So sport fans, how you holding up? Reckon they miss us yet? We can’t be replaced by crowd noise at the press of a button, by jiggery.
I got to thinking about our role in sporting events after watching Marine football club take on Tottenham in the third round of the FA Cup on Sunday. The David v Goliath match-up absorbed sport media, fans and teams across the UK and the sporting world.
The famous London Premier League side took on the Liverpool-based non-league team – 160 places difference between them in the football pyramid – in England’s pre-eminent cup competition.
Plumbers, teachers and binmen took on famous players, including the most expensive British footballer of all time, Gareth Bale.
Yet the superstars were not only the players of Marine AFC – one of the players is a nurse who works on a covid ward during the day, for crying out loud – but their fans.
Garden variety
The match took place at Marine’s ground in Crosby, a ground so small that back gardens backed on to the pitch. Due to Covid-19, no fans were allowed inside the ground.
Instead we were treated to television coverage of the lady standing in her shrubbery, watching the match, glass of wine in hand; the guy who tweeted a photo he’d taken out of his window of the £85m Bale; or the TV screengrab of a guy sat on his shed roof behind Spurs’ manager Jose Mourinho. It was all so bloody wonderful.
Over enthusiastic
When us fans ARE allowed inside the grounds, we can get a little over-excited, to be honest. Like, well, this fan at the baseball.
Or this lady at the… oh my, I’ve just looked at the Insta bio of this pic and it says the feed is about “high school hoops coverage”… Eep it looks like she could be at a school basketball match.
I’m not immune myself in the over-enthusiasm stakes. Exhibit A, below, accidentally getting involved in the celebrations at the Conifa World Cup final in London 2018 between Northern Cyprus and Karpatalya.
I just went on the pitch to congratulate the players like all good professional journalists do… and then this happened.
This one’s a little… well, see golfer Rickie Fowler’s face… his actual face, not the cutout.
My ‘favourite’ ever sport fannery moment is at a half-pipe skiing event. Apologies don’t remember where or when. But as we watch Kevin Rolland finish his run, you suddenly hear a most unexpected noise. A chainsaw. Yup. An actual real, running chainsaw.
The commentator was equally incredulous.
Bearing in mind we’re thoroughly searched to enter most sports arenas – I once furiously had to throw away some perfectly good expensive rechargeable batteries from my camera and a lady next to me her lipstick while going in to a match at Euro 2004 – this was quite the surprise.
Fancily dressed
We’re also partial to a bit of dressing up. I just love this screengrab from BBC footage of fans at a Euro 2016 match between Wales and Northern Ireland. The Hulk’s dad is making sure his green offspring is warm enough, wrapping a scarf more snuggly around his mini-me’s bemuscled shoulders.
Or the smurfs I found while at a Women’s Ashes match – between England and Australia in case you’re newish to this sport malarkey, and are just here for the funs. Such a lovely event that one.
The best of frenemies
Sport can even bring together the most bitter of frenemies, with an understanding borne deep of another team’s losses.
In November 2014, Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes died after being struck on the head by a ball during a match against New Zealand.
Three years to the day after the 25-year-old died, England fans were in Australia watching both teams. They sang, ‘There’s only one Phillip Hughes’.
These fans did their bit at a fan zone park at the 2018 World Cup, which was showing matches on a big screen.
Some fans don’t realise they love sport, but when coverage is done well, it can turn even the least interested. Something the Olympics is very good at. Love this.
Fool hardy or just hardy?
Weather cannot stop us either. You players may be skulking in the cricket dressing room or the changing room at Wimbledon as rain stops play, but we will not be moved from our seats. No siree.
One thing I can guarantee – GUARANTEE – from the photo below is that this match is from midwinter. It’s just the way English fans are.
Yep, just checked the date on the photo (and yes I do spend my time taking screengrabs of funny sporting moments in case they ever come in useful… this one’s from 2015!) and it’s October.
Funny fannery
We’re bloody amusing too. This couple were in the first flushes of a heady honeymoon… or so he thought.
And when a fan drops her hat while cheering the Houston Astros baseball team following their 2017 World Series win, well her fellow fans are there for her. (Doesn’t this footage look weird in the age of Covid?)
We also love a good sing song… uncomplicated lyrics are best.
Tunnel vision… not
Granted we’re not always fully focused on the match, exhibits below.
I wrote an article about that, after spending an afternoon watching Australia v New Zealand at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 2004. Featured in Australian backpacker’s fanzine The Word – it was my one of my first published articles!
Love this screengrab of these two at the cricket.
Our sports fannery, though, means we have a weak link – we can easily be duped by our partners…
We’re house proud, well some of us, like the Senegalese fans after their history-making World Cup match in 2018 against Poland. Winning 2-1, Senegal became the first African country to win a match at a World Cup, but there was still time to clean up before the celebrations. Class.
Got our backs
Our sport fannery is something intrinsic, in our very being, we need nothing else, but sometimes us fans are recognised by those who give us so much joy (and pain, obvs). England footballer manager and Harmonie-Rose, for example.
Struggling with your new prosthetic leg? Who better to encourage you than an eight-time Paralympic international.
And, oh my, one of my favourites. Liverpool FC’s Sadio Mane surprises one of the volunteers for his club. Watch what he does in the next match when he scores a goal. My heart.
As much as we’re missing sport right now, sport misses us too you know.
If you like this, you might also like:
Jo’s Sport Diary (Week 1): So, wild swimming…
Best sport related quotes for all moments in life
