I don't understand the thrill of the game

[venta]

Today I've had Xfm on, streaming from my computer. It's sufficiently cool today that we don't need the aircon on, so I can hear music properly. Most of the DJs have talked about the football, everyone who's called in has been asked about/mentioned it. Some of the adverts are football orientated. There's even been adverts for a club which is "the only place to be after the match".

Over on elle_'s journal, it's clear that companies all over the place are using the match as an excuse for a jolly. Someone else mentioned that their company is shutting up shop early this afternoon.

Now, I'm not a football fan, not even at times like this. I come from a family of sport-despisers. When a passing French bloke tried to take the piss on Sunday night, it was completely lost on me because, though I knew there was a match on, I hadn't known it was against France, and at that point I didn't know England had lost.

I know there are plenty of people out there who're not bothered about footy. So, without wanting lots of frothing comments along the lines of how the match tonight is getting in the way/sodding up your plans/annoying you: what percentage of the population cares ?

The prevalence of the little car-flags, the quietness of the streets when there's a game, everything else suggests "near 100". But a surprisingly high percentage of my friends are rabidly anti-. Is this just me knowing an unrepresentative sample ? Is it that the football apathists are just much quieter about their apathy than the supporters are about their support ? That people are worried they'll be deemed sad, uncool, unpatriotic or pummelled if they admit they don't give a stuff ?

I'm genuinely curious.

Comments

[arralethe.livejournal.com]

I can't see the point in watching sport in my precious free time. Sorry, but I just can't - football, rugby, competitive shoelace tying...it's all very very lost on me.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Is it me, or is this a post that screams out for a poll?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Trouble is, I don't want to add a poll saying "do you care about the footy". I want to know what people think about the concept in general, which might be a bit more complicated that yes/no.

I could a poll asking if people thought a poll was appropriate :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Actually, I've also rendered it unfair by posting this at a time when any self-respecting footy fan is heading off to get the beers in, rather than reading LJ :)

[erming.livejournal.com]

Well it's not easy to avoid the football at the current time.

If you go about it takes over the radio, it takes over the pubs and even the in store radio.

Luckily I'm able to avoid it by judicious use of news web sites, going to Wetherspoon pubs listening to certain radio shows but mostly by listening to CDs.

Commalies by Lacuna Coil being my current distraction, previous being Labyrithe der sinne by Tanzwut.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

It could be worse - Christmas is even more intrusive.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm also curious about what percentage of the nation cares about Christmas :)

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

I care only in as much that if we lose and go out of the contest then we'll probably hear less about the rest of it, and that would be a Good Thing. So come on you, er, Swiss. I think. And well played, France!

The idea of actually giving up an hour and a half of my life to watch a bunch of over-paid prima-donnas poncing about doesn't appeal at all.

Still, at least it's keeping Coronation Street off the tv.

[waistcoatmark.livejournal.com]

When I was out in the garden Sunday evening I suddenly heard a diffuse cheer from all around me. There are obviously enough people who like footy that the sum of their living-room-based cheers can be heard throughout a town.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Aye. I'm aware of this phenomenon. What I want to know is: if it was announced that football was not going to be covered in future, would there be an equal cheer ?

I have no idea how many people are required for that sort of audibility. Or how many people might be just watching (and cheering) because the people they're with are interested (I've certainly done this in the past.)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I think my views on football are sufficiently well documented.

There are lots of good games in the world. A few of them are even physical sports. Soccer is, from my perspective, one of the worst.

I used to think it had no strategy in it at all. However, Toby and onebyone persuaded me otherwise. I now concede that there are some mildly clever things one can contemplate by way of team strategy which are totally eclipsed by the individual skills of the players, the usual barbarian behaviour (contact between players, borderline fouls etc.) and just general randomness.

I'd rather watch a football match than Big Brother, but it's a very close call.

[venta.livejournal.com]

For reasons of social politeness, I watched an episode of Big Brother the other day (only the second time I've ever seen it.)

It was actually a lot more embrassing and cringeworthy than I was expecting. If offered the option, I'll take the 90 minutes of football in future :)

[ao-lai.livejournal.com]

Hmm, just from reading this my general attitudes towards both football and Big Brother have now sunk even lower than they were before. I didn't know that was possible...

(Now, Blitzball on the other hand - That's a *real* game! :)

It's the cynic me

[wimble.livejournal.com]

I'm just waiting for the moment when all these people realise that spending millions of pounds on assorted George Crosses is not going to make a blind bit of difference to whether the England Football team actually win or not.

And whether they take them all down when England get kicked out (which will demonstrate their stupidity: if you're going to support the team, then they surely need more support when they lose).

