Mike Ward At Large
Rubbish Football Fan
PHEW, transfer deadline day, eh? All those crazy comings and goings, all that frantic, last-minute wheeler-dealing, all those feckless numpties stood outside training grounds, waiting either to spot their club’s newest signing or to do something amusingly rude behind the Sky Sports reporter’s back.
If you’re a proper football supporter, you’ll love the whole buzz of it. So I can’t be, can I? A proper supporter, that is. Because I’m afraid I find it all a big yawn. 
Once I may have beaten myself up about this attitude of mine, questioned my very right to call myself a fan. But not any more. These days, I realise, being a rubbish football fan is part and parcel of who I am.
My rubbishness also manifests itself in several other ways, of which these are just a few examples:
1) I know almost nothing about what’s happening at football clubs other than the Albion. And even less about those who play for them. My friend Daniel, who sits next to me at the Amex, will often turn to me before a game and point out they’ve got lethal striker so-and-so in their line-up, the one who’s been knocking them in for England’s Under-21s, and all I can do is go: “Oh, really? Gosh…”, as if I’ve got a clue who he’s banging on about.
2) I will sit through an entire football match without having the faintest idea what formation either team is playing.
3) I never, ever sing at matches. I’m 55 years old.
4) I really like the fact we applaud the visiting fans when the attendance figure is read out. I do love to see everyone getting on.
5) I don’t hate any other football club. My reaction when I hear fans chanting: “Go get your father’s gun, and shoot the Palace scum” is to think, no, I’m sorry, but that’s jolly well going too far, chaps.
6) I thought ex-England manager Steve McClaren was perfectly sensible to stand under a brolly during that match against Croatia in 2007. It was raining, for heaven’s sake. Did we really want a manager whose strategic capabilities didn’t even stretch as far as equipping himself for wet weather?
So, yes, those are just a few examples of my rubbishness as a football supporter. And the point I’m trying to make? I’ve no idea. Except to say that if any of those strike a chord with you, I hope it’s a comfort to realise you’re not alone.
In fact, maybe we should form our own branch of the Albion fan club, exclusively for the clueless. We could meet every month at somewhere mutually convenient. I believe there’s a nice cafe on the West Pier.
Mike Ward is the TV Critic of the Daily Star and the TV Editor of the Daily Express Saturday magazine. Hear him every Monday afternoon with Guy Lloyd on Brighton’s Juice 107.2
Twitter: @mikewardontv
