Football
Saint becomes a beast
Harry Coen
Fat, effete and 50, I left it rather late in life to become a football fan. If that means I am playing a part in the much-decried embourgeoisement of football, so be it. I can't get over my luck, even at the risk of being tackily fashionable h la Fever Pitch.
It is one thing to undergo the joys of an unlooked-for conversion; it is quite anoth- er to experience the white-hot intensity of reaching the epicentre of one's new-found faith. Finding myself at Wembley desper- ately willing — of all teams — Middles- brough on to Cup Final victory against Leicester City was like being a neophyte Catholic suddenly waking to find himself full in the panting heart of Rome, making eye contact with the Pope. I felt myself simultaneously in a serene state of grace and blind, overwhelming panic.
Just being there was a miracle. True fans will tell you that you do not get to choose which football team to support. And no one in their right mind would make a con- scious decision to choose Boro. I didn't — it just sort of rubbed off, almost without my noticing. In all its 120-year history, Mid- dlesbrough hasn't won anything of any note. Despite having some of the best international players in the world — Junin- ho, Ravanelli, Emerson — as well as home- grown talents such as Pearson, Mustoe and Highnett, the team plummeted to the bot- tom of the Premier League. And yet, some- how, we found ourselves in the Coca Cola final.
Wembley itself was strangely under- whelming, just a big place with a lot of grass in the middle. The on-pitch warm-up — some guardsmen marching about play- ing tunes, a squad of youngsters running about with a few acres of parachute silk and making pretty patterns — seemed somehow irrelevant, a distraction to take the mind off the palpitations that grew and grew as the kick-off approached. Almost without my noticing it, I was becoming part of a collective consciousness that encom- passed 80,000 people.
That itself seemed perfectly natural. The truly unexpected thing was the sheer inten- sity, uncompromising emotional involve- ment mixed with utter concentration, way beyond anything I have ever experienced even during the great moments of theatre. Every move by every player was in sharp focus, the sweep of the game, the struggle when opposing sides seemed deadlocked.
I became someone else. I cared desper- ately about those people on the pitch. I was in love with every Boro player and — to my astonishment — found myself loathing every Leicester one. My friends know me as a mild-mannered, nice man. Colleagues on the Catholic Herald often describe me as saintly. Not on Sunday I wasn't. Whenever a Leicester player thwarted one of ours, I was a ravening, hate-filled beast. Impartial- ity and fairness had no place in this new world.
Time seemed to have been abolished as the first half gave way to the second and then as the game went into extra time it accelerated. The explosion of joy when finally Ravanelli scored was of Wagnerian intensity. The vista of historic victory glowed before me — and when Leicester scored with only three minutes to go, my heart broke. The sense of loss shared by 40,000 fellow Boro fans was overwhelming; even now, I feel bereaved. And yet I still feel uplifted, even transformed. For those 120 minutes I had been part of a titanic struggle. I have been vouchsafed a vision, a glimpse of glory, a taste of tragedy. What convert could ask for more? I am begin- ning to understand what football is about. I have found faith — which is how I know that next Wednesday we're going to thrash them in the replay.
HanY Coen is editorial consultant on the Catholic Herald.
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