It returns long before you realised you missed it. A new football season. Just as a collective nation is sighing in resignation that the two weeks of sunshine at the end of May are unlikely to be repeated.
So nine more months of it. Sitting in slow moving traffic on a cold, damp Tuesday evening on the way to watch your team play out a bore draw. The struggling windscreen wipers indicating that perhaps the decision to come was unwise.
Memories of childhood excitement. My father's pipe smoke's comforting smell, and the obligatory tube of mints. The cheap, portable red radio pressed up against a near frozen ear to check the latest scores.
Gloved hands clutched around weak cups of tea in polystyrene cups. Screwed up faces, full of anxiety, braced against the ceaseless drizzle. Everyone suddenly outraged. The contagious, over-powering outlet to utter all grievances and frustrations. Howling obscenities and shaking your fist. Utterly outraged at the sheer unfairness of it all. The momentary elation of some dogged goal in the seventieth minute of the match. All soon to be forgotten after the full time whistle blows. Lying in bed that night wondering if that was really you; out of your seat, letting the world know exactly what you thought of the referee.
Reluctantly walking around freezing shopping centres on a Saturday afternoon with loved ones before Christmas. Skillfully slowing down on approaching Curries or William Hill to check the never-ending run of scores on the vidiprinter. (You never get to see what you want to know.) "Come on, you can look at the football later." A gritted teeth grunt of submission.
In the pub attempting to nurse a pint until the half time whistle. Endless discussion. The most passive of spectators fleetingly transformed into an opinionated braggart when discussing the merits or failings of a particular player.
The international language. The conversation starter. The conversation filler. The beginning of friendships. The testing of relationships. The collective feeling of all consuming grief. The collective feeling of all consuming jubilation. The extremities of a lifetime of emotions condensed into ninety minutes of watching twenty-two men kicking a ball around a muddy field.
You awake the next day and nothing will have happened. Your job will still be not as fulfilling as you hoped. The money worries will remain. Your hair will be thinning, your stomach growing. You will be another day older. But nothing mattered for that ninety minutes.
I slip into grotesque cliche, but, to use another one that's football! There's always disappointment (well, unless you support Man United, but the majority of them miss the point of it all...)
Somehow, the despair is where the appeal lies. Some unspoken feeling of knowing that if you can get through the crushing low of your team's defeat, then you can prepare yourself for almost anything. Placing it above all else in life in terms of its importance for that brief spell. Of course you get over the despair a lot more quickly than other tragedies that might befall you, but it's a snapshot of grief. It's akin to receiving an injection of meningitis to prevent you from contracting it. A lesson for life in general.
I have often spent time wandering why I care. Wondering why it matters. The escapism? The welcome distraction? Are these really big enough reasons? But looking at the sheer delight on faces and hearing the roar of absolute and unquestionable ecstasy when an important goal is scored, and feeling that emotion yourself has always answered the question.
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