Re: It's the cynic me

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

all these people realise that spending millions of pounds on assorted George Crosses is not going to make a blind bit of difference to whether the England Football team actually win or not.

I don't think anyone is very confused on this point. Both sides have to concede that it's pretty much unmeasurable whether "the lads" will be "inspired" by footy mania to play a tiny bit better. It's not an implausible suggestion, but it's also not entirely compelling

The important thing is that flying flags etc is improving people's enjoyment of the tournament and hence quality of life. If sneering at them from a position of assumed intellectual superiority is improving your quality of life then OK, I guess. But your hobby will never be as popular as theirs.

[grumblesmurf.livejournal.com]

But a surprisingly high percentage of my friends are rabidly anti-. Is this just me knowing an unrepresentative sample ? Is it that the football apathists are just much quieter about their apathy than the supporters are about their support ? That people are worried they'll be deemed sad, uncool, unpatriotic or pummelled if they admit they don't give a stuff ?

Nah, I don't think so.

Perhaps it's more likely that the people you know have something between their ears and therefore have no interest in watching overpaid idiots prancing around a field kicking a pig's bladder round.

Me, I sincerely hope we lose tonight, that the 'fans' go wild and cause mayhem, and that UEFA decide England need to be booted out the competition and can't play in any international for a number of years. That would be some degree of satisfaction for being bombarded with football this, Beckham that, Goran-Erikson the other for months on fucking end. Seems there's no end to the football season these days - at least you used to get a break while something equally dull like Wimbledon was on.

Marx was right in all bar one respect - it's football and not religion that's the opium of the masses. And opiates screw you up in any great volume. Go figure.

Now, there are sports that I will watch. Sometimes even so far as to get up at ungodly times of the night to watch. But football ain't one of them - so much for it being a team sport - looks to me like it's a disparate bunch of individuals claiming to play as a team. Tactics seem limited to booting the ball up the field and trying to cause physical injury to the opposition while claiming yourself to have been mortally injured if an opponent so much as looks shifty at you. And these buffoons are paid how much?

Still, at least we're got the satisfaction of not being a fuckwit.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

have something between their ears and therefore have no interest in watching overpaid idiots prancing around a field kicking a pig's bladder round

"People who don't share my tastes must be stupid. There's no other explanation for it". Okaaay.

Sometimes even so far as to get up at ungodly times of the night to watch [sport]

Because the players in the sports you watch aren't overpaid, aren't idiots, because their movements cannot flippantly be described as "prancing", or because no piece of equipment in their sport has ever been made from animal products?

I'm just not following your logic on the whole "watching football is stupid" train of thought.

And these buffoons are paid how much

You've mentioned that twice. Is envy all this is about?

[al-fruitbat.livejournal.com]

I've loathed foopball ever since I was forced to play and watch it at school (inter-house league matches, where the rest of the 'house' had to go to the sopggy sports fields after school and 'support' your 'team' - basically a form of institutionalised detention, where my definition of 'support' was 'hoping one of those fuckwits breaks a leg')

The only vague amusement I get from it is when the english mob get so soundly defeated that the foopball fans start acting like a cat that's fallen out of a tree. Match? What match? Tournament? Nah, don't know anything about that, mate...

[triskellian]

I was vaguely aware, from the prevalence of those idiotic car flags, that there was some sort of football going on at the moment. I had no idea there was a game (match?) today until my boss came in and made some joke about robbing a bank this afternoon at 5, which he then had to explain to me.

I think it's the general football-apathy among non-football fans that means you don't notice 'em much (although of course their numbers could also be lower than those of the fans). Why bother talking about something you don't care about, even if only to say you don't care? Although I have said to several people today that the sooner 'we' are out of the competition, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Although I have said to several people today that the sooner 'we' are out of the competition, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

How is this opinion even faintly consistent with your claim that you don't care one way or the other?

[triskellian]

It's not wildly inconsistent, since 'I don't care' doesn't (in this context, to me) mean 'I have no strong feelings', rather that I don't have strong positive feelings. As it happens, I don't have strong negative feelings either, so the only way the existence of the football bothers me is that I get bored of people (colleagues, for the most part) talking about it, and there were a worryingly large number of police cars on the roads last night (and, actually, those flags do annoy me with their fluttering).

I also don't actually subscribe to the view that the sooner they lose the better - it was part of general office heckling. Fewer dull conversations, less chance of random violence breaking out, and fewer of those annoying flags would all be a good thing, but since they don't directly affect me that much, <shrug> enjoy your football. I'll be over here doing something else ;-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

those flags do annoy me with their fluttering

And according to something I read this morning, they create enough drag that they affect your car's fuel consumption to the extent that flag-flyers have wasted 4.5 million gallons of fuel, or something.

