Annoying Things Non-Football Fans Say During A Match

Euro 2016 has started, and we’ve already had an absolute barn-stormer of a goal, some predictable off-pitch violence from fans who can’t handle their ale, and commentators being maddeningly dreary.

There’s 51 games to watch at this tournament, which means a lot of non-football fans are going to have to sit through a lot of games. They inevitably won’t care about 98% of them, so they might talk a lot. They might say some annoying things too.

Most football fans are too caught up in the game to explain why they’re annoyed at certain things, so let me explain on their behalf. If you’re actively trolling your football-loving friends, then feel free to read this, and then completely ignore it while you wind your pals up.

And there’s going to be some straight-forward explanations of some rules for you, if you care.

“It’s only a game”

This is a classic line. Of course, football is only a game, just like TV shows are just people pretending to do things; just like films are just a load of stuff mad up by someone. Music? That just a bunch of frequencies hitting your ear. Art? That’s just someone doing arts and crafts. In the same way that people are just bags of meat, you opening up to someone bravely is just someone saying a bunch of words… you get the picture by now.

People cry at films, wouldn’t miss their favourite TV show for anything in the world and go apoplectic when someone spoilers them, can’t put a book down, feel moved by a photograph… football can be frustrating and boring to watch sometimes, but occasionally, it is one of the best improvised dramas televised live, you could ever hope to watch. You get caught up in it. Of course, the non-football fan doesn’t know the whole back story and detritus that makes football fans foam at the mouth, and give particular matches huge gravity, and it’d probably bore the non-fan half to death if you tried to catch them up to everything.

Suffice to say, football is part soap-opera, part rolling news, part freestyle rap/improvised jazz, part OH MY GOD THAT GOAL WAS AMAZING! If you can understand that on a basic level, you might be able to see why football fans get so worked up over things. Belittling it to ‘just’ a game, is irritating, just like anyone pointing out that the thing you love is ‘just’ something that reduces to something basic.

“All fans are nothing but hooligans”

Usually, the non-fan will hear some lads singing loudly in the street twice a year, and do a formula in their head that equates to “this must happen all the time — god I hate football fans.” When they see footage of fans fighting during an international tournament, they cluck “See?!”

Some football fans are massive arseholes, for sure. However, football is the most popular sport in the world, so it’s going to attract some dicks.

How popular is football? Take, for example, Manchester United. Their stadium holds 75,000 people. That’s a music festival’s worth of people. In their treble winning season, they played (home and away), over 60 matches. So that’s over 60 music festival’s worth of people in a season.

Each season, around 7,000 football teams play English league matches, every weekend, and in mid-week matches. Thousands of games, two or three times a week, and the vast majority without incident. The non-football fan has sometimes convinced themselves that all football attracts violence. Anecdotally, I’ve seen more fights at music festivals than football games, yet music festivals aren’t ‘hooliganism’, they’re isolated ‘dicks’ aren’t they? Football’s much the same.

99.9999999% of football is watched by people who don’t even drink during a match. They watch it on telly at home while dipping biscuits in their tea. They go to games, have a pie, and then go home. They have a pint at half time, and then go make their tea. In fact, it’s remarkable that something as large as football is as invisible as it is. You don’t see most football fans, but you do remember the dickhead ones. That’s understandable — but if I’m trolling you, I’ll wait for you to tell me about your interests and focus on all the dicks who share your interest.

You might not think tribalism appeals to you, but if you’re into politics, Apple vrs Android, Nike over Adidas, PlayStation vrs Xbox, Star Wars against Star Trek, or whatever, it does.

Apart from who you support, most of watching sport is playing Pooh Sticks. It’s choosing sides for no reason and seeing what happens. There’s so little violence involved — don’t be fooled by a bit of coarse language.

“Why is he rolling around like that?” (or any other comment about diving and play acting)

Most sports don’t penalise fouls, of a fashion. If you watch boxing, there’s no value to going down. If you watch rugby, players aren’t awarded anything if they get tripped, unless someone gets punched in the face.

Play acting, and trying to con the referee is annoying for many football fans, but like pantomime villains, it is also something to be enjoyed. Football is a game of craft, improvisation, and occasionally innovation. However, it is also camp, preposterous, and populated by deceitful arsewipes who we love to boo.

The game is now so fast, that referees can barely keep up. Players will try and con the referee into getting other players booked, sent-off, giving penalties away, and all that. It is part of the reason why football is so fun and so maddening.

