Watching the highlights of Stranraer's recent game reminded me of just how much joy can be found watching football. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of clubs kicking a ball around a sodden wet pitch somewhere in Scotland every weekend. Lucky ones get to play on cold, wet, muddy pitches in the half dark of floodlights at small out of the way grounds in midweek also. Yet they enjoy it, the fans enjoy it, and they come back again the next week for more.
I am talking here about those small clubs that many people have never heard of. Clubs that have been playing in senior leagues for over a hundred or more years, Stranraer for instance began in 1870, the third oldest club in Scotland. Scotland was of course the place where football as we know it today began. It had been an organised game for hundreds of years, often to some people's objection. Playing on the sabbath upset some ministers, playing 'of the futbal,' upset King James I as he wanted them at archery practice. However, the game continued. It always will.
It is the people who support these small teams that are in my mind just now. The chances of success are low. Promotion from one low division to the next is occasionally possible, a cup win over a 'Big' club always to be hoped for and sometime achieved. There again, the chances of reaching the top division and remaining there are slim. The local population is too small for many to survive, and the costs of reaching a high division can kill a club financially. This however, does not stop the locals turning out to support, especially against 'Big' clubs in the cup, and in all weathers rain or shine.
Since seating was introduced some 30 years ago almost all grounds have some sort of seating under cover arranged. This brings the women out with the kids, often they become true fans, more so than those who have been there for years. These small clubs have a sense of belonging and emotional joy when successful that larger clubs, more used to winning something, can ever achieve. The child's joy at the team scoring, the displays of anger at what is regarded as bad refereeing, the joy of victory, all these things bring a family together, bring a few hundred, sometimes dozen, people together, and makes the world a better place.
We will ignore the defeats in the rain that make life depressing at this point.
To watch the crowd at smaller clubs during a game is sometimes more enjoyable than watching the game. The crowd' rising' as the ball crosses into the box, all attempting to get their head on the ball, all except the 4 year old engrossed in a book, the girl asleep on dad, or the frozen mum hoping there is no added time as she is cold. Watching them react is great sport. Such things cannot be noted in the same manner at larger teams with greater crowds. All such is hidden in the mass.
Big football cubs may have colossal turnovers of money and men, they might provide some of football 'greats,' but their fans are no better at supporting, and grumbling about, their team than the side with a regular 250 watching. The game is the thing, the club belongs to 'us,' and it is ours, even though we laugh at it and ourselves for following the club. Football, 'the peoples game!'
Not Stranraer!