Bang goes my plan to buy some, bastardise them, and fly Jolly Rogers from William :)

[satyrica.livejournal.com]

I'm not *bothered* about it but I do vaguely follow it: I grew up in a very sporty family so I kinda have an instinctual affinity for sport despite the depths of my personal incompetence and disinterest; I think it's cool when my country wins but it doesn't distress me when they don't.

[surje.livejournal.com]

i'm rabidly anti, and am proud to not know that there is a game on or who it is against, and very happy if i do find out that we lose.

[venta.livejournal.com]

If you don't know there's a game on, or who it's against, it's presumably not impinging on your life very much. So why would you be made happy by England losing ?

It won't change your world, and it'll make a lot of other people quite unhappy.

I'm just curious as to how you see it.

[surje.livejournal.com]

i find the whole concept of nationalistic pride quite scary. and veneration of the flag even more bizarre. there are many other countries that should be celebrated ahead of our own, if you choose to delineate groups of people by such arbitrary criteria. however, since the development of transportation in recent decades, the whole notion of a country having any kind of collective identity is rapidly eroding, and thankfully communications in general mean that media and art are able to cross geographical cultural boundaries more easily than they used to.

however, that doesn't mean that there aren't things that are uniquely british that i love... there is some common collective consciousness because of our shared television and artistic culture, which in general we're quite good at exporting, in contrast to many other products. but international sport (whilst good at encouraging economic growth) simply encourage celebration of ethnic and historical differences. other such forms of inciting hatred are considered taboo...

[kauket.livejournal.com]

I love watching the football, and in many ways it's fun to feel like you are united with a group of people in one place all cheering and supporting something. Walking round the streets and seeing everyone happy when we win, cheering at people you walk past wearing England shirts, commiserating together when we lose, all slagging off calamity James.

Apathy I can live with. I don't like cricket much, I let it drift past me.

But what really really pisses me off is people saying they hope England will lose so people will stop going on about it/it'll take up less tv time/whatever. Why would you want to deprive people of something that give them fun and joy, just because you get a bit pissed off at seeing flags/ITV (woohoo, quality programming) is taken up with a game / it's on the front page of a trashy tabloid. I get a bit fed up with the amount of cricket that can be on, but it doesn't mean I want us to lose.

I feel it's a bit like saying 'I hate your favourite TV show and I hope it's cancelled half way through the series.'

Anyway. Sorry. It's been really pissing me off

[kauket.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that was a badly written post. Still too early in the AM.
You get the idea!

[venta.livejournal.com]

I do get the idea :)

And yes, while I'm not interested in the football, I don't (in my magnanimousness :) mind if it's there for those of you who are interested to watch.

It surprises me, actually, that people who'd usually find an I-don't-like-it-so-you-can't-have-it attitude rather unacceptable seem to be quite happy about loudly saying they hope England go out asap.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I feel it's a bit like saying 'I hate your favourite TV show and I hope it's cancelled half way through the series.'

I think it's more than that, though, because a TV show is generally for 20 episodes, or a few years, or whatever. A lot of the reason that people are football fans, as opposed to just watching a bit of footy every now and again whoever's playing, is because even if you only actually pay attention to international tournaments every couple of years, you can still think of it as being for life. Supporting a team is fun because the team actually matters to you, not just because you admire the way they play.

So I think that the "I hate football and I hope we lose" is just dog-in-the-manger spitefulness. It's not big or clever, it's just wishing Bad Stuff on other people because you're petulant that you can't completely shut out of your life everything that you aren't personally interested it.

So I'd go further than your TV show analogy and say that it's more analogous to (taking some of the offenders in this thread), "I hate computer games, and I hope the one you're currently writing is panned by all the magazines and nobody buys it", "I hate goth music and I hope every band you love sells out and writes million-selling pop songs" or just, in general, "I hate hearing about what you like, because I don't like it, so in revenge for me being made bored I hope you're made miserable".

[hjalfi.livejournal.com]

I usually only actively dislike football (that is, wishing it would just go away as soon as possible, rather than just not caring about it) when it comes to TV coverage. You see, the TV companies always underallocate the time for any kind of live sports coverage, and since live sports always overrun, this means that the TV schedule for the rest of the day is screwed up.

Admittedly, I care about this much less than I used to, because I watch much less TV than I used to these days. I have broadband now.

This applies to most organised sports. While I don't mind them provided I'm allowed to not care about them in peace, if I'm forced to notice them they really irritate me.

(Yeah, I got forced to play them at school too. Rugby, mostly, for me. That was not fun.)

