Girls Who Love Boys Who Love Football

As the weekend approaches you begin to plan how you will spend those precious two free days at the end of your week.  Friday night will no doubt hold a few of those ‘quick after work’ drinks  that despite all of the best intentions will usually end messily and regrettably in the wee small hours, causing everything you had planned to do Saturday morning to be written off quicker than  Ronaldos new Ferrari. So….. This leaves you with Saturday afternoon, once the hangover has cleared and you no longer feel like you have a feral squirrel living in your head you run through the mythical to-do list we all have lodged in our brains (somewhere between this seasons ‘must have’ shoe and who is cheating on who in next weeks Desperate Housewives).  First on the list is for you and your significant other to head down to Ikea and pick out some new cushions – a job which contrary to popular opinion does take both of you as you will both be enjoying the comfort and beauty of the said purchase. Ikea may be followed by B&Q where you will both pick up the things you need to finish those ‘little jobs’ in the house, the ones you’ve been meaning to do since since you moved in 3 years! These tasks, on your to-do list are finished off by dinner somewhere nice to reward yourselves of a Saturday well spent and then on home for an early night, perhaps a bottle of wine and snuggles on the sofa…. Or so you thought! Unfortunately your to-do list has (as it does so often) forgotten the one obstacle that lays cunningly in wait for every female a minimum thirty-seven weekends a year…..… FOOTBALL!

We’ve all been thrown that fateful line “I can’t babe, footballs on this weekend” more times than we would care to remember. The instant the immortal F-word is said you know you will either be doing these much needed home jobs on your Jack Jones or you’ll be putting them on a indefinite back backburner until your old friend Snowy Mcblizzard returns and blesses the female nation with a country full of frozen and unplayable pitches. After the first dreaded sentence is uttered you begin a conversation, all the while knowing you have more chance of being on the Queens New Year Honour list than you do of winning this argument! Yet you arm yourself with your most convincing argument and go forth into No Mans Land… otherwise known as pointless conversation territory. After 10 minutes of “can’t you miss this weekends football just this once?” and “we never get to spend weekend days together – I never see you” all robotically replied to with “but it’s a big game darlin’ blah blahs taking on blahdi-blah in the Big Bothered Cup” to which you reply (whilst secretly thinking –  big game? It’s always a ‘big game’, do all the small games take place while we sleep or something?!) ,“but hunny you can see all the highlights and games (on the 40’000 sports channels you insist we have and then still watch 90% of matches down the pub – an action not dissimilar to owning a room full of Chloé and Balenciaga bags and then renting the same bags from the internet to take out with you!)  we never spend any quality time together”.  As ever your pleas fall on deaf ears as your beloved has already stopped listening and is transfixed on the first of the many football programmes that dominate your weekend TV.  So, as always you admit defeat, he will be going to the pub and you will be flying solo to Ikea – or the nearest shoe shop that catches your eye because lets be honest you weren’t exactly thrilled at the Ikea prospect in the first place and that was when there were two of you involved. Hand on heart the thought of wading through the masses of couples miserably dragging one another around makes a girl wish she had a newly painted wall so she could spend the day monitoring its drying progress! As ever you’re invited down the pub to join in the rituals of guzzling down pints and reflecting in great detail whether Drogba dived 3 minutes in or was he fairly brought down. Who gives a flying Jimmy Choo about who did what! Both arguments are completely academic as Neville brought him down and wasn’t the last man so there was no sending off and no goal came of it, play continues and the incident has less effect on the match than Charlie ‘never has a storyline’ Slater has on Eastenders… Yet somehow men in the pub are still found aimlessly deliberating long into the second half! So to sum up, you would rather pickle your eyes than sit through the proposed afternoons activities in the local, a decision that suits both parties equally but neither is likely to admit so. 

Lunchtime looms and your dearest heads off to the pub, after football focus of course, with promises (you know as well as he to be utter tripe!) that he’ll be home for dinner, he wont be too drunk “we can spend the evening however you want hunny-bunny”. Hunny-bunny my ass – you know only too well as the time arrives and so does he…horribly stinking drunk, literally! The delightful smell is a cross between Tetley’s Brewery and an ambassador for Woodbines, slurring his words like he’s had a mild stroke and walking like it too… what a treat! No need for his favourite beef stroganoff you so lovingly prepared as your darling boy in true Romeo style has come baring gifts from far away lands. AKA:  a donner kebab from Aslans.  Shakespeare would be so proud! He throws himself on to the sofa exhaling a sigh of relief and exhaustion only befitting to someone who had just returned from the 100 year war rather than an afternoon in The Queens Arms. The movie is about to start so as promised you and he settle down for snuggles on the sofa. No sooner has the film started you are blessed with your two least favourite movie accompaniments – adverts and a snoring buffoon to boot. You try to wake him insisting he’ll miss the movie but you know only too well that with 10 pints in his system, not even his favourite page 3 girl doing keepy ups in his teams shorts,topless on the coffee table would wake this sleeping beauty! You continue to watch your film, missing key bits of dialogue due to someone’s intrepid snoring- your film begins drawing to a end (with the added joy of adverts and sponsors there’s approx 50mins left to the dramatic conclusion) Suddenly as if by magic the sleeping buffoon awakes, grabs the remote and flicks to BBC1 without uttering so much as a word. You look in astonishment –at his side profile as his eyes are already firmly glued to the screen and he remains totally oblivious to the fact that he has just acted in a way that has made your blood boil to a degree only ever recorded on the sun. The BBC ‘adverts’ are playing and through gritted teeth you enquire “What in the name of Sarah Jessica Parker does he think he’s doing?!” “Match of the day babe” comes the nonchalant if not indignant reply. “But I, WE were watching a film, it isn’t over” “I know love but match of the day is starting and we can rent that film anytime, Match Of The Day’s only on now” (not true as they now repeat it at some ungodly hour on Sunday morning when only men of the cloth will be up in time to see it!). You continue to bleat on your regardless but you are shushed by the beginning of a tune you now find more morbid than the funeral march itself, the traditional ‘du duh duh duhs’ of match of the day. A sound that signals for him a thrilling 90 minutes of uninterrupted football and post match analysis/arguments – for you, bedtime…. Alone!

I know from my many footballing widowed friends that scenes like this are played out not only weekly each Saturday but more often than not it spills over to the Sabbath day as well. Not to mention those infuriating midweek intrusions of European and cup football that not only banishes your soaps from the TV schedule but banishes your boyfriend down the pub… yet again! 

Love it or loathe it football has become part of everyday life, latching on to the celebrity culture we appear to find ourselves in you cant turn on the TV or pick up a paper/magazine without seeing something about our beloved national game. Fair enough, like the average football fan the game may never quite enthral you like an episode of Sex and the City but in times like this with the credit crunch insisting on us spending  so many more nights in, its time to find common ground, so when needed you can watch, discuss and even perhaps enjoy the odd game without really even trying… or caring! The time has come ladies, the fight is over…. and football has surely won!