Nothing against football fans but can someone please explain what all the football chat is about??
I work with a few guys one in particular all he seems to do is watch and talk about football with anyone and everyone who will listen tending to use the lines like "We won" and such like,I happily explain to him "no 22 over payed idiots kicking a football won and you paid far to much money to view that match on tv!!"
These guys support teams from citys theyve never even been to and on their wages could never even afford to watch a real match if they wanted to!!
This seems very sheep like follower behaviour and rather daft.
I accept i have never been a sports fan and i understand everyone wishes to feel some sort of belonging to a community in some way shape or form.I follow similar with music and gig going,i however dont talk about it day in day out, i go to a gig talk about it for maybe a day after and thats it.These guys just bang on about the same old shit it drives me mad!!
So out of personal interest why do these guys feel the need to do this all year??

Hmmm, 'someone' is on the blob today....

Huh?? nah not my time of the month yet just yet Joker haha
Want me 2 pm u when i am??
I and a friend had a chat last night and just cant for the life of us understand the need for this long running pointless football conversation where everyone thinks theyre a team manager??
I thought maybe one of u brainiacs out there might have some insight why fully grown men seem to spend their whole lives living in a football fantasy??

I've with ya on not understanding most sports. Over here where I was raised our american football team was a massive presence in most peoples lives... except mine. I never understood why I should be so invested in watching a bunch of guys I'll never meet or know play a game that I'll never get to compete in. I can understand the statistics or numbers aspect, or if you're betting on the games, but I never understood why I should be hysterically obsessive just because I was born in a relative geographic range of some sports stadium.

Instead of watching the game, I'd go out and play with my friends, and instead of sitting around watching the game at a bar I'm far more interested in what girls are about who are just as bored watching the TV screens as I am.

I notice it at work..

Some dudes just bang on about the local football county FC, which tbh I couldn't give two fucks about.

Perhaps I should, as the boss diggs the team

Ok, here's what I really think.

Man has a natural instinct to fight and compete. As we have evolved sport has become a natural means to harness and channel those innate competitive instincts inside all of us.

Centuries ago the Olympic sports were derived from drills and disciplines practiced by soldiers, javelin throwing, shot put, wrestling etc...
Gladiators were approached by sword makers and blacksmiths and asked to endorse their brands of weapons and armour and to promote them to soldiers that were their fans, much in the same way that Nike would approach and endorse Cristiano Ronaldo today. Women of nobility that had been selected for their beauty and married off to impotent men of high status would swoon at the virility, heart and balls on display in the area, they’d seek out their favourite gladiators, idolise them and court them for the kind of primal carnal animal sex that their limp dicked aristocratic partners were usually unable or unwilling to treat them to, (the modern equivalent would be say…princess Diana and Will Carling or Zara Philips and Tindell).

As mankind has progressed sport's role in training soldiers for battle, creating that sense of community spirit etc and inspiring young men to train and to better ourselves as fighters (i.e soldiers of the state) has taken a back seat. Today it's more an outlet for those primal tribal instincts within us to compete and to know who the 'best' is.

Having said that I think being obsessed about anything that one doesn’t actively participate in becomes sad after a while no matter what it is (sport/music/arts/politics). Because it becomes about living life vicariously through someone/something else…and that’s never cool.

And an aside to all this is that for their complaints (about the ‘bloody’ football etc) most of the women I’ve known/hooked up with have kinda enjoyed becoming swept up in certain sports/events. I think in a strange sort of way women ‘get it’, they like to see men being men, (watching boxing/mma makes their pussies wet) and of course they like to be there with us and cradle our heads in their bosom when our team crashes out in a desperate penalty shootout after 120minutes of toe to toe battle, I think in a primal way it makes women feel ‘necessary’ too in a sense…they can become all maternal and nurturing and look after us and ‘cheer us up’.

Which in a sense is an extension of the primal role they would have occupied in primitive societies centuries ago, of coming along after the chaos of battle and picking up the pieces and putting the men ‘back together’ by providing them with ‘food’ and ‘sex’…accept these days that’s more likely to be done by taking us for a Chinese take away and then home for a nice long blow job…which of course is fine by me.

I think the majority of men need to feel appart of something and someone to follow. If you look at the language they use when talking about football it's always "we won this weekend". They actually become emotional attached to the out come of what these players achieve or fail to achieve.

Now there are some people who watch the game who appreciate watching people who are skilled at something perform. But they don't make an identity out of it. Enjoy watching a good match of football if you enjoy it but to many people are making an identity.

Personally I have never been bothered with football, never supported anyone nor really cared to watch it. However I've been invited to watch games in my life time and its all good fun but really over rated. I just think wouldn't it be much more fun to go and play a sport of have a hobbie and do it yourself and make that your life rather than stuff someone else is doing and watching.

Thanks Joker for the history lesson
I found you background info mega interesting and insightful as did my m8.I guess sport goes all the way back to Greece and the olympics as well as the Gladiators
Agreed Rabbid it is rather sad to think of some people i work with making a football team their identity.I like you would rather be out there doing something anything rather than living my life like that!!
What kind of existence must they have if they have to boost their self esteem through others achievements!!

Sounds to me like your problem isn't with football geeks per se but just with geeks in general?

What about people who bang on endlessly about star trek/star wars/world of warcraft/Lord of the Rings etc? Or superman and batman? Or obsure indie bands no one's heard of? Or that pride themselves on having a bunch of strongly held political and moral stances that they don't act on in any practical or meaningful manner?

Aren't they all just as sad as one another?

Isn't it just as sad to pride yourself on how much you know about a bunch of random bands as it is to obsessivly process stats about some rubbish non-league team's recent run of form?

I think being a geek is always sad. And I think the difference is that geeks seek validation simply by recording and repeating pointless information about a given subject to other geeks, while people with 'interests and passions' are ACTIVE, they use passions, hobbies and interests as a means to enrich their lives rather than using them to make up for a lack of EMOTIONAL richness (in one or more other areas)?

I love all of those, dont talk to anyone about it though! - except when me and Phil went out one night

have no interest in football