The last thing Sarah Franklin expected was that her six-year-old son would swap his Superman cape for an Arsenal strip and turn into a soccer obsessive virtually overnight
It was as sudden and irrevocable as a penalty shoot-out. One minute Jonah, our elder son, was all about pirates and superheroes, a new cape the pinnacle of joy. Then, in an identity change Clark Kent would be proud of, the cape was abandoned and he stood before us in studs and Arsenal strip, a fully fledged six-year-old football obsessive.
Yes, yes; that small boys like football is a universal truth, one that has fuelled Persil ads and birthday cards for decades. But, stupidly, I'd forgotten that it was probably based on fact. With two small sons, the odds of someone in the household succumbing to football fever were pretty high.
If you'd asked me a year ago, I'd have confidently stated that a fully blown football fan was as plausible in our house as a pristine kitchen floor. My idea of the perfect Saturday afternoon involves a big mug of coffee and a bigger book; if fresh air is required, a meander in the woodland solves it nicely. My husband grew up in the hooligan-ridden 80s within earshot of the cacophony from the terraces. His relationship with football progressed at an early age from indifference to antipathy. The grand tradition of the beautiful game is often learned at home, but not in this home. In terms of football fanaticism, we languish in the Conference Premier league.
It's irrelevant, of course. How naive can I be? Like a particularly virulent stomach bug, football is something that Jonah picked up at school. Each breaktime, a gaggle of likeminded footie nuts turns into pint-sized Vieiras and Van Persies, engaging in fierce competition to score a hat trick before being called back in for phonics practice. When it came down to the important business of choosing a team, Jonah did what children have done from time immemorial; he picked the same one as his friends. Male bonding starts with grazed knees.
At home, it's like we've all been initiated overnight into a cult, albeit a very cute one largely consisting of small earnest True Believers in oversized replica kit. Football, according to Jonah, is in everything; all conversational paths lead to the Emirates stadium. He practises his handwriting by copying out league tables, numeracy by fervent study of goal differences and is saving up his pocket money for an Arsenal ticket. His love of reading, the reigning cult here, isn't diminished, fortunately. I kid myself that this is because my own passion for books has rubbed off, but deep down I know it's because reading is a gateway to yet more football. As with all good bugs, it's catching. If Arsenal kick off after Jonah's bedtime, I've got into the habit of putting a note with the score on in his room, to prevent dawn whispers of "Mummy! Can I get up and see if Arsenal winned?"
Like the memory of applause echoing through an abandoned stadium, this flurry of football mania is kicking up anecdotes buried in my brain. For a while in my 20s, surrounded by rabid football fans, I knew plenty about the game and could debate formations and strategy with the best. I went so far as to develop a random, inexplicable crush on Jim Leighton, whose performance during Euro 96 seemed impossibly romantic. But even back then I used to take a book to the terraces "for the boring bits", and in the years that have passed, my football knowledge has drifted into nothingness, like a missed corner kick.
Now football is part of my eco system again, like it or not. I find myself inadvertantly able to silence a pack of small boys – no mean feat – by telling them that I've seen Barcelona's manager play. Barcelona, as any six-year-old will tell me, and frequently does, is The Best Team in the World, so this is big news. "In the olden days?" one of them asks, awed, ruining it. "Yes, in the olden days," I confirm, feeling ruin-like myself. They are impressed, gazing up at me awestruck; then one spies a stone that looks vaguely spherical, and they're off, a roiling mass of self-commentating, self-congratulating players, all about to win a cup final. Every game is critical in their minds, whether played by them or by, as they see it, bigger versions of themselves. The route between playground games and televised matches is short and crystal clear. At six, there's no reason to believe that you can't play for Arsenal one day. In Jonah's mind, once he and his friends have agreed who will play in which position, all that remains is for them to wait to be old enough. It's brilliant to be around such certainty, something Enid Blyton-esque about realising that small boys really do want to grow up to be footballers.
Jonah already possesses the instinct I've always associated with grown men, of identifying people by the team they support. I tell him we're going to visit old friends at the weekend, friends he knows and likes. "But C's an Ipswich fan!" Jonah says with concern, his tone clearly conveying the dangers of consorting with somebody of such dubious taste. As a first-generation football fan, Jonah has no mechanism for understanding the decades-long agony of supporting a team through wins and losses, losses, losses. There's a reason everyone in his class supports a Premier League team, and it has to do with the visibility of success.
We persuade Jonah regardless, that we should visit our friends, if only for him to try to get to the bottom of such apparently dodgy taste in teams. All is redeemed when our friend produces a trophy he'd been presented with for winning his fantasy football league. Anyone who can win a trophy has to be OK, after all.
Sometimes I wish for Jonah's sake that he'd been born into a team, that there had been a family tradition that required him to grow up following, say, Arsenal or even – horrors – Ipswich Town. But for the most part, I'm glad that we're all learning this together. Being a little kid is all about exploring, about finding your way, and there's nobody in the family who knows more than Jonah about the Premier League. My own father can give him a pretty good run for his money, but on a day-to-day basis, he's far and away top of the division.
Football has provided, however unwittingly, a level playing field, an area where Mummy or Daddy don't necessarily know more, or better. This is an epiphany for both our boys, and a salutary reminder for us that life only becomes more about the kids outstripping us in terms of knowledge, passion and ability. My husband is reversing his opinion in the age-old fashion – football fans can't all be awful if Jonah is one. Football's become part of our family's DNA, along with Sunday night fish tacos and endless lullaby refrains of You Are My Sunshine, that marks out our family as peculiarly ours.
It could, of course, all be a phase. Perhaps by the age of nine, football will have been usurped by some other, currently undetected passion. Whatever happens, and despite myself, I'm really enjoying the football thing, for all sorts of reasons I hadn't considered. I'm proud of Jonah for showing us so clearly who he is, for demonstrating that the dynamic of a family will continue to shift and flow to accommodate the urges of each of us within it. Well after the last scuff marks from spontaneous indoor football matches have been scrubbed from the walls, the imprint of Jonah's first true love will remain upon us. I'll be checking the Arsenal scores before bed for decades. Read More
انسخ الكود التالى و ضعه فى موقعك او مدونتك.
