We’re not the first to be doing this.
The rituals we indulge in and doggedly maintain when going to the football have been done a thousand – maybe a million – times before. By people older, younger, wiser, simpler, more taciturn, more flamboyant, richer, poorer, more fervent, more casual than ourselves.
The landmarks are still there. The trees. The bricks. The pavements. The concrete. The gable roofs. The chimneys. They remain, wardens of the time, constantly watching over us, sometimes jealous in their desire to be freed from their roots to join us and experience whatever the heck goes on under those tall, bright sentinels at night; other times relieved that they merely observe us trudging through ennui of a rainy night in Nottingham after another defeat. We come. We go. They stay.
They’ve seen it all. The beginnings of this new thing they call football. It won’t last. It’s just organised games. Bread and jam for the masses. Fly-by-night thing. Here today, gone tomorrow. But they kept coming. At first, in their tall black hats, reeking of self-importance. Then later, sporting ridiculous moustaches. Then they looked scruffier, weathered by long days in the factory, briefly released from the hulking, burping, belching machines which spat them out then swallowed them whole again. They come here for brief respite from it all. From whatever it is they do from Monday morning to Saturday afternoon.
Then they stopped for a while. Early in the last century. It was quiet for four years, but come November, they emerged again. In greater numbers, but some looked lost. They seemed desperate to walk the same streets, drink in the same pubs, stand in the same places, they just wanted to be entertained again. And they were. Until they stopped. Again.
But like last time, they came again in their masses, shuffling along like iron filings drawn in by a magnet. And how they came. So many. At first in their flat caps and shirts. Then with their mop-top haircuts and miniskirts. Then in their flares and long hair. Then in their tracksuits and shoulder pads. Then…well you see the same things after a while. It all comes around again. The wheel turns. They keep coming.
They each have their own idiosyncrasies. Some come on their own, some in groups, some come all the time, then just stop. Some bring their kids, then their kids bring their own kids. It’s just what they do.
They pound the same streets that their great-great grandfathers did. They watch the same game. Different players, but same teams, same old game. Mostly. It’s changed, but the furniture remains the same: a ball, some players, a pitch, some posts – it’s all you really need. It seems to make you happy. Not all the time, but most of the time anyway.
We’re not the first to be doing this. We won’t be the last.
(The Trent Bridge Inn pub. Circa 1885.)
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True Detective (Season Four: Night Country):
I watched a bit of the first season, but got bored. Despite being partial to navel-gazing, philosophical whimsy and general noodliness, it didn’t hit the mark for me. And I haven’t checked in on the series since - until this one. Why now? Jodie Foster. Christopher Ecceleston (playing an American? Yes. Really.) And set in the far north of Alaska at a time when it gets dark and stays dark. The plot is routine enough - a group of scientists in a mysterious lab suffer an unexplained and seemingly supernatural death, and the obligatory unsolved murder of a young woman. But there is more than enough sub-plots going on in this weird town to keep you interested.
And Christopher Eccleston is oddly mesmerising as one of those cop bosses who gets called in to sort things out when weird stuff goes down in a small town.
If you don’t know me, I am the author of ‘Reds and Rams: The History of the East Midlands Derby’ and ‘The History Boys: Thirty Iconic Forest Goals’ (both available in the Forest club shop). I have written pieces for Mundial magazine, Football Weekends magazine and edited two award-nominated fanzines.
If you do know me, I’m truly sorry.
Two episodes into True Detective…so far so good…