Help me, I’m a football fan…

If you love football then you love watching good players. If you love football a lot then you love watching quite good players as well. If you are a football fanatic then you love watching any standard of players. If you are a sufferer of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) about football then you watch any football that is available, all the time and at the expense of having any sort of life!

Sadly

Sadly, I fear I may fall into the latter category. If there is football on the television I tend to watch it (if I can negotiate with the wife that is, of course!) I love watching Premier League games but am quite happy watching the Championship or Leagues one or two. Actually, I quite enjoy watching Conference football as well.

In England we get the luxury of being able to watch Spanish football and Italian football. There is also the Scottish football and occasional games from Ireland. When you add in all the different cup games and the international friendlies, qualifying games and tournaments, together with the under twenty-one games and the youth football that is shown from time to time, it is not difficult to watch the beautiful game seven days a week.

Highlights

If you can’t get enough live games then there are always the highlights shows that show the goals and action from all around the world. We can watch football Asia, the J-League the A-League and the MLS. Unfortunately, being a sufferer of football OCD I find that I have to watch all of this.

When my wife, unreasonably, suggests that I may spend too much time watching football I point out to her that I rarely watch football on the television on a Tuesday or Thursday evening or on a Saturday afternoon. On a Tuesday and Thursday I am at training with Wilton Town, the team I manage, and on a Saturday, I am at our games. I should point out though, that I may well watch a highlight show when I get home on a Tuesday and of course, I watch Match of the Day on a Saturday evening. However, unless there are highlights from a UEFA Cup game on a Thursday, I can honestly say that I often see no football on the television on that day of the week.

Value

My wife and I rarely agree about the value of football to our lives. However, she has recently said something that I whole heartedly agree with. She has told me that I need help. I agree with her, I do need help. There is simply so much football and not enough time to watch it! I need to lose some of the other irritants in my life like work and family, the children and household chores, so that I can spend more time watching the game.

There is a common form of depression called Seasonal Adjustment Disorder (SAD) which makes people become more depressed during the cold, dark and wet months of the year. I suffer from this disorder but it affects me when the sun is shining and the weather is good. June and July are terrible months for me and I become morose and difficult to be with. Having to watch Athletics or Cricket on the television is no good for any man!

SAD

All I can say is thank goodness for the under twenty-one European Championships and the Confederations Cup. These two tournaments have saved me from serious SAD this year and may just be enough to see me through until August.

I start back to pre-season training next Tuesday so that should be a big help as well.

Obviously, I started writing this article as a joke, but the more I got into it, the more I realized that there are significant elements of truth in it. I think my wife might be right. Are there any support groups out there for football OCD sufferers like me? We could start one called the Football And Related Trauma Society (FARTS). My name is Graham and I am a FART… 🙂