If you’re saying “look at him, the soft shit”, you’re missing the point. Football isn’t about toughness — it’s frequently a card trick. If you said “look at him, being annoying”, then of course — but that’s part of the draw.

“Why doesn’t he just kick it in?”

If only football was that simple. Even though goals are commonplace in football, they’re really quite difficult to achieve. The ball is round and human heads and feet are imperfect, which means clear goalscoring opportunities end up in the stands. And there’s fatigue. And there’s three other players trying to kick the shit out of you while you have a shot. And there’s a goalkeeper who can use his hands and charge at you like a lunatic in the process. And thousands of people watching you, heaping pressure on you. Goals are hard. That’s why everyone goes crazy when they go in.

And you do realise that, if a player could score, they would. It’s kinda the point of football.

“Can’t you miss this one match? You’ve watched loads already”

Football is a thing best enjoyed while it is happening, like The Oscars, or Game of Thrones. Some people go crazy for The Brit Awards, but wouldn’t dream of watching it on catch-up. Some people go nuts for Wrestlemania, Apple events where they show off a new gadget. Loads of people wouldn’t dream of missing a live episode of Eastenders. There’s loads of things you can’t miss. Football is the same. It isn’t shown live on terrestrial television too often, so you grab it while you can.

And live international football tournaments are special. Football fans want to watch as many games to see if there’s an upset. They want see the eventual winners from the start, so everything has context. They just really like watching football matches that haven’t been played before, because every game is different. It’s all back story. Personally, just tuning in for the final is like watching the last Hunger Games without seeing any of the rest — it just feels a bit pointless and makes something that could be engrossing into something mildly entertaining.

So, if you can’t fathom why someone is going to politely refuse your offer to go and see Karen’s baby, or your dad who has been ill recently, because they want to watch two teams or countries you’ve barely heard of, you might have to take that on the chin, if you don’t follow the back story of football, against someone who does.

“It’s all about money these days.”

The players are spoiled millionaires are they? Does that stop you from watching films or going to gigs? You heard about workers being exploited building stadiums? Did that stop you from buying a smartphone built by children in a sweatshop? Has it stopped you buying trainers and clothes?

We live in a capitalist society, which means a lot of people get fucked over by business. If you’ve managed to opt out of all these things, good for you. Most people haven’t. Money makes wonderful things happen sometimes, and us consumers have to make our peace with it.

Are footballer’s paid too much? In the same way artists, actors, musicians, TV presenters are. We’d all love it if doctors and nurses were paid millions, but they’re not. Fact is, entertainment has a lot of money thrown at it, football included. It isn’t a case of ‘should footballers be paid what they are?’, but rather, ‘does society value the wrong things?’ or something.

As we’re talking about football, football creates countless jobs for other people, and without the players, it wouldn’t. It might seem like a lot of money for a bunch of people kicking a ball around, but then, well paid actors keep entire studios in business — should they be paid so much just for pretending to be someone else for a bit?

The question you’re asking is deeper than football.

The Offside Rule

Heard of ‘tit-lining’, or ‘tip-lining’? Or ‘goal-hanging’? Basically, the offside rule was put in place to stop people just hanging around the goal, and letting someone hoof it up to them so they can tap it in.

The offside rule means that the game goes end-to-end, with people passing the ball and doing fancy shit, and makes goals harder to come by, thereby increasing their currency. Loads of sports have similar rules in place.

If you want the gist of it, it is this — Someone passes the ball to you. There needs to be a defender level with you, or between you and the goalkeeper, or you’re offside. You’re on or offside when the player kicks the ball to you, rather than when you receive it.

That’s it. It gets more complicated to work out when the game is played at speed, and there’s stuff about being onside when the ball is played, but you’ll pick that up if you can be arsed.

The Professional Foul

A professional foul is when someone’s through on goal with only the goalkeeper to beat, and a defender legs it after the striker, and tackles him without trying to win the ball. Basically, if someone decides to stop the player (while they’re in a clear, goalscoring position with no-one else around) rather than stop the ball, they can get sent off.

Now, like a lot of rules in football, it is down to the interpretation of the referee, which is why people shout at the telly or from the stands. You might think it was a professional foul, but the referee might not (and visa versa). That’s it really.

Any other questions?

Just ask me on Twitter. And no, I’m not trying to force you to like football. Do what you like. Hopefully, this at least makes some sense of some stuff that you’ve been puzzled by, or clarifies why people have been telling you to ‘shut up’ when you’ve said something.

Of course, they could be nicer about it, but that says more about your choice in friends and partners that it does about football itself.