who like football that you might be in a relationship with are men, and not all people wanting to know wtf football is will be women, and they certainly won’t all be girlfriends. But that is the dynamic in my life and I know others are in it too. I want to take an interest now I am cured of unjust football hate. Yet no one is telling me why my boyfriend is repeatedly listening to a disenchanted middle-aged man called Mark Goldbridge in the shower and while he makes lasagne, so I (through quizzing Miles) will have to be the one to share What Football Is and Why Your Boyfriend is Obsessed With It. It is a huge world that is pretty hard to access when you know nothing at all.

So here are some basic facts that will make football more approachable and will illuminate why, perhaps, your beloved keeps muttering ‘the bloody Glazers’…

two great men in the pub

1. What are the main events in football-world?

Firstly, the Premier League, the top domestic league in England and Wales, happens annually between August and May.

Secondly, the Champions League, an annual competition between the best European teams who qualify through their domestic leagues. There’s a group stage, then a knockout stage, occurring between September and August.

Finally, there are international competitions: the Euros every four years, the World Cup every four years, and now the Nations League (‘but that’s tinpot’).

2. Why is it on all the time?

‘It’s not. There’s been an international break and I’ve been bored.’

March is ‘international break’, so get to know. The Christmas period is the busiest because organisers try to schedule as many games as possible for broadcasting while viewers are available. On a weekly basis, Premier League games are usually one a weekend, but they can be on weekdays if there’s fixture congestion. The FA cup, Europa, Champions League and League Cup games are often midweek, so there are two games a week overall sometimes. So it’s not on all the time, even if you think it is. Take that.

3. Why is football such a central part of male conversation?

‘It’s an easy starting point because a lot of people like it, and a lot of people that like it care deeply about it. People are used to talking about sports; they like to talk about what they’re passionate about. Men don’t really go up to each other comfortably and say ‘I like your shirt’, so it’s easier to say ‘what’s your team’. It’s an easy icebreaker, it helps to get rid of an awkward introduction. Also, it’s good for banter. If your team beats your friend's team, you can take the piss. You can even take the piss if your friend’s team loses to someone else.’ It seems football is a safe third space where male friendship can be conducted.

4. Why do you watch other teams’ games?

‘Because I like football’ - wow, ok - ‘and I play FPL.’ FPL (Fantasy Premier League) for those uninitiated is an online game where users pick a team of 15 real players within a budget, and when a player achieves something in real-life game (score, get an assist, keep a clean sheet if they’re a defender) the user gets points. The aim is to get the most points in a season and therefore be at the top of a league composed of your friends who play, and against other worldwide FPL players.

‘You should tell them my rank is 3800th in the world, out of 11 million players - 3800th, not 38,000th - I don’t want them to think I’m a scrub’.

FPL users (Miles) might watch other games with players in their teams to see if they get points.

Finally,

5. What makes a game a good watch?

A multitude of things, I am told. Two very attacking teams; a rivalry, so there’s more emotion attached; stories attached to the game (someone sent off and goes on to win); great moments like quality goals and tackles.

There’s your ‘Very Short Introduction’ to a world you, like me, probably didn’t ask to enter. But if I keep hating, ignoring football, at the expense of being interested in my partner’s hobby, I’m not some feminist warrior standing my ground. I'm the disrespectful, uninterested partner that football culture incorrectly implies to me, the reason I disliked football culture in the first place.

Speak your mind people. Do you like football? Dislike it? Does your person like it? Is Yoro ok? Leave a comment.