What are football fans made of? (Football in General)

Member Name: beckstrous

Product:	Football in General
Date:	01/07/02 (29 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's the wonderful game...

Disadvantages: If I were a rational person I might tell you...

One day last year, I got up at 7am and spent nearly seven hours travelling halfway up the country. I then stood shivering on a concrete step for just over an hour, a stewed cup of tea in one hand and a soggy service station sandwich in the other. Back to the car after that, and a further five hours crawling back home along the virtually snowbound M6.

It was December 29, 2001 - and Woking FC were playing Morecambe FC in the Nationwide Conference. Woking lost 3-1, this being the seventh in a run of nine away defeats on the trot.

I saw them all, as a Woking fan. My friends often asked me why. I often asked my travelling companions why. Even after several end-of-season beers we weren't quite sure why we did it, but we knew that we had to. I don't think football fans are made of the same stuff as everyone else: somewhere in the bit that makes human beings logical and rational there is something missing.

We arrived at Morecambe at half time. Woking had taken the lead (we'd missed that), and Morecambe had equalised soon afterwards (and we'd predicted that). It seemed inevitable that defeat would follow, and I would later call this my worst away trip of the season. My worst away trip ever, even.

Six weeks later, I made the short journey from Surrey to Hertfordshire to watch Woking play Stevenage Borough, who remain our biggest rivals in the Conference. We dreaded the tenth away defeat in a row, and the Boro supporters looked forward in anticipation.

We won 4-1, but true to form, we continuted to be rubbish for most of the rest of the season. Stevenage usually attracts quite a large crowd - many of whom would have been too sensible to travel to Morecambe in between Christmas and New Year - but I think that victory tasted sweeter for fools like me, the ones who really had seen - and would continue to see - the worst the team had to offer.

The season meandered towards its conclusion and Woking, inevitably
, flirted with relegation right until the final fortnight. We blew a great chance to climb to safety at home to bottom-of-the-table Hayes, and lost. Then, away to Dover - another side in the dogfight - we only managed to draw.

All this meant that on April 13th 2002, Stalybridge Celtic v Woking was to become a vital match. Psychologically (if not mathematically) it was almost a relegation decider: it seemed certain that whoever lost would go down. Celtic occupied the first of the relegation slots, with Woking hovering nervously above them on goal difference alone. This was our second-last away game of the season, and we had to win.

More supporters had made the trip to Greater Manchester than you would expect. The football club laid on cheaper coach travel, and even people who didn't often follow the team on the road made the effort.

The ground was filled with nervous tension, and we stood together in the spring sunshine, singing, shouting and chanting from the warm-up to the final whistle. Someone dragged a couple of wheelie bins together and banged on the lids - totally out of time, but with the right intentions - for 90 minutes.

On the pitch, it was fits and starts. Celtic were afraid to play, Woking afraid not to. And then Barry Moore - who'd cost us nothing from Hayes the previous summer and looks a bit like Roberto Carlos if you squint a lot - snaked past four players and crossed the ball. Roscoe D'Sane poked it home. We'd scored. Text messages, phone calls ... yes!!!

Nervous, nervous clockwatching. Is it over yet? Half-time. Spilt coffee, greasy chips. Don't stop the noise, not for a minute.

Second half. Will we manage it? Do the players know how important it is? If we stop singing, will they stop playing?

Penalty. This could seal it. Charlie Griffin steps up, and hearts are in mouths. Opposition players try to put him off, but he's determined. The keeper gets the merest
of touches but - yes! - it's there: 2-0. He runs over to the terraces and is mobbed by supporters spilling over to greet him in a spontaneous explosion of relief. Charlieboy! Somehow, Becks against Argentina - wonderful though it was - didn't have quite the same effect.

Woking stayed up. Stalybridge didn't. We were 19th, with the third worst defence in the league (70 goals conceded). Our worst Conference season ever.

But we'll be there next year, travelling not to Stalybridge but to Halifax, Scarborough and Southport - and Morecambe again, of course. I guess days like 29 December 2001 are more common than that wonderful victory in Manchester, but even if you have just one of those a season you'll keep on doing it because nothing can replace being part of something like that. It is impossible to fall out of love with football on a permanent basis.

What are football fans made of? God knows!

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