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Why do we put ourselves through so much stress?

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    Why do we put ourselves through so much stress?

    Obviously it depends on the level of your team and the crapiness or otherwise of those you are playing against, but if you're winning, say, 3-0 after 70 minutes, is it time to crack open the hypothetical bubbly and smoke that unreal cigar? It strikes me that however much we love the game, and spend a lot of money following it, either live or on TV, we spend a lot of time wishing that matches would end (either we're frightened of that scenario in which one goal back for the other team leads to the comeback of all ages; or because the team is playing so badly that you are seriously considering walking out before the final whistle - which you've never done - but there's always a first time). Or there are some games which are so tedious that your mind turns to other things.

    In short, why do we enjoy suffering so much?

    #2
    We had a thread on Pie and Bovril titled "Sons Sorrow". It ran for pretty much the entire time we were in tier 2 in our recent 6 season stand. One of the fans tried to start a new thread following our relegation at the end of last season.

    We're barely a few games into 18/19 but our horrendous injury problems and patchy form has seen calls for a return of the Sons Sorrow thread. We're never happier than when we're moaning and when we have something to moan about.

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      #3
      Various ideas:

      1) Stress is addictive. It's like caffeine or cocaine, depending on your football of choice.

      2) Football is an artifice that we pretend is real. There's no real cost except the wasted travel and stadium tickets. It is therefore like riding a rollercoaster: pretend risk.

      3) It's not like you'd be doing something more beneficial with your time if you weren't watching.

      4) Real life is 98% boredom whereas a football game is maybe 75% boredom.
      Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 28-09-2018, 19:54.

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        #4
        I was intrigued by imp's synopsis of his book in that football, in itself, is not that central to even the ardent supporters' life (possibly less so to the ardent supporter). It is what goes on around it that is important but also what it is taking the place of. It's too much cod psychology to say that males express the emotion that they don't in real-life into sport. However, sport does act as a pressure valve for the rest of life, that can't be argued, I don't think. While we are concentrating heavily on a meaningless activity that we don't even have any agency in (not even by wearing our luck pants), our subconscious is putting things in order - we just need that time-out a lot of the time. Obviously not all the time, sometimes the sport is the biggest pain in the arse in our life if we are blessed or fortunate. Even at these times though, it is the social element of watching sport that we enjoy; even if we have watched it on TV on our own, it provides water cooler moments the next day or whatever. There is a theory that I must read up upon that the reason that soap operas are so popular is because people don't have the same narratives about the same set of people based around a social centre - the pub, the church, the corner shop etc. Well, one of those traditional social centres is still the football match. You go along and you see the same characters - even if you don't know their names - and you somewhat follow their narrative - the young lad that always comes with his Dad turns up with a girlfriend, the couple start bringing their kids, one of the old blokes doesn't turn up for a couple of weeks because he is ill or worse. You also have that with the players, of course - we have seen it in the thread about players whose dads we saw play etc. As we lose contact more and more with the people in our street, in the pub, in the church, in the corner shop, at the school gate, we still need these regular characters and the narratives of their lives. In many ways, the football is the sit to the com, the drama whatever.

        The other thing is that, of course, no other social activity provides us with such disappointment - often in reward for many miles travelled - for such a high cost. If films disappointed as much as football, the industry would be out of business. However, we are more intrinsically linked to football and the lows actually make the highs better. However, both are only worth it because you experience it with others - even if it is the chain-smoking mad-eyed nutter with the dog that stands too close to you. Indeed, football is the only social activity - now that fans of rival musical genres no longer fight - where there is a chance you will get a kicking. You know, there is a load of football-related event that some of my best stories come from that just shouldn't be logically enjoyed or entertaining - going to Amsterdam to see Wales dubbed 7-1 and still having a fantastic weekend, going to places like Mansfield following Cardiff when they finished two places above going out of the league, hiding out in a pub in Meopham to make sure we didn't get a kicking from Brighton supporters, driving back from Hull after Bath City had been knocked out of the Trophy with Sleaford bloody Mods playing incessantly etc. People - even a lot of football supporters - often don't understand this. To an extent, even with all this rationalisation, I don't understand this.

        I think that one of the most stark examples of how football supporting is, in a way, removed from actual football is when I went to see Hadjuk Split play. We were right next to the fenced off enclosure (even that - you wouldn't find a fenced off enclosure for humans anywhere else) with the ultras in. From the start of the match, they were singing and waving their flags constantly with a guy with a mic and his back to the pitch urging them on. There may have been a drummer. WE thought it was brilliant for about 10 minutes. Then the away side scored. Normally, even with the most manic of supporters, there is either silence, anger or both and then often the supporters get behind their team even more so. Here, they didn't even miss a beat in the song that they were singing. Indeed, when Hadjuk then scored twice, they still didn't break rhythm. What was important wasn't the match, the score or, even, the players - which were all temporary - possibly not even the club, as such, but the badge, the colours and, most importantly, the ultras, the Torcida. I expect that they had bonds based around the experiences that I referred to earlier (except more extreme, I imagine). To a lesser and milder extent, our band of refuseniks from Cardiff City in the 1927 club are the same thing - when the club divested itself of its identity (which is the most important thing about a club), we left but still maintained our links, if not making them stronger.

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          #5
          Brilliant read Bored. The bit about football being "the sit to the com" or whatever is a terrific observation, and I love that bit about the Hadjuk Split supporters for how indicative it is as well, even if I can't empathise with that kind of attitude.

