I’ve lived with the notion I’m a massive supporter of many and varied sporting teams from around the world but I’ve recently realised I’ve been living a lie – I’m actually not much of a fan.
The first clue came a little over two years ago when Luis Suárez transferred from Ajax to Liverpool.
I have loved the Reds since primary school. All my mates had chosen a team in what was then the First Division of English football so, never being one to stand firm in the face of peer group pressure, I made my own choice.
It wasn’t difficult. I choose teams that play in red unless compelled to do otherwise and Liverpool were carrying all before them in the 1970s. But the real reason I chose the Reds was that The Beatles were from Liverpool and that was more than enough for me.
Once I’ve picked a team in any competition the choice is for life. I never understood how anyone could make a decision to change teams. Some of my friends swapped their allegiances several times dependent on how their teams were performing but that was never an option for me.
So I suffered through the dark years in the 80s and 90s backing the Sydney Swans and the seemingly never-ending gloom of supporting the South Sydney Rabbitohs. When the Rabbits were removed from the NRL I didn’t have a team to follow. I could no more swap teams than I could swap children.
So when Luis Suárez pulled on a red shirt I felt decidedly unwell. I was disgusted by the Uruguayan’s deliberate handball against Ghana in the 2010 World Cup quarter-final and even more sickened by his celebration when the African team missed the resulting penalty.
Deliberately breaking the rules of sport is cheating and dressing it up as ‘gamesmanship’ should fool no one.
Later the same year Suárez chomped down on PSV’s Otman Bakkal while playing for Ajax and further solidified his pantomime villain reputation.
But when the Reds announced Suárez was coming to play at Anfield, some of my Liverpool-supporting mates were delighted. Yes, they thought he was an appalling human being but it had been a long time since the Reds had tasted premiership glory and a player of the calibre of the Uruguayan striker could make the difference.
I tried to ignore his presence at Anfield and get on with supporting my club but old Luis had other ideas.
He racially abused United’s Patrice Evra, then refused to shake Evra’s hand before the match when the two sides next met, all the time being supported by the Liverpool hierarchy.
It was too much for me. Because supporting another club is out of the question, I have been without a Premier League team for more than a year and will be until he moves on to find fresh meat.
Luckily, my other love in English football, Colchester United (still grimly hanging onto a place in League One), hasn’t come up with the readies to entice Suárez to move south.
When I told friends I was taking a sabbatical from supporting Liverpool I was accused of not being a real fan. I was outraged. I came up with increasingly outrageous scenarios in which my mates would do the same thing, given enough provocation.
Would they still support Liverpool if the team signed Kyle Sandilands? What if the club was bought by Al-Qaeda? What if the club invaded Poland? Their answer was always the same: if it results in silverware – bring it on.
Could this be right; I’ve been wondering ever since? Are real fans able to excuse anything if it means their team wins? I got my answer from rugby league.
In March Krisnan Inu drove Greg Inglis into the turf in what could have been an instructional video for those wanting to learn how to execute a spear tackle. Last week Richie Fa’aoso got in on the act, practicing several times on the Rabbits fullback to make sure he got it right.
Actually, I don’t believe either Inu or Fa’aoso intended to spear Inglis into the ground. The huge Souths number one is unbelievably difficult to tackle and doubtless none of the three tackles went as anyone intended. But they were dangerous, very dangerous, and the two men deserved their suspensions.
What I can’t believe, however, is the stupidity of a handful of Bulldog and Sea Eagles supporters who took to the comments page of the web reports of the spear tackles to peddle the moronic theory that Inglis, an attempt to win a penalty, deliberately positioned his body so that he was drive head first into the ground. Seriously.
Here’s someone called James Blake on Daily Telegraph.com:
“What should be Inglis’ punishment for assisting the tackle? He clearly wanted a penalty for lifting above the horizontal but timed his ‘assistance’ at the exact time Inu lifted.
Watch the replay, watch the flex in Inglis’ leg. There would be less than a handful of players in the entire competition with the strength to do that to Inglis if he didn’t want them to do it. Plus, it’s not in Inu’s game. But go ahead all of you hypocrites, crucify Inu all you will.”
Did you get that?
It was all Inglis’ fault and he should be punished for being speared into the ground. How does James know this? Because “it’s not in Inu’s game” (evidence to the contrary notwithstanding). What James meant to say is ‘Inu plays for my team so he did nothing wrong while Inglis plays for the opponents so it was all his fault’.
Similar comments appeared after the Souths v Manly match, after which respected sports doctor Nathan Gibbs warned someone will end up in a wheelchair if spear tackles are not wiped out of the game.
I’ve realised through all this James and my Liverpool-supporting brethren have all the logical consistency that I lack. James so loves his Bulldogs he wouldn’t hesitate to risk permanent paralysis to win his side a penalty and assumes everyone feels the same.
Well, I don’t, but then I’m not a true fan.
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