One of my earliest memories is of going to watch Tottenham with my dad, when I was around five or six. I remember we got beaten 2-0 at home by Blackburn, back when Blackburn were good. I remember the Creme Egg that my dad bought me, and struggling with the fiddly bits of silver foil. I remember asking what would happen if nobody scored a goal, and being confused and even a little bit angry that such a thing as a nil-nil draw was possible. Barring a period of a few years as a punk-obsessed teen, I have been a keen Spurs supporter, and a follower of football in general, ever since.
And yet one of the things I am discovering during the current, indefinite footballing hiatus is how little I really miss football, especially Premier League football, and especially Tottenham.
I don't miss the dismal predictability of the same handful of teams winning every week, and I don't miss the cloying stink of filthy lucre permeating said teams.
I don't miss the limp disappointment of defeat, or the fleeting joy of victory.
I don't miss the endless false dawns and the knowledge that, unless Spurs are bought by Kuwait or something, they will ultimately always be unable really to compete.
I don't miss the sense of underachievement that clings to the club like the smell of wet dog.
I don't miss referring to the team as 'we', despite the knowledge that I personally played no part whatsoever in whatever happened on the pitch. Or maybe, if I was at the match, I did play a part by dint of helping fill the club's coffers, in which case why did I bother in the first place?
And I don't miss the cyclical nature of it all; the fact that the same process gets enacted every week, like Samsara, yet never ultimately arriving at any higher purpose. You lose one week? You feel shit, but hey - there is always the next week to get excited about. You win the following week? You feel good, but ultimately, well, so fucking what? What is the purpose of it all? Defeat bleeds into victory, which bleeds into defeat again, and on and on, until the end of the season. Until it all starts up again.
Death and rebirth. Death and rebirth.
Just as the soul yearns for nirvana, for freedom from the cycle of reincarnation, I am discovering that I can do perfectly well, thank you very much, without football.
When it all starts up again, I'm sure I will watch it. I'm sure I will be unreasonably pissed off when 'we' lose, and momentarily happy when 'we' win. But the whole thing seems to have become shrouded in a fog of futility I never previously knew was there, and I'm not sure whether, for me, that will ever really disappear now I am aware of it.