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            #6
            Nice one Bored

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              #7
              Originally posted by Bordeaux Education View Post
              one of the old blokes doesn't turn up for a couple of weeks because he is ill or worse.
              Since Shrewsbury moved to the new(ish) ground I have sat/stood next to a guy who I found out to be called Alan. He is in his 50s and by his own admission over weight and un-healthy. Over the years he's never missed a game, and possessed a dark humour akin to mine. We got on. He got on with my friends and the others around our section. That's all we knew, his name and that he was funny in his own quirky way.

              Last season, which as every one knows was a magnificent if ultimately doomed attempt at promotion for Shrewsbury, he missed the first home game. Must be on holiday (unusual, but). He missed the second, the third and fourth and oh shit, he's ill or worse. We asked around no one knew anything, we resigned ourselves to the fact we would never see him again. His seat remained empty, so he must have bought his season ticket, but died, or became too ill too attended. In a sub-conscience sign of respect, no one in our group sat in it, it remind empty.

              We spent half a season saying what a pity Alan was missing this, how much he would enjoy it and how much we missed him and his black quirky humour.

              Until February, when he turned up, looking slightly tanned and slightly thinner. It turns out that Alan is an Electrical Engineer who had spent the previous 6 months on a lucrative engineering project in Egypt. "We thought you were dead " we said. "Not yet" he said. It was like he'd never been away. He then spent the 90 minutes wondering what all the fuss was about. We were shit that day.

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                #8
                Ha ha, fucking brilliant.

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                  #9
                  Yesterday was a case in point,as I said on the match going thread we were playing Cork in the F.A.I cup semi-finals, all day I was fairly relaxed,enjoying a couple of pre match pints and taking in the athmosphere,even during the game I was fairly laid back then,on 67 minutes,We scored.
                  After the obviously wild celebrations a hard lump appeared in the pit of my stomach and I was counting the seconds until with three minutes to go they were awarded a,in my opinion dodgy,penalty to equalise.
                  As to why we do it it's because it's one of the few places we feel like we belong. I stand with my brother and a group of friends I have known for over 30 years, two of whom I've known for longer than I've known any non family members. I met one through school and the other playing football but it's Bohemian fc that has been the glue that's kept up friends years after I lost contact with all my other school friends or team mates. I could be blindfolded after a game and still know where everyone in the bar would be sitting and most of their names.
                  I can't wait for Friday nights and go through purgatory in the close season. It's an addiction and I'm definitely an addict.

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                    #10
                    I used to take great joy in the misery of football. After FC United got a humping, again, away to Bradford (Park Avenue) we drove home in silence listening to 'Doves Kingdom of Rust'. It was great. Or going to Frickley in the Doodson Sport Cup, losing in one of the worst ever matches played that still qualifies as football, and flying home back to London the following day. I marvelled at the wallowing. Course, these lows contextualise the highs. Would the Rochdale FA Cup giantkill been as good without the Frickley debacle? Probably not. If you only have highs, they become the norm. You need the despair. Same as the Manchester derby last year. Winning 3-2 when we should have been a million nil down at halftime made it an even better victory, stopping them winning the league just being the cherry on top of the cake.

                    Manchester United are struggling at the minute, but I'm not overly arsed. After the past 28 years or so, it's churlish to complain about the lack of success. My relationship with football has changed; I'm not as emotionally involved in the match any more. It's the event, the pomp and ceremony, the camp and the drama. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? IS THIS NOT WHY YOU'RE HERE?

                    United under the Glazers, Woodward and Mourinho is the boxset I've been waiting for since I finished Narcos and Gomorrah. The predictable slide into self-inflicted drama is fascinating. That Derby Carabao Cup game was the most fun I've had in football in ages. It shouldn't have been. We were abject and we lost. But by fuck it was funny. And the Fellaini last minute equaliser was some rush. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. There was no better metaphor for the state we were in than that happening.

                    Anyway. Like I said on another thread. None of it matters really. We were sat leathered after getting back from Wembley last May in my pub. My mate said that this is why we do it. And we'd had such a good day that the losing didn't really matter. Would winning have made the day any better? Yeah, probably. But not by much. "It's moments like this." He said, "This is why we do it."

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                      #11
                      I honestly don't know why most QPR fans attend matches anymore. A more apoplectic bunch of teeth-grinders you couldn't wish to meet. Admittedly the past couple of decades or so haven't been the best — Warnock's magic season and Bobby Zamora's freak Wembley moment aside — but bugger me with a fishfork, a manager only needs to preside over three losses in a row before the chicken feathers and tar-barrels are being readied on Shepherds Bush green. What happened to patience, optimism and decent chips at half time? Moaning is one thing, we all do that it's part of the fun, but outright venom gnaws away at the soul. Turn it off after the final whistle, read a book in the park, hug a dog, pat a child. Next Saturday comes all too quickly, give sanity some elbow room in the meantime.

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                        #12
                        Part of the chagrin at QPR must be the raised hope that the new owners were going to outspend Chelsea but have barely outspent Chelmsford.

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                          #13
                          Hughes and 'Arry spent a shitload of their money, £200 million in fact. Now there's an FL fine of £40 million to deal with, plus a transfer embargo in January and FFP constraints forever. Can't say they didn't flash the cash though, just did it very stupidly. The last few seasons have been a different matter. They're hanging in though, have to give them that. To hear most of the fans you'd think it was their money they'd spent (OK, I know, some of it is.)

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                            #14
                            https://twitter.com/haveigotnews/status/1047100460254081027?s=19

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                              #15
                              Ha! Yes, that's us now, TV joke material. Boom tish! etc.

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