AIBU that football should not affect your mood

[EvertonSuck]

Everton have just lost. I now have to deal with a very pissed off husband - AIBU that my husband shouldn’t get too emotionally invested in something he has zero control over?

I’d understand a little bit more if he actually played on the bloody team!!

There’s no excuse to take it out on other people by being nasty, of course. But every single one of us has been grumpy or irritable or gloomy over something their partner would find trivial or inexplicable, because we’re human. Football is no different.

It perfectly OK to be emotionally invested in football and some of the ignorance on this thread about football’s social significance is staggering.

I love football and for a lot of people, their feelings about their team are inexplicably linked with other emotional elements of their lives. For me, my football team is part of my connection to my family, heritage and culture. It’s always been a big bonding thing for my family, it’s linked to where we’re from, it’s a connection with my grandparents and great-grandparents as well as my parents, and now with my nieces and nephews. It’s also linked to cultural identity as my team is traditionally linked to a particular community, and it’s probably the biggest link I have to that side of my heritage.

I don’t understand why people get emotionally invested in, say, TV shows, or why people get worked up about things like how often other people shower, or hen weekend dramas or why their friend doesn’t want to meet with them as often as they used to. But if people are into that, it’s fine. Just because I don’t get it, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

Same applies to football. If you don’t get it, that’s fine. But just because you don’t understand someone’s feelings about something, that doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

For the record, I’m not some kind of thick Neanderthal man-baby because I’ve got an emotional connection to a football team. (I’m a grown woman with a Masters degree in Renaissance literature, if that helps anyone get over their subconscious snobbery, of which there’s plenty on this thread.)

I’m with you on this one 🙈 my partners team lost last night and I was just sooo glad he wasn’t watching the game at home, which even at the time I thought was terrible since I just knew he’d be shouting and swearing irrationally, telling them what to do like they really need Kevin from Glasgow’s opinion on it

Great post.

I grew up going to watch my local team in the lower leagues with my granddad. I’m from a small/medium sized city that isn’t (or wasn’t) widely known internationally.

The team had a period of huge (relative) success, making it to the Premier League, although we’ve since been relegated.

Being in the Premier League was great for the city when I was there. Having large numbers or travelling fans, who’d often make a long weekend of it, was good for the local economy and all of a sudden a lot of previously non-football fans (including in my family) were swept up in it, and many remain so to this day. It’s a lovely experience having (what felt like) the whole community, suddenly proud of and engaged in our little club.

I’ve since emigrated, and now live in a large, diverse city. When I’ve mentioned I like football, and am asked who I support, people from various countries (who I suspect wouldn’t have heard of my team or the city were it not for football) are familiar with the team and sometimes excitedly reel off some of our more memorable moments. Warms my heart every time!

And yes, I was sad when we were relegated, probably felt a bit somber for the rest of the day, but I wasn’t having a massive sulk and certainly not being aggressive or violent. I’m not going to feel embarrassed that a team, who’ve been part of my life since I was in primary school, dropping out of the limelight made me feel sad.

Football is very emotional
... Hope he is now enjoying the amazing come back for them!

I was gutted last night at my team coming 2nd in the europa league. When we went 1 nil up I started to think that maybe we'd win. Minute it went to penalties I knew we'd lost it.

I was upset and angry for about 10 seconds before being very proud of my team getting that far when as someone says 10 years ago we were in the lowest league.

I don’t understand why people get emotionally invested in, say, TV shows, or why people get worked up about things like how often other people shower, or hen weekend dramas or why their friend doesn’t want to meet with them as often as they used to. But if people are into that, it’s fine. Just because I don’t get it, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

Football hooliganism, DV, football taking over pubs and streets. Trains full of drunk, shirtless, shouting, singing arseholes. Violence, racism and xenophobia on the streets. Derbies that result in impassable streets. Stepping over vomit in the street. Workshy men missing work after big matches. Deaths from football (family violence, hooliganism, crushes).

