...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 )?

Just to add, I watch football with my teenage son. He's 17, it's one of the few things he'll still do with me and I really cherish that bond. I think there's a good chance your husband feels the same way. Let your daughter make her own mind up.

Ooh you'd hate my life at the minute.

DH is doing a football coaching course at the moment which is taking up Friday nights, all day Saturday and all day Sunday.

DS2 plays every Sunday and trains on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. DH coaches his team (when he's not on the course.) He also helps out an adult team behind the scenes as well as playing the occasional game for them. So that's nearly every Saturday.

He's on the commitee of DS's club so that's every 4th Thursday and Sunday evenings taken up. He is also the assistant welfare officer so sometimes has emails, letters to deal with. He is also in charge of all the financial side of DSs team and the adult team.

I work evenings.

I never see him.

I think I've phrased this really badly, it's just a particular flashpoint at this time of year, because for some reason the club they follow seems to insist on arranging more home matches and additional events during December than any other month, every single year, including Boxing Day and New Year's Day which I admit really winds me up, as for me they are time to chill out at home and/or see family and friends.

This weekend I will barely see them as they have footy matches and events on both days of the weekend so will be out from 11/12 until 6-7pm both days. This is all well and good but I have DD wanting to have 1-2-1 time with me as well, and wanting to have friends for sleepovers and do Christmassy things and it falls to me to bend over backwards trying to fit everything in around bloody football!

Re the secondary school/friendships thing - I probably am making a bigger deal of it than needs be in theory, but it's just sod's law that every time she's been invited to something recently it's clashed with football. I feel that there is unspoken pressure on her from DH and MIL to attend every single match and whilst she did thrown one over in favour of a sleepover, if the invitations increase once she's at secondary and more independent I can see it causing massive rows if she keeps wanting to miss football.

I'm not particularly bothered about the culture in terms of how it affects DD - she goes with DH and a nice bunch of friends and in the past if they've played the team they have a lot of animosity with he hasn't taken her. It's just my personal feeling, in the same way that modern art bored DH shitless!

I don't resent her going - I like my own space and it's good for her to have time with DH. I've also got no intention of telling her she has to stop going.

I will freely admit I don't 'get it' as I hate the sport and the culture around it and really couldn't be arsed with being tied down to attending something regularly like that. Bottom line is I'm just really frustrated with the time it's taking up at the moment, and the aggro it causes .

Blimey Cows you deserve a medal!

DH was like that when we first met - with sporting commitments on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings, Sunday morning and Sunday evening.

Eventually I said something had to give and it was either a sport or me. He was getting to the end the road with playing footy and had just taken up a new sport so thankfully I only had to endure a couple of years of watching him play.

During the summer he plays cricket so that's every Sunday banjaxed from April - October, although it's become the day I see my parents which works for both of us they have a tricky relationship with one another.

YANBU I dislike it too. Im a single parent and never took my DS either. Stand out there in the freezing cold watching a ball being kicked around, err no. I encouraged other pursuits like Sea Cadets where I didn't have to be involved

I absolutely love football. Our Saturday's are dedicated to it. However we only go to a match once a month (as its so expensive!) but I don't think it's fair to take this much time from you. Can you not go too? The match is only 90mins of a day, so 12-6 is crazy if it's a local team.

I was brought up by two football mad parents and wouldn't want to have a relationship with someone who didn't share my enthusiasm.

I'd let your daughter make her own mind up.

12-6 is crazy if it's a local team

Stadium is 15 miles away. They usually leave between 12-1 and get back 6-7.

They drive to about a mile away and walk to the ground stopping for fish & chips en route, then usually wait for the crowds to clear a bit before heading back.

Football can give you the most fabulous social life, be a great family occasion and give you friends for life.

As you can probably tell, we are very much a footballing family. I have travelled the world watching football and been to some amazing countries and have my fabulous football family friends.

