Does anyone else really dislike football?

[wildwoodflour]

Not a TAAT but I've just replied to a thread about things we don't like, but wish we did. My thing was football, and I wondered if anyone else feels the same?

I've never enjoyed anything to do with football, but since being with DP I absolutely despise it. DP got back into playing it after a hiatus a couple of months ago, and now I have noticed lots of nuances that MAKE me dislike it, which I hadn't thought about before.

This is what I put;

DP loves it. Plays for a local team every week and practices several times a week. Follows it. Watches England and local city each time they play.

This will sound melodramatic but believe me it isn't given some things that have occurred-it actually gives me trauma responses thinking about it. The days DP has playing then socilaising with the team are so horrendously boring I'd honestly rather be more or less anywhere. They talk about nothing else, they are so loud, they gamble over each other and they go on and on and on and I HATE it, hate it!

I wish I liked it. Wish I could enjoy the days out DP has, wish I looked forward to the matches, wish I enjoyed watching England, wish I loved socialising with DPs team.

I am a sociable person, love having a good chat, laughing, being a bit silly, I'll even drink far too much booze on occasion like they seem to do every week-but I CANNOT gel with them at all, any of them! They seem to be a different species. I have nothing to say to them nor they me.

I can just about enjoy being at the pub with DP while the lionesses are on probably down to copious amounts of prosecco.

But I don't generally like it. I hate it.

I am very judgmental about it too and this isn't like me- generally I am very much a live and let live sort of woman. I like doing/seeing/experiencing 'new' things even if they're not my thing. I don't clutch pearls at many things that I see bother people both in real life or on MN, but football and all that goes with it I do. I find the whole thing immature, silly, puerile, idiotic even. I know I am being unreasonable and I am sure many good people play, follow and enjoy it-I know I am-please anyone who follows football on here don't think I don't know that I am being awful-I do. B

But things have happened with my relationship due to it, and also, unrelated to anything personal, I see grown-ups acting in a certain way, showing off, the chants, the shouting- and talking none-stop about 'Fuh'-ie' for HOURS and hours and it has left me so lonely and upset so many times. Last time I joined DP at an event I was so so fed up, I was exhausted, hungry, tired beyond belief, couldn't stomach another alcoholic drink and so so bored. Such a killjoy when I am normally nothing like that. I asked DP for us to go home just a little earlier than scheduled and it was a no (and before anyone says why didn't I just leave, I couldn't, we live quite far apart and I had nowhere to go). It's taken much of my relationship and DP is a different person since playing.

I genuinely 100% wish I could join in! I really wish I could talk to everyone and enjoy it, wish I liked it, wish I 'got' it.

But I don't.

That was cathartic!

Hate it. I've turned down dates with people who are football mad. It dominated my childhood, no way would i allow it to dominate my adult life too.

I think I would mind it less if it wasn’t occupying so much of the airwaves, if it didn’t appear on tv so much, and then reiterated in endless commentary in late night discussion recap shows, and entire sections of newspapers. I mean, fine, have your dimwit hobby, and go and watch it at the weekend, but don’t expect the rest of the population to be subjected to what is for the rest of us the mystifyingly big business equivalent of tiddlywinks or contract bridge all over the media, like it’s news. Have your own separate radio and tv channels, and papers. I don’t care who’s in the relegation zone.

Theres a rather good Tim Kennemore ‘near future” novel which imagines a world where female gymnastics has the same big business/ cultural position as premier league football.

I mean, fine, have your dimwit hobby, and go and watch it at the weekend, but don’t expect the rest of the population to be subjected to what is for the rest of us the mystifyingly big business equivalent of tiddlywinks or contract bridge all over the media, like it’s news.

This sentence makes someone sound dimwitted and it’s not football fans.

I hate it too, it’s the whole culture around it and it never seems to have an off season.
I actually live football in my home country but it’s a different football code and it’s so different. They also have an off season so kids would play footy in the winter and then cricket or tennis or other summer sports. Here football runs all year round for my DDs if it’s not the regular season it’s the tournaments and then friendlys with training every week all year round. It’s too much for young kids. I also hate the parents yelling on the sidelines like they are playing for the World Cup not a U10 suburban football match.

Where are you watching all this football on TV? Apart from occasional international matches and tournaments taking place 4 yearly, there's virtually no live football on free to air TV.

I’m certainly not watching it.

I hate it too I prefer rugby as does DH and my sons.

But they’re pretty much identical, just with different rules about play and a differently-shaped ball.

