Will I always be a Sheffield United fan?

Jake Parry

At approximately 15:35, I took a video on my phone: dense, red flare fumes, erratic arms and heads and bodies, smiling eyes. Jubilation and elation. I wanted to capture a moment, not to post online but to look back on, to relive, a momento of the visceral space around me.

It was enough, for a brief moment, to distract me from the jarring vertigo of the steep Wembley stands. I don't like heights. I get overstimulated quite easily. So sitting in the gods was an error and a 90-minute mental challenge for me. It's mad what you put yourself through for football.

So mad really that a lot of people don't understand, they think - why do you care, it's just a bunch of overpaid men kicking a ball? And that is a fair critique. It's hard to succinctly summarise why being a football fan matters. But I feel compelled to try.

Aside from the audio/visual induced anxiety I inflict upon myself by going to football matches, like so many Blades, I've felt a great deal of pain as part of the gig. Batterings, near misses, players leaving, relegations, Wembley defeats. It's as laborious as love can get.

And it is love that I’m talking about when I use the word “fan”. Football is a game, but it is a game that allows people to love. To love their club, players, manager, city, town, family and friends. It's a conduit for an expression of love to those around us who also deeply care. Because football is a means of connection.

Sometimes I ask myself why I care so much. Especially in this era of the game, where it's less and less about “real” fans and, to put it simply, more about money.

Being a football fan is not watching reels about gegenpressing and vertical passing or scrolling through videos of chants on a page called something like "FanBanterUltra". It's not 'knowing ball' or being a regular listener to one of Gary Neville's podcasts. It's not building a sick Ultimate Team or buying a retro Germany shirt because "they've always made nice kits". It's none of these things. Perhaps that is a reflection of liking football. But arguably it’s just a reflection of consuming football from around the edges.

Being a football fan is often misunderstood. Being a fan is hurting, it’s feeling pain for yourself, for your club, for your friends and family. It's being part of that family. It’s shared experiences. It’s hating your rivals and the referee. It’s a space for feeling. Good or bad. It is emotion.

I sometimes wish I could stop caring about football. That I could let it go. There are so many reasons to feel this way. Life is short. Corporate greed has infected FOOTBALL the commodity. But being a fan and turning up is an escape from this. It is a break from a hyperindividualised world where much feels surface deep. A rupture where expression is released en masse.

Maybe it isn't really like this for everyone. Maybe this sounds like I'm overthinking it, or romanticising sentiments often entangled with problematic masculinity in football culture. That's certainly a thing. But to me, it nearly always transcends that. Football is one of the few spaces where people celebrate their sense of place. It is one of the few spaces, short of a church, where people sing together.

The video I captured was a moment of that. A huge occasion, a huge celebration of place. A feeling of belonging and pride. All of it shattered just moments later when the goal was disallowed by VAR.

We lost. At Wembley. Again.

And I ask myself – does it matter? That we lost, no. That we could have won, yes. Are we unlucky? No. Are we lucky? No. Are we happy about it? No. Will we be happy again? Eventually. Should I be a football fan? Who knows.

Will I always be a Sheffield United fan? ‘Til I die.