My DS is crackers about it. He plays, has a season ticket at our local premier league club and is a member of England fans. He goes to see his local team with his Dad and I take him to England games. He has been to Brazil, France, Germany, Miami, Holland and Spain watching England - only 90 minutes of football in a weeks holiday visiting some fab countries. He doesn't feel like he misses out on anything with his friends, as he still see's them regularly, but he will always put football first.

I must admit, I prefer the social side of it now (too bloody cold to sit and watch a match for 90 minutes). Next Saturday, I am going to meet up with a load of mates from football, who I have known for years. Off to Germany next Easter, as England are playing and taking my DS to France for the Euro's.

I have friends from all over the country, who I know through football, so I never missed out on friendship groups or a good social life - football gave me all that.

Let you DS choose for herself if she wants to carry on. Every fortnight from August to May is not going to stop her having friends or a social life. It enhanced mine over time and gave me experiences that I never thought I would have without football.

My DS is a mascot on Tuesday night and I will happily sit in the cold for 90 minutes, to have the pleasure of seeing my DS run onto the pitch with one of his favourite players.

I think it's a lovely thing for them to do together. DH will certainly be taking ours to watch the saints once old enough. I imagine I'll enjoy the time to myself. I do like football though so I guess I just get it.

My team's stadium is 25 miles away, 35 mins on a good run. But you need to leave here by 12.30 if you want to be able to park within about a mile of the ground and one of the best parts of the whole thing is the hour or so in the pub beforehand (the one we go to is suitable for children, all home fans and never heard a cross word said in there). That's where I meet my friends and we have a proper catch-up, you can't really do that in the ground, certainly not once the match starts. So it is an important part of the day, soaking up the atmosphere etc. Then it can take an hour to get home because of the traffic. So, it is a big chunk out of the day, I admit that.

Also, the scheduling of the matches is not down to the club, it is organised by the league and takes into account TV rights, policing, other nearby teams fixtures too. Christmas / New Year is traditionally busy, but they get big crowds on Boxing Day, it is certainly popular.

I think a lot of the clubs now have a system where if you are a season ticket holder and not going to the match you can sell the seat on through the club to other people, so you aren't wasting so much money, that's worth looking into.

It shouldn't fall on you to organise other family stuff. Your husband should share that with you.

I don't think it's right either for your husband to pressure your daughter into going to every game if she doesn't want to. She may move on to other interests as she gets older and if she does, he'll need to accept it. Or then again, she may become a fanatic and want to give up the music practice instead. I trust you'd be ok with that too?

I realise you've come on here to vent but I hope you manage keep your disdain for the game away from your daughter? It sounds as if it's a big part of her life at the moment.

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Love my football. Saturdays and flipping freezing Tuesday night games. Away weekends, visiting cities and towns all over England. I think it's lovely that your daughter enjoys the football with her father and cousins op. I do understand how much time it takes though.

I guess it's just a 'marmite' thing.

It's no secret to DH or DD that I dislike football, but I wouldn't expect either of them to give it up for my benefit.

Most of the season I'm quite content to let them get on with it and enjoy having those afternoons to catch up with a bit of reading or telly. I always ask them how the match has gone and commiserate briefly if they lose - I'm not a completely selfish harridan!

I just find it really hard at this time of year when there is so much to fit in that there seem to be more matches than usual, and I can't understand the fixation that football fans seem to have that it should take priority over everything else.

Incidentally, it's not her cousins that they go with - it's a family friend with a son the same age as DD & her (honorary) uncle, not that that's massively relevant.

I realise you've come on here to vent but I hope you manage keep your disdain for the game away from your daughter? It sounds as if it's a big part of her life at the moment.

Apart from going to the home games, she shows no interest in football whatsoever at any other time, so I wouldn't say it's a big part of her life per se.

I don't understand. I thought you were complaining that football had taken over her life, now you're saying it hasn't.

