THE HERITAGE OF A FOOTBALL FAN

✦ Do you remember the first major sporting event you attended or how you became a passionate fan of your favourite team?

The Heritage of a Football Fan. Do you remember the first major sporting event you attended or how you became a passionate fan of your favourite team?

The role of a sports fan is a curious one, lifting us to euphoric highs, crashing us to devastating lows, almost always laced with a sizeable dose of frustration.

Heralding from the UK, football (yes, I insist on using the correct term as opposed to soccer!) borders on a religion for me, as it does millions more. I have been following my club side Birmingham City for over four decades now and have experienced far more lows than highs.

I was taken to my first game at St Andrews, Birmingham’s home ground, on March 21st 1981 when I was merely six-years-old. I can’t remember much aside from the holding my Dad’s hand

really tightly as we made our way to the ground through the masses of supporters, the noise when in the stadium, the smell of pipe tobacco and onions from the burger van. Sitting on hard wooden seats and the explosion of noise when we scored, which we did twice in a 2-0 victory over Manchester City.

It was magic and I was hooked. In subsequent years, the team would sink to real lows on and off the pitch, dropping down the leagues and almost going into bankruptcy on several occasions. Our previous owner is currently in jail and we are now owned, reputedly, by members of the mainland Chinese mafia.

But that is the very point of being a true football fan. Traditionally, you never really had a choice. Kind of like your name or nationality. Supporting Birmingham has been in my family for generations, it is our heritage

as football supporters, something I cannot, and would not, change.

My Dad had followed a similar journey, attending his first game around the age of six with his Dad and their next door neighbour, a man called Bill Clinton (no, not that one!) who was actually the groundsman at St Andrews. My Dad often fondly recalls a game against a Manchester United side boasting legends such as Bobby Charlton, Denis Law and George Best. Birmingham lost and were relegated as a result, thus setting off a trend of lifelong disappointment for him!

His Dad, my grandad, started going in the late 1930’s and his favourite side was the immediate post war one who won promotion in 47/8. My Dad’s Uncle Jack often recalled his favourite player as Alec McClure, a centre half who played from 1912 to 1924.

Supporting a team was always based on family tradition and where you were born – nowadays, with the saturation of online marketing, social media and a general penchance for celebrity culture, young fans are increasingly gravtitating towards only the biggest and most successful teams. Does this diminish their value as fans? Arguably, but it certainly doesn’t have the same communal grass roots connections as it used to.

Led by our father, my brothers and I have followed Birmingham home and away all our lives, often travelling hundreds of miles at a time to games. We donned fancy dress for an end-ofseason game in 1989, unfortunately were exposed to terrace unrest when hooligism was at it ugly peak, and sat in the rain, dejected on many an occasion. But we never wavered or considered following another team.

There have been good times too, of course; beating our bitter rivals Aston Villa on several occasions, beating the football royalty of Arsenal in a Cup Final, gaining promotion to the promised land of the Premier League in 2002 and many more – memories I will never forget and cherish until my dying day.

These are experiences that can be relayed to almost any fan of any sport and it is part and parcel that you take the rough with the smooth. Having that identity, that affiliation with something bigger than you, sharing the experience with friends and family alike is unlike anything else.

Back to the current day and my team Birmingham are still in poor shape, treading water. I have lived away from the UK for many years but still eagerly seek their result every game and get regular match updates from my Dad.

As the official club anthem states: “As you go through life, it’s a long long road, there’ll be joys and sorrows too. Though the way be long, let your heart beat strong. Though you’re tired and weary, still journey on... keep right on ‘til the end of the road.”

Amen to that!