A Little Brit Of What You Fancy

I would not go so far as to say I hate the summertime – the ten o’clock sunsets up on the hill where I live are truly a sight to savour, and Last Orders in my local seems to last for a little longer – but there hasn’t been a gigantic amount to get worked up about in the sporting universe these last few weeks, which creates its own problems for the chronically addicted, and it will be a blessed relief when the (British, obviously) football season comes to the rescue.

In contrast to most enthusiasts, I have to say I find the transfer-window speculation crushingly dull as a topic of conversation, especially since most of it turns out to be just that, with even the superpower clubs being a lot more hesitant to splash the cash this weather.
I have elaborated at length in this space previously about my conflicted feelings of vague guilt as a long-time Man City fan, this nagging sensation that it’s slightly obscene and disgraceful to suddenly have billions to spend on other clubs’ players purely on the basis of a few Arab fat-cats’ largesse, after decades where one could at least luxuriate in the moral high ground no matter how grim things were on the pitch. 
The thinking was that no matter how many trophies the mighty marketing machine known as Man United won (or ‘bought’), there was something irredeemably naff and pathetic about being unoriginal enough to declare yourself a supporter of theirs, an impression confirmed by the apparent fact that 99.999% of Irish people born later than about 1985 seemed to be United devotees, leaving one wondering what possible satisfaction they could derive from winning, and how lifeless and repetitive their Monday conversations in the schoolyard must have been, devoid of any fans of any opposing clubs to debate with.
A smallish but vocal minority continued to follow Liverpool, usually on hereditary grounds, while Chelsea’s lavish spending singularly failed to bring them many converts (most of the Chelsea fans I know are relics of the glam/punk era who fell for them in the early ‘70s and are now well into the foothills of middle age). Arsenal, for a club of their immense stature and vast trophy-winning capacity, were similarly under-represented. There was the occasional fearless maverick who pledged allegiance to mid-ranking (if still, by any measure, massive) clubs such as Everton, Spurs, Leeds and Villa. And of course, Celtic fans seemed to become more and more plentiful the further one descended the socio-economic spectrum (intriguingly, the club are despised with a venom by what might be described as the west-Brit tendency in affluent urban Ireland, which perhaps tells you more about their set of attitudes than it does about Celtic).
But, in general, one could – and still can – take any random sample of a dozen football fans and be reasonably certain that a majority were of United persuasion. The only other Man City fans I ever ran into tended, more often than not, to be lunatics, or eccentric at best.
Now, with the landscape transformed beyond recognition, City – trophyless between 1976 and 2011, lest we forget – are suddenly in a position of unprecedented financial advantage over every other club on the planet. And, mysteriously, they still don’t seem to have a whole lot of fans outside of Manchester itself. If you need to test this one out, count the amount of replica City shirts you see as you go about your wanderings this week. They remain quite a rare sight. 
This, combined with the similar phenomenon witnessed in relation to Chelsea when their financial ship came in, lends credence to the theory that United’s continuing stranglehold on the general footballing public’s affections is based on more than just success and trophies and keyring sales figures in the Far East. It suggests that their pre-eminence still owes much to the unique mystique attached to the club since the Busby Babes era, the Munich tragedy and the Best/Law/Charlton interlude, an aura which has never quite disappeared, even during the lean years.
It is certainly true that United retained a colossal level of support during the lengthy drought between 1967 and 1993 when they failed to win a single League title (although many fans elected to keep quiet about their allegiance until the trophies started flooding in), and it’s also true that most of their devotees kept the faith during the slightly shorter title drought of 2003–2007, which almost qualifies as ‘sticking with them through thick and thin’. As such, as long as they’re genuine and not just along for whatever social cachet Red Devil status bestows on one these days, they are entirely entitled to rejoice in whatever triumphs lie ahead. 
Which all brings us to the question of whether or not United will be toppled from their perch this season, a conundrum to which I will return in two issues’ time. In the interim, the Scottish season is about to commence, a prospect which I’m perfectly aware bores a lot of people stiff before it even starts, though I always find it inherently fascinating for what I admit are hereditary reasons. My formative experiences of club football were almost entirely shaped by my two or three annual visits to Edinburgh as a kid, watching Hibs test the patience of the saints (and, in many cases, sinners) who followed them, driving the multitudes to drink (or, in many cases, smack, Valium and Buckfast).
Indeed, from the age of eight until well into adulthood, my entire existence was more or less devoted to Hibernian FC as a concept, to an extent which seems quite insane in retrospect (I once took a train up from London to catch the season’s opening home fixture, which entailed missing out on a Nick Cave gig, and there is no greater sacrifice).
I would be the first to admit that my devotion to the cause is nowhere near as rabid now as it was in my teens and early twenties. Possibly this is a natural response to years and years of being beaten down, as it eventually sinks in that third place and a decent Cup run is the absolute summit of one’s aspirations. Hibs have repeatedly built vibrant, exciting teams which briefly look capable of challenging or even surpassing the Old Firm, then proceed to get dismantled overnight as the two Glasgow dreadnoughts simply fleece the best players at will, leaving an endless uphill struggle to replace them with callow youngsters or mediocre but affordable veteran journeymen who hopefully won’t let you down too horribly. When this process is repeated ad nauseum over two or three decades, it begins to wear down one’s zest for the challenge, and this season’s opening fixture (against Celtic, at our place) already begins to look like a hiding to nothing, or a false dawn at best. I am fully aware that the title will not be on its way to Leith this year, or next year, or the year after that.
Nonetheless, I am going over in about a month’s time, and intend to bring my nine year-old twins, who hopefully will experience the same irreversible electro-chemical charge in the brain that befell me when I first visited Easter Road at roughly the age they are now. And, if the stars align, they might someday come to feel that all the frustration, despair and disillusionment was worth it, when the club gets purchased by a posse of Arab zillionaires who quickly wave the cheque-book and decide to do unto Celtic and Rangers what they have been doing to us for years. Or, better still, hand-pick the best players from Real Madrid and Barcelona, building a force that no rival on Earth can resist. In the highly unlikely event that this ever happens, it will be nothing to feel guilty about. To paraphrase Antoine Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince: “It is the time you have wasted on your team that makes your team so important.”