Maybe she enjoys the time with her dad and the chips more than the match itself but so what - the social side is a big part of the fun. (Sometimes it's the only fun!) You never know, it may even help her make friends when she changes schools.

I can understand that this month is frustrating for you but there's an undercurrent of superiority in your posts - that's what I hope you keep from your daughter. I don't get most modern art but I consider that to be my loss.

It seems to many to be socially acceptable to show disdain for football, in a way it just isn't for most other pastimes. During the Rugby World Cup my FB page was full of posts going on about the superiority of rugby over football. I say have an open mind, like it, don't like it or just say it's of no interest to you whatsoever. Saying you don't like the way it has taken over your family life is fair enough, but blanket criticism of the whole sport annoys me.

I hated football until I had sons. They are football mad and for a while would only read football related material. Over time I got more and more interested and now I even go to matches.

I've really enjoyed the premiership matches I've been able to get tickets for and I'd love to get season tickets for us all but unfortunately there are none to be had.

I read the Secret Footballer and that was a fascinating insight into the game. Maybe you should try it...

YABU. ALL clubs have more fixtures in December! I think it is fantastic that your DD wants to spend that time with her dad and you seem jealous that she is doing that. Sh ewill still make friends, she will meet other people with similar interests and maybe she will start to go to football games with her friends in a few years! You don't like football and that is clear, but people do and you should let your DD continue to go for as long as she wants to. As someone else said, if this was a different hobby or something that she did with you then you would feel differently, You could easily fit other things in during the week, everyone does it, I'm sorry but I think you're just being difficult.

What Narp said - I am lucky as I find it easy to avoid (apart from it being all over the news). As a bloke it is very tricky though; in a way I am glad I only have dd (and she doesn't play footie) standing on school touchline being expected to know or care if that was offside would be tricky.

Need a bit of balance on this, if this is a professional team, they only play 19-22 home games a season, at least 3 of which will be midweek games. So it's only 16-18 weekends a year, for one day, so that leaves 86 Saturday's and Sunday's each year for other stuff.

I do agree that the season tickets could offer more flexibility for families though and it's starting to happen with the season tickets being compatible with ticket exchange sites so you can buy a 20 game season ticket, then re-sell a few of them to get it down to a more manageable level in terms of weekends being taken up.

As for the comment upthread about how much they are paid, it's market forces, if people will pay more to watch then the players are going to earn more. Annoys me that i constantly read it about footballers, who are cashing in on a short career opportunity, yet no-one complains that Harry styles and Leonardo di caprio are earning more

Yeah, I hate football and "football culture" too. I thank my lucky stars my son is a Rugby man! I don't know why I hate it ...I just do. Bit unreasonable of me!

Wow - really wasn't expecting quite the flaming I seem to be getting here.

As I've said more than once - my OP was probably badly worded, and it's more the case that I find it bewildering, frustrating and bloody annoying that at this time of year specifically football has taken over 5 out of 6 weekends.

I'm not about to throw a tantrum and demand that DH & DD stop going!

Once again, if DD is happy and it's not having a detrimental effect on other areas of her life then I'm not going to put a stop to it, but I can't help find it frustrating when it gets in the way of her/us doing other things because it's set in stone that season ticket = absolutely must attend every single match or the sky will fall in.

I don't consciously feel superior about disliking football - I'm not a sporty person and was completely disinterested in it before it encroached on our family life. I'm sure there are at least as many footballers who are perfectly pleasant individuals as there are the overpaid, sexist, man child types we sadly hear more about.

FWIW, Saturdays are the only family day we have as Sundays are taken up with my commitments to my elderly parents, which as an only child with no family locally I don't have the option of side-lining.

Some of my happiest childhood memories are of going to Main Road with my dad but I would resent whole weekends being taken up with it.

Cans he not just get an occasional ticket? Secondary is a huge jump in terms of homework, I can see how she might be outgrowing it, I did when I became a teenager.