Boys Don’t Cry
(kicking the new yob myth into touch)
During the last couple of years football
supporters have been given plenty to laugh about; even we have, in the face of our own
team’s less than funny failings. I speak of the tv trend of focusing on the
fans’ faces when their team has just let them down. The team has fallen agonisingly
short, scraping a point where the win was needed, losing when even a draw would have been
enough or, worst of all, doing all that was asked of them while results elsewhere have not
gone their way. That yearned for title has once more been snatched from one’s grasp,
that dreaded spectre of relegation has triumphed at the death. Whereas previously at times
like these the tv cameras would have fixed on the shattered players, lying dazed on the
grass before hauling each other to feet to begin a weary trudge to the tunnel,
handclapping over heads in acknowledgement of the faithful, now it is that disappointed
faithful itself who are the focus of attention at these fateful moments. They duly blub,
and supporters of any other team watch and smirk. Soft, they say, as the camera takes in
its regulation ration of a pretty girl, a young facepainted kid with dad, some teenagers
in football tops and stout fellows wearing silly wigs, in each their turn sobbing at the
cruelty of this game. We laugh at them.
I think I first saw this spectacle a few years
back, when I lived in Leeds and Big Ron inspired Sheffield Wednesday to crash ridiculously
from a completely safe position on the last day of the season. The camera played for
minutes along those rows of tearful faces and I watched utterly absorbed. Since then
it’s become a commonplace, and we have grown used to the sight of a choked Toon Army
after another crumple under pressure and a lachrymose Roker snuffle at about biannual
intervals. That’s for them though; you wouldn’t catch us doing a thing like that
then, would you?
It is but two years since we suffered the
dreadful indignity of relegation, of course. After a two month beaten run our fate had
been sealed in all but name, yet we limped on on a rollercoaster of hope (if you can limp
on a rollercoaster), hopes soaring only to be repeatedly dashed. It boiled down to the
game against a poor Portsmouth side at home, where only a win would keep at least the
mathematicians amongst us happy. We predictably capitulated. We were down. After a patchy
attendance record that season, I had made a point of trying to be there when the crunch
came, and I was glad I was. This was the other side of the experiences of the last two
playoff games the season before. How could I put those highs into context without
experiencing such lows? How would we even know light except for darkness?
Such a Zen attitude is all very well at two
years’ remove, and it is comforting to be able to write about these events as
history. At the time it was a little harder to get a perspective. No-one was shocked; it
had for a while been a question of when rather than whether. I left the ground, wanting no
part in any applause and made my usual furious strides up the steep hill to Manchester
Road station, knowing that if I was quick enough there was a sub-ten minute pint before
the train came. It was raining; you really need the rain on the walk up that hill to ram
the futility of it home. Walking ahead of me I saw one of our most frequent travellers (I
will spare any blushes), an ever-present that season, taking big steps, head down, not
looking in front of him or to either side. Concerned about his welfare I quickly bade my
bus-catching brother goodbye and went to catch the fellow up. I undoubtedly said something
ridiculous, along the lines of "cheer up." This got no response, not even a look
in my direction. I tried again, maybe an "it won’t seem so bad in the
morning" (no, it might feel worse). Again silence, then a pause, then all of a
sudden, "tell you what, Firmo. Shall we kick the shit out of my umbrella?"
I quickly concurred; the brolly bought it.
Uninformed visitors to Burnley that night may have been perturbed by the sight of two
large men taking runs in the rain at an umbrella and kicking it with fury. It was soon a
wasted mess of metal and man made fibre, black and ruined, in the drenched gutter at the
side of the road. It never stood a chance against the two of us. Poor umbrella: it never
did us any harm. But it did make us feel better. We hurried up that hill for a quick
drink.
And that was my closest ever encounter with
football violence out of the way. Spleen was vented on an inanimate object. This is always
better than bottling up those horrid emotions of anger and frustration. One is reminded of
workplace practices in Japan, where office basements come stuffed with dummies which
frustrated workers may feel free to pummel. I was a little disappointed that the recent
redevelopment of Turf Moor did not stretch to such a useful facility. I wonder which faces
could have most popularly adorned those dummies?
On the train back we sat and cracked jokes, as
Burnley supporters tend to do at darkest moments. The older types commented on how well we
seemed to be taking it. But of course, as a twenty something who neglected to get into
Burnley until my late teens, I had never known relegation before. Every season in which I
had followed, we had finished higher than the season before. This situation at least had
novelty value. I just didn’t know what the correct reaction was supposed to be.
Taking solace in the bottle (or rather, the hand pump) seemed to be a sensible next step.
Once we had drunk our fill of Preston we went home. I can’t say I can recall the
journey, which suggests that this trip was no different from any other, a mixture of
arguments, songs and absurd conversations.
When I got home, however, I cried like a baby. I
can admit it. I wept and wept and then I went to bed and woke up the next day feeling very
hungover and thoroughly ashamed. With the passage of time I have grown not just proud to
be able to talk about my behaviour that night, but also proud to have actually done it.
What is the point in not crying when you go down? You may as well not cheer when you go
up. Not to have wept bitter tears of disappointment that night would be like not dancing
on picnic tables outside Ye Olde Swiss Cottage after Wembley less than a year before. I am
glad I marked our relegation as emotionally as I marked our promotion, for relegation is a
terrible thing. I even wish I had done it in public, there, at the match. That would be
proper. We do not wait till we get home to celebrate, do not dance on tables only behind
closed doors. If it is true that promotion back to the big time is what we all crave, then
it follows that any reversal of that progress is grave news indeed, and should be felt
accordingly.
So now when I see these sobbing fans of other
clubs on tv I try to curb my smirking ways and find it in my heart to feel some sympathy.
Admittedly it never lasts for long; these people are lightweights when all is said and
done. If watching Newcastle brings them to tears they should try bloody watching Burnley
for a lifetime. Anyway, as a club we boast probably the most famous post match blubber of
all time. I refer, of course, to that woman who cries on tv after the Orient Game. I hope
she got royalties for her many repeat showings. I wish I had been her agent. A lifetime of
opening local supermarkets could have followed.
And next time you see me leaping about on a
picnic table outside a pub, which I hope will be soon, don't look on me too harshly. I
shall just be making the most of an all too brief moment of transcendental glory, in the
certain knowledge that I have earned the right to do so, all the while knowing that I will
wake up the next morning to the thought that, some day, I will have to pay for that
pleasure all over again.
