The Sport that tugs at Our Heartstrings
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? That sinking feeling when your favourite club loses. The feeling that makes you lose your appetite and interest in anything for the next six hours. You dread the next time your team is going to play, the banter your team will be on the receiving end of, and god forbid your team loses on the weekend before the international break, those are the ones that hurt the most.
It’s so crazy how a single sport has put most of the world into submission. Even casual fans like my father find themselves twitching their feet for teams they claim they do not support. No one can explain why we feel strongly towards it and I don’t think there will ever be a satisfactory explanation for those who do not understand. Some will never understand the elation, excitement and joy that comes with being a football fan, neither will they ever understand the sadness and pain that comes with it.
There are so many highs and lows when you’re a fan of football. Being a United fan in my early 20s I have experienced more lows than highs. I think my lowest was when we (Manchester United) lost to Leicester City 5–3. That was a really painful day because it started with so much optimism. After all, we were 3–1 up at the hour mark. Watching my team capitulate like that right in front of my eyes broke me and to this day I still have anxiety even when we’re winning 3–0. But like I said there have been highs too, like when we won the league in 2012/13 or when Robin Van Persie scored that last-minute free-kick against Manchester City. I was elated, there haven’t been many other times that I have shouted “GOAL” louder or even as loud as that.
For some United fans my age “Aguerooooooo”, is their lowest of lows. You might be surprised it’s not mine too but that’s just because I didn’t watch that game and I expected City to win anyway, so my hopes were never really raised. This is how a United fan described what he felt that day.
“The feeling was ironically gratifying; paradoxically assuaging. He was an opponent, a rival, and denied me the opportunity of settling debates with “I won the league”, yet I felt rather fine. The reason being the immaculate construction of the goal – not a touch more, not less than what was required; round the entire QPR defensive squadron; an impossible angle; and the incorrigible nature of terrible indecision in the circumstances. It was simply perfect. It was beautiful to see, how one man could immortalize himself in football history and make me feel passion for the rival side.”
For most Real Madrid supporters my age, when they won La Decima was probably their best moment being a fan of the club. This is how a Madrid fan describes that moment.
I felt electric. All the hairs on my body stood and my body was glowing with heavenly flame. I ran around the living room screaming like a banshee, and at that moment I knew I would love that man (Sergio Ramos) forever.
Arsenal fans my age do probably have it worse when it comes to lows if we’re being honest. It was an Arsenal fan lamenting, by a handwritten letter, about how hard it has been for her to watch a club she was once so in love with becoming a shadow of its former self. She sorrowfully describes the steady deterioration of a once-great club with title hopes to a club that now finds itself in mid-table mediocrity. People would look at that letter and never understand why it is so deep for her, and I think that’s really sad.
To be very honest, we don’t know why football makes us feel the way we do, but you know what? We absolutely love it. We love the anger, the excitement, the rage and the fire it puts in our bellies. We love the unpredictability, the fairy tale stories it has created over the years like Leicester City winning the league in 2016, and most of all we love the banter. It’s an unbelievable sport that has mastered the art of eliciting emotions from millions of people all over the world. I think that’s why we love football, the sport that mercilessly tugs at our heartstrings.