We used to be scared after matches, properly scared. Bridgerton doesn't do that. Neither does MN. It's not football per se. It's the acceptance of absolute idiocy around it.

Well I doubt most football fans enjoy most of those things either, but the existence of a minority of arseholes doesn’t ruin my enjoyment of the game.

And I will say I’ve been to hundreds of games and never witnessed any violence or hooliganism and only recall a single instance of some asshole trying to start up a racist chant.

You could also likely attribute half of the problems you list to alcohol but I’ll guess (who knows, maybe wrongly) that you don’t object to people enjoying a drink in the same way you seem to object to people enjoying watching a game.

I was literally counting the posts until I read a “this never happens with rugby fans” post 🙄

I love the emotional connection with football tbh- my partner isn't interested at all and i find it quite sad- it feels so flat. It works both ways- i was buoyed up the whole day the other day (and still am!) as my team won an important match for them - it was 1000s of miles from me - i couldn't even watched it and was relying on text messages from a colleague telling me what was happening- but i still feel like we won.
Historically though I think its a bit of a distraction from the realities of life

The rugby comparison posts are almost as predictable as a Vila fan telling you they won the European cup in 1982 within 3 minutes of meeting them 😬.

Almost. The snobbery I encounter about football in RL and here is just so tedious.

Really pleased for Everton btw. That relegation anxiety is horrible.

And it absolutely does, just less so because (in most places) rugby is less popular.

IIRC, South Wales police said that days of Six Nations games are their busiest.

So this isn't you then

Links to a rather disappointed Rangers fan. Quite amusing.

Never been surrounded by Batley fans then.

Don't be ridiculous!

Except it's been terrible this past three seasons for various reasons and cannot see things improving. Vale going to Wembley too! They were great last night, good luck to them at the twin towers!

My son and I are season ticket holders at a London premiership club. We love going and have been season ticket holders for over 20 years. We've done all the major away grounds and in that 20 odd years only had one moment of bother.

In the rugby World Cup that was in the UK, we decided to try a game as we had never been before. I was absolutely horrified! Everyone was totally shitfaced in the stands and carried on drinking throughout the game. 2 people in our row vomited on their feet. A woman behind us just screamed cunt at the referee at the top of her voice the whole game. I'm not even sure most people were actually watching. Our feet were all sticky from the floor as it was covered in booze and vomit. The woman next to my son was so drunk she kept falling all over him and at half time, he actually asked if we could go home! We've never been back to rugby and never will. The drinking throughout the game is ridiculous. At least at football people are interested in the actual game!

@Aphrael the twin towers were replaced by the Wembley arch quite some years ago.

Good luck to Vale.

A bit unreasonable if your DH is from the Liverpool area or has heritage from there.

100% unreasonable if you are a glory seeking Manchester United supporter who could not even tell you the names of the local towns.

Attaching your joy and pain to a bunch of randoms who you've never met is pretty weird, having said that- I thought there were no rules about who can support who, geography wise!

I 100% agree. As a woman I would far rather be in the pub with football fans than the rugby fans. I find them to generally be utterly obnoxious.

What about attaching joy and pain to ninety minutes of completely fictional characters doing things that never happened? Because I was certainly crying for a good fifteen minutes after Pixar’s Coco.

People enjoy things. It's OK to have interests outside your family. One might say it's even healthy.

What a turnaround for Everton.

AIBU that my husband shouldn’t get too emotionally invested in something he has zero control over?

How many (mainly) women cry during soppy movies? Why get emotionally invested in something you have zero control over?

Well he must of been ecstatic come the end
Im a football fan and yes you do get attached and it will piss me off for a little bit , but then i move on
Its ok for men to have emotions too and we all have our own likes and dislikes

@Onlyforcake talk about judgemental , plenty of women support teams as well you know
Bet you have got invested in a tv programme or film at sometime , being pissed off is ok at times
Violence isn't at any time and probably fuelled by alcohol