I used to think soccer was a dull and dreary sport. I played it in primary school because it was compulsory for us to play at least one sport a term and all my friends were doing it so I decided to join in. My gigantic frame wasn't quite built for it and to this day i still have the co-ordination of a cow falling down a staircase when it comes to playing. I honestly didn't see what was so great about it. It's not like our National team is any good. The last time I heard of them doing anything worthwhile was when we won Afcon in '96 and I was still quite very young then. I just remember my dad making a fuss over something or other and I was off playing in my ever vivid imagination. It was just another thing that people passed the time with. What's so great about watching 22 men run around after a ball? They kick it around and no one ever scores and it's just a waste of time. A game is a whole 90 minutes!? In that time, you can chug through a good few chapters in a book, drink close to 7 beers, you can try, fail and try again with a lovely lady. It's even worse when they play extra time. Didn't you guys have enough time to flounder around the field, why do you need more? Why you gotta do me like this? That's and extra half an hour on top of that lifetime you've just wasted and then when you idiots fail to get anything past a man in a bright coloured jersey and oven mitts, you're gonna go and do a penalty shootout. WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST START OFF WITH THAT AND SPARE US ALL?!!! Logic, right?
That's how I thought for many years. No matter how much I tried to give it a chance, I just couldn't. That was until 2010 happened. We all know that June 11th, 2010 to July 11th will forever be the be all and end all of that year. That was when South Africa (us homies) hosted the World Cup. Going into it I was like ah you know, so what. It's a big deal and what not but it's for the economy, not for me. I wasn't too phased. When the opening match came along - the one where Tshabalala scored a cracker of a goal that put him on the map - I was more concerned about the case of beers we had and the pink bra I sneakily had a close up with around the corner. We scored the opener and we drank and then everything is a fuzzy memory after that but it was nice. It was festive. I then went on to watch a few games. We'd just gotten a new TV and that thing was as clear as poes, still is. I happened across a chap named Didier Drogba. Now that's not such a big deal. He's just another African player hoping to get his rocks off at trying to win the tournament and fail just like the rest of them. He plays for the Ivory Coast, the best team in Africa at the moment. He's a big man, he has a hand, he looks right. What drew me to him though was that he was playing with a cast on. He'd broken his arm somewhere along the way leading up to this and instead of sitting out of the tournament, he was on the field being a nuisance to the opposition defence. I thought that was pretty bad ass. Here's this chap, leading his team from the front and he's basically an invalid. I asked Ben about him - Ben's been up soccer's arse since he could walk, basically - and he told me that Drogba played club football with Chelsea. I didn't know what a Chelsea was. The only knowledge I had of anything remotely Chelsea was that they had some tasty buns. I went on to find out that they were a London club - I like me some London - and that they had recently won a few trophies with a charismatic Portuguese man as their coach. We went on to go through the month of 2010 and once it was over, I was quite interested. I started watching Chelsea play that season.
And now I'm here. Tweeting about every single goal they score, making remarks about the weird things they do and being an all out dick to Ben because he supports Arsenal - one of Chelsea's London rivals. I think I'm involved in football talk about 57% of the week now, which is a big thing. I watch a game about close to 4 times a week and I watch Premier League talk shows every day. I start my day off with Sky Sports News because it has the hottest female anchors talking to me about Chelsea. I watch as many Chelsea games as I possibly can, often opting to not go anywhere that day just so I don't miss it. I don't know how it escalated to this point. I mean all I did was see a man with a green cast on and then all of a sudden I'm singing Blue Is The Colour around the house after a win. I'm not the biggest, most knowledgeable soccerman, I leave that for the professionals like Ben and Mattian but I do know as much as I can about my team. See for me, it was never about supporting a team. I started watching because I saw a man I admired and followed him to his work place. Drogba is probably the biggest African hero. In fact, he's one of the biggest in the world.
Everyone knows what a great person he was on the field, leading Chelsea and his country to many memorable victories but he's also made a name for himself off of it too. He's invested over 2.5 Billion dollars in humanitarian money, which is a kakload if you consider that we still struggle to donate 5 bucks to hobos. He's built a hospital for the sick. He built schools and he even stopped a civil war. That's a big deal. For me, it was never about finding a team so I could be part of the social club of claiming to be a sportsball watcher, I just liked what I saw at Chelsea. They were lethal, did what they had to do and had a hero up front.
Once you find a club that appeals to you, it is impossible to not be drawn in. It's like falling in love. In fact, that's what it is. You cry during the triumphs and you cry during the defeats. It's an emotional rollercoaster ride that will take you far and wide in the space of 90 minutes. I go through a series of emotions during a game. I get mad bleak when they score against us and the next minute I'm doing burpies from excitement and elation after we score. I have done actual burpies after a goal. It's just something I can't seem to do much justice t with these words. Think of the one thing that you truly love, how it makes you feel at any given moment. How you feel when you're with it or when you're doing it or when you're eating it. For many people, that's what watching their team is like. It's a weird thing to think about, I'm a little like "what?" right now as I write this but that's what it is. Something you can't perfectly understand until you're deep within it. I tell people all the time, don't try just jump into soccer and say that's who you'll now support just because they're on. Find something to relate to. Find a common ground. Identify with something or someone on that pitch and that will never ever steer you wrong.
I hope this has shed some light for you there Bobbhino because it just made me all the more happier to be a Chelsea man.
Sent from my BlackBerry®
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