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

since live sports always overrun, this means that the TV schedule for the rest of the day is screwed up.

Can't argue with that - it's certainly an entirely non-spiteful reason for wanting sport to stop.

In the case of major tournaments, the number of matches shown doesn't depend on whether England are still in it. So I still claim that people who draw pleasure from England losing are all bastards :-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Completely irrelevantly, but this reminds me of a quote from Tony Maguire, an Irish spokeman for the Fire Brigades Union, talking about Labour:

"Are these bastards our bastards or just bastards?"

Regardless of the politics, you've got to admire someone who creates a soundbite which is 37.5% "bastard".

[al-fruitbat.livejournal.com]

It's not just overrunning, it's the blanket coverage. One time, the same bloody match was being shown simultaneously on bbc1 and ITV (because 'they'd both been covering it'). Whatever big tournament it was last, I remember being unable to find any radio stations that weren't talking about the foopball - it triggered me to buy an in-car MP3 player.

If the foopball weren't so moronically invasive, I suspect I'd loathe it less. I derive pleasure when england lose because of the release of the incessant foopball pressure - rather like lancing a particularly irksome boil ;-)

[kauket.livejournal.com]

Ohh you worded it so much better than me ;)

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

> So I think that the "I hate football and I hope we lose" is just dog-in-the-manger spitefulness.

I think you are taking too much offence. I dislike football; I'll be glad if there's less on. This is my opinion, and given in response to the original question.

However, it's not indicative of any active effort to reduce the amount of football on television or prevent you from watching it. You are free to enjoy it, and I am glad you do. You will not find me campaigning against it: that would be something very different.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Nothing against football, as a game. Everything against *football fans*, for whom it's not a game, but a gladiatorial contest to prove that WE are better than YOU. A lot of the worst examples of this gang-of-thugs mentality seem to be English. So, yes, I hope England loses the football, because until people like that are weeded out of the terraces frankly "we" don't deserve to win.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Everything against *football fans*, for whom it's not a game

In fairness, I think "for some of whom".

But I have to say that or Onebyone will come over here and thump me :)

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

It's a question of circular definitions. I don't participate in gangs of thugs, therefore I'm not really a football fan as such, therefore I can't be used as a counter-example to the above argument. Similarly for any other putative fan who might otherwise give footy supporters a good name.

And also I'm actually not a real football fan, in that I don't follow the sport at all other than to watch it when it catches my attention.

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Meh. I'm not into football, but I'm not rabidly anti-it. I even "watched" (by which I mean, had on as background noise) the England v. Switzerland match.

I agree that football dominating the telly is annoying - but be honest people, is there anything better on normally? And equally, is this phenomenon confined to football? Other sports seem to be just as bad (snooker, formula 1, tennis (though I like tennis), horse racing). Some days the same problem seems to arise with christian worship programs, which I have even less time for than sports.

I do think you know an unrepresentative sample of people though, and despite onebyone's rebuttal, it is to do with intelligence (albeit not a direct relationship). I'm not saying all football supporters are thick, but the educated bits of society tend to follow sport less IMO, perhaps because they were crap at it at school. Likewise geeky people, who I would hazard make up some unusually large percentage of your friendbase.

I go home now.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

not a direct relationship

I'm not going to argue over whether there's a correlation between liking football (or sport in general) and poor academic performance, because I don't think it's terribly important and I've never seen any figures.

What I was rebutting, I think, was a lazy and unsupportable assertion that there's a causative link.

It's times like this when I need a "Statto" icon

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

what percentage of the population cares ?

That's a very bateleur-esque space before the question mark. :-)

I've been thinking about this on and off for much of the day, and I would estimate the percentage as being between 40% and 70%. It really depends upon your definition of "cares"; there is a long and continuous scale between antipathy and, er, pathy. (Propathy?)

The source of my figure is largely based upon TV viewing figures. Important England football matches attract between 15 million and 20 million registered TV viewers, but there is sufficient doubt about the TV ratings methodology which does not take into account viewers at pubs and clubs that it is not unreasonable to increase that to between 20 million and 30 million. Then we play around with people who care about football but didn't see the match, or who saw the match but would not self-identify as caring about football, and we work out what proportion of the population is ineligible to answer one way or the other, and get something like "between 40 and 70". At least, I do.

At one end of the spectrum, I would estimate there are probably about 600,000 club season-ticket holders in the UK and perhaps 2%-10% of the population who would identify that football is one of the most important influences in their life (cf religion, their significant other and so on). I would pluck figures out of the air that perhaps 10% of men and perhaps 40% of women had antipathy towards football, with the rest being apathetic.