...to absolutely HATE football?

[WyrdByrd]

DH is a fan and a few years ago decided to get a season ticket for our local team. DD had been along a couple of times and MIL offered to pay for her to have one too.

This is her 4th season I think - she's now 11 and whilst she's not uninterested in the footy, she mostly enjoys the social side (as well a DH her uncle and another friend and his DC go) and visiting the chip shop en route.

This is all well and good but it takes up so much bloody time. Every Saturday there is a home match on they're out from about 12.30 - 6.30pm at least so we cannot do anything as a family and DD can't make arrangements with friends, and of course because it is already paid for she 'has' to go.

This month completely takes the piss - they have 5 matches and a Christmas party (not including the away game that DH is going to on Boxing Day) between now and 1st January.

TBH I hate the whole culture of football anyway, but trying to bend over backwards to fit in other things around all this is really getting on my tits. I need to take DD shopping for DH's present, she wants to put the decorations up with me and have her best friend for a sleepover. She has clubs two evenings a week, music practice and two homework projects to finish before the end of term. I've got work and social commitments as well so it's just a huge stress trying to work everything around bloody football.

I'm not about to throw a hissy fit to DH and DD but AIBU to be silently(ish) seething about how much this is getting in the way of life in general atm, and hope DD decides to pack it in next year (she has already mentioned that she might to MIL who then phoned me demanding to know why )?

It sounds as if she's stopped enjoying it but doesn't want to disappoint her father and grandmother. Eventually, she'll quit. Bide your time.

I like football, but it can be time consuming.

YANBU. I totally feel the same!

All those childhood memories will be priceless

Nothing you mention there can't be shoehorned in elsewhere in your week

From reading your OP, yes, YABU to hate football.
It would seem you resent the time that your dd and dh spend going to the football. Personally, I think that's great. My dh does a hobby with my older dd, and I love that time they spend together.

I know it doesn't work out exactly that way, but home matches are only every other week, so surely that leaves you Saturday mornings, evenings, and all day Sunday one weekend, and then the whole weekend the alternate weekend. Sounds like plenty of time to put up some decorations and buy a gift to me.

I think there is an element of that although she does chat about it occasionally to DH and seems to know what's going on.

She's more or less decided (off her own back) that next year would be a good time to drop it as she'll be starting secondary and doing longer days, more homework and hopefully making new friends and wanting to do social things of a weekend more, but I fear that when the time comes for the tickets to be renewed she'll go with the path of least resistance.

When I explained to MIL why she was considering giving it up next year she did seem to understand but who knows how it will go when the time comes.

I know I'm not entirely unbiased as I find the whole overpaid, sexist, corrupt culture that surrounds football utterly abhorrent, but it really is a pita.

I hate football too. Anything every weekend would do my head in.

YABU, I think it's great that she has a hobby to share with her dad, even if it is time consuming. I started going with friends from school when I was about 18, it was definitely as much about the social side as the football, we travelled all over the country following our club through our 20s and had some amazing times, it totally cemented our friendship group. I don't go so often now I've got the DCs but I love knowing that I can pitch up on a Saturday afternoon at the pub near the ground and the friends I've been going with for 30 years would be there, the same bloke will be selling programmes on the corner, it's a great way of spending a Saturday afternoon.

I haven't detailed our entire schedule as I will totally out myself, but between 3 of her evenings being taken up with clubs/music, my working 4 days a week (and have just started a freelance project) and having to single-handedly look out for my elderly and not particularly well parents, we really have very little spare time.

DH is anal about being ready and leaving on time - we can't even fit in Saturday Morning Pictures on a footy day as it starts just late enough that it would clash with the time they set off, and who wants to be up at silly o'clock on a Saturday morning to squeeze in socialising? Evening/sleepover get togethers are also out because they get back too late to make it worthwhile and we have commitments on a Sunday.

Yes, it can be squeezed in, but it makes it a pressure rather than a pleasure, and it's difficult not to be somewhat resentful when the football commitments are set in stone and everything else has to revolve around them.

I genuinely don't resent it being a DH/DD thing - I think it's lovely for them to have a shared interest but it's impact on everything else (some of which in all honesty I feel is more important), and particularly the ridiculous scheduling of it at this time of year is just winding me up at the mo.

I HATE FOOTBALL

God no, of course you're not unreasonable to hate football. My DH works in the industry and it's even more depressing close up.

Blimey Siege I don't think I could cope with that.

It's like that quote: "Some people think football is a matter of life and death - I assure them it's much more important than that." I mean, seriously, what a crock of shit, but sadly does seem to be the perspective of some people who are passionate about it.

Tbf, DH doesn't share my passion for art, which is fair enough, but I don't have a regular commitment to doing anything arty and if I want to go to an exhibition, for example, I will arrange it minimise disruption to family time.

I'm another one who hates football and the whole going to matches thing - and I agree it sounds like it takes up way too many saturday afternoons and screws over too many weekends when it would be much nicer to do things as a family as well.

Could you suggest as a compromise that dd would like to come along to one or two games rather than every game - I don't know how difficult it would be to get her a ticket to sit with her dad if he has a season ticket and she doesn't though...

And think of something else for mil to give her for christmas that costs a similar amount that your dd would love more than anything else (even if you were going to give it to her) so that mil won't just get the season ticket because it is easy.