It’s the tribal weirdness about it I hate. It seems to bring out the worst in certain men.

my female friends who play are lovely and subsequently I don’t mind womens football at all

Also see no reason for it to be on the news - surely irrelevant to lots of people. I’d rather film/theatre/tv news which I’m sure more people watch

I have no feelings about football as a game, but deeply dislike football 'culture'. There are a lot of people who act as though football is the MOST important thing in the world and will expect people to put up with behaviour that would usually be seen as incredibly rude/entitled/unreasonable because it relates to football. A few examples from my experience are wedding guests listening to a match on earphones during the wedding service and interrupting with their reaction to a goal, people missing a partner or child's birthday because of a football fixture, people dominating conversation at social events never ending football talk/chants, getting intimidatingly loud and drunk on public transport/in the street. I remember a colleague once complaining at work that her boyfriend would not go to her sister's wedding with her (despite previously agreeing and booking hotel, train tickets etc) because his team had go through to a semi-final so he wanted to go to the match. The general consensus was that she was in the wrong for even asking him to go. There's no way people would have said the same if he wanted to miss it for anything else.

It bores the teeth out of me. I'm from Glasgow, and so that's basically heathen. I really wished I liked it for the stats and analysis but life is too short. 90 minutes, in which 5 is interesting on a good day.

Bores me rigid so avoid anything football related.

@BarnacleNora that sounds really annoying regarding the graffiti!

Sort of related to what you describe about your son's behaviour becoming 'laddish', once when I went to watch my DP play, when we first arrived I needed the loo and she said I could use the one in their changing room

As I've detailed in PPs, I am not a wallflower, not shy or easily shocked or anything such as but the atmosphere in that changing room!

Firstly, I came out of the loo and said I was using the other one as someone had left a turd in that one. They all started blaming one another for it, all shouting and laughing and someone said it was my DP and she replied 'NAAAH! MINE WASNT THAT SOLID!' <not envy.

It just generally felt all oppressive and just so loutish and I had to get out of there straight away. Was awful.

@SirenSays if me and DP do end over this, I will most definitely be doing that too!

I hate it. I have no desire to go to a match or watch it on tv. My sister does both. I judge people who walk around in football shirts when not going to a match.

I didn't want children for many reasons one being the absolute horror of having a son who wanted to play football and the thought of standing on a wet, windy field on a Saturday and/or Sunday morning freezing my tits off and having to listen to endless chatter of goals and the rest of the boring details strengthened my choice.

My partner watches the occasional match on tv and I cannot stand the noise from the crowd. I go off and do something else in peace.

I continue to be baffled and amused by football fans who support a team to which they have no bona fide connection. At my workplace, I know or have known :

Three Liverpool supporters;
Two Everton supporters;
Two Manchester City supporters;
One Manchester United supporter (mind, these are to be found anywhere except for Manchester);
One Newcastle United supporter and one Tottenham Hotspur supporter.
Also, a Leeds United supporter who is actually a Glaswegian living in Leeds.

All the above, apart from the Glaswegian LUFC fan, were born in West Yorkshire. No way are any of them glory supporters. Absolutely not.

@Readingundertheoaktree I had someone living with me for a time who seemed to ALWAYS have the football on. He had some sort of app that showed loads of sport and he'd literally watch every single football match there was, from all over the world. The noise drove me absolutely nuts, I hated it. I want my house to be a football-free zone from now on!

@Splitscreened that's true, it is EVERYWHERE isn't it?

@IsGoodIsDon where my DP plays there are tonnes of kids clubs too. It is all year round indeed-I guess some children really enjoy it and that's not a bad thing but I definitely favour the way your home country do it.

@Newgirls my DP is a female. I still hate how she treats me over it. As mentioned above I actually had a trauma response to it, based on one particular time where she was so so vile to me one day, I've never felt so upset in my life. And subsequently it has taken over her life and our relationship is about 10% as important to her as it used to be. After that I just found myself feeling upset whenever she even texted me about 'footy' and even got upset while out running when a car went past with a football logo in the back. Ridiculous? Maybe but my body was obviously telling me something.

@Newgirls I agree and that's a very good point isnt it-why don't we get things about the theatre for example.

@Readingundertheoaktree I had someone living with me for a time who seemed to ALWAYS have the football on. He had some sort of app that showed loads of sport and he'd literally watch every single football match there was, from all over the world. The noise drove me absolutely nuts, I hated it. I want my house to be a football-free zone from now on

I suspect that is illegal streaming. As I said, there's very little football on free to air TV. It's easy to avoid if you want to.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was. He's by far the only person I know like that though-one of my students openly admits it. He even said 'I'll be sitting there watching a match from a country I've never even heard of!'

Madness.

@TroysMammy I like the 'judging people who wear football shirts' even better if they have their names written on them?

@TheTecknician that's something I've never thought about! At least I can say DP has her own local team tattooed on her thigh then, rather than a different one..