Wet, cold and shaking

The rain dripped down my face. I could now taste the rain, largely flavoured by the L’Oreal gel used that morning. My legs had started to shake, uncontrollably. It had been like a time bomb, with every minute the water had infiltrated every layer and now had reached my skin. In a cruel act of fate the wind blew up, it was like someone was pressing an ice cube on my neck. Just as it couldn’t get any worse they scored.

It was times like these that I was left wondering why the hell I was there. Even more to the point why I had I paid fourteen pounds for this? I had driven down to Yeovil in Somerset on a cold and wet windy Saturday afternoon. Like all my trips to this football ground it always seemed to be ridiculously cold and always poured down with rain. Normally this wouldn’t be too bad, but this club was the only one which did not have a roof for the away supporters, leaving it completely exposed.

For all the nine thoughts I could think of why I ever bothered going to such games there was always one that made it worth it. On the downside I was supporting a football team that had pretty much being losing for the last ten years. In a knife in the back moment the only time they reached a national final was this March, when I was in Sydney.

So why on earth would anyone support a team that plays in the bottom league of the country? Why would anyone support a team in which I now lived hundreds of miles away from? Why would anyone support a team that always loses? Why would anyone spend hours driving to a game they know they are probably going to lose and get extremely wet and cold in the process? I have no idea.

Well maybe I do. Football humour has a lot to do with. It amazes me that people who are cold, wet, watching their team lose and are probably penniless after taking their family miles away to watch a game can be so full of humour. The banter between each set of fans is priceless. If you forget about the poor game, the fact that you are standing in an ice bag, you get treated to a live comedy show full if irony. I did in fact laugh more in that ninety minutes than the two hours of live comedy the previous week. If you can laugh when you are blue and shaking, it must make sense.