I would also start to let dd not go despite having a season ticket - organise a sleep over with her friends and let them have a lovely football free time. I guess that the season ticket is a big saving over buying single tickets anyway - and the more fun your dd has on a saturday afternoon the more she will want to do other things.

And if mil mentions it again - or indeed goes ahead and buys the ticket - then get upset and say 'look we've discussed this - dd doesn't want a season ticket, I think that's a really unkind thing to do to somebody, buy them something they have expressly asked you not to get them, especially when you are supposed to love them. If you get it, it will be a waste of money because I've already told dd that she doesn't have to go if she doesn't want to, if mil wants to pay for an empty seat rather than a present you would enjoy then that's her look out.'

Assume that your conversation with her was a definite - maybe ask her in conversation one day what she is going to get dd now that a season ticket is off the cards and see how she reacts. Definitely sounds like time for a change. And if she misses it then she can go to an odd match and get a season ticket next year.

MIL & DH will check before they order her a new season ticket, and if DD really wants to go I wouldn't stop her, but I do think she feels a little under pressure, although hopefully that won't be the case now I've spoken to MIL.

Even putting my dislike of football aside, I am genuinely concerned about the impact it could have on her settling at secondary. All going well she will be going to an all girls school in the neighbouring town, which will quite an upheaval in terms of getting to and from on public transport, a whole new peer group and considerably more homework.

She is popular at school, but doesn't make close friends overly easily and I would hate her to struggle to integrate because she's having to turn down opportunities to spend time with new friends due to footy commitments.

I love football but I can see why this bothers you. The lack of flexibilty with season tickets is annoying, especially when not everyone in the family's involved. This is one of the reasons I last held a season ticket around ten years ago and now go to games on a more ad hoc basis when it suits with other commitments. Perhaps encourage this for next season so that your DD must still gets to go but when it suits her?

I can understand you worrying about the culture of football but if you went to a game you might be surprised. It might depend massively on the club but there are loads of women / families who go to watch my team and I've heard a near total reduction in terms of racism / sexism/ homophobia from supporters over the years I've been watching. I've genuinely not heard anything like that in ages at a game, largely because other fans won't tolerate it.

I get what you're saying OP, my sister went through a similar thing with her twins boys years ago. Every bloody weekend they couldn't do anything as a family because of Rugby. They were completely mad and passionate about it but it burned out and lessened over time.

I'm wondering though, if your DD's all-consuming hobby was ornithology or archeological digs or Ballet or something like that. Would you feel the same? I know they don't really compare, but maybe as Sandsnake says it is the culture of Football that you're not happy about her being so immersed in?

YABU - I'd be grateful that a child had an interest in something real rather than staying in and texting her mates, etc. Enthusiasm is a transferable skill, but maybe some more flexibility in missing the odd match would be sensible.

YABU. I have many happy memories of going to footy withy Dad as a kid. I rarely missed a game during secondary school years despite attending alone by that point and still managed to have plenty of friends and a social life. I made plenty more friends through football that I still have today. Not everything about football culture is negative so please try not to condemn something you have no first hand experience of. Being a football fan has been a huge positive in my life.

Now YAB even more U

why on earth would sharing a hobby on alternative Saturday afternoons for 9 months of the year stop her making friends at secondary school?

and yes, I have dds who have moved to secondary school and managed to make friends and also have hobbies with different friends - they aren't mutually exclusive you know.

I would never ever start dating someone who is in to watching football.
Like you, it's not the actual sport, I don't like, I like kicking a ball around :) But the culture involved and how it is so time consuming, plus boring as shit to watch!
So pleased dh isn't in to tv sports in general :)

Me neither Shameful. I couldn't imagine anything worse! Especially all that play acting. Grown men rolling around in the mud pretending to be in agony, just to get the other player yellow carded, or whatever you call it.

Shameful behaviour..Crap way to spend one's time IMO...

Quite, BackforGood - it's every other week on average, and stops between May and mid-August. OP, I think you're making a bigger deal of it than need be. But then, I used to go to football with my grandfather when I was a teenager. Gives me something to talk about with the other parents when I'm watching DS1 play football.

...so we cannot do anything as a family
But your daughter goes to the football with her father, her uncle and her cousins. And possibly sometimes her grandma too? That sounds like a good old fashioned family day out to me. You're the one who's not joining in.

I'm not for a minute suggesting you should go if you don't want to. But I think it's a bit unreasonable to present this as something that's spoling family life.

I hate football too.

Hate the ridiculous man-children, the disrespect for the ref, the ridiculous money, the fact that fans are exploited by Oligarch owners, the fact that it's on basically all year long and makes National headlines, as if we should care. The fact that the men's England team is rubbish and has been for years and yet we are expected to care about the World Cup.

Nice for DD to go with her dad whilst she wants to. There's undeniably something nice about being part of a football tribe, and it introduces them nice and early to a wide range of imaginative swearing.

And the amount they get paid...... !

My stepdad and brother are really in to football. It was really embarrasing if I had friends round of a weekend and they'd be shouting at the telly, jumping up & down, rolling around!.... Stepdad is very unfit. If he spent as much energy actually playing football as he does watching he'd be in much better shape and actually be enjoyable to spend the weekend with :/

We are a football mad house, dh and ds3 have a season ticket for our team, ds3 plays on a Sunday and football is on the telly most nights.

I'm happy, I watch telly in bed if I want something else.

It's your isolation from the regular family outing that's the real issue.