Fever Pitch

In the autobiographical book Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby writes about the hysteria and obsession that football (aka soccer) can elicit in the true fan. He happens to be writing about his relationship to Arsenal, the very same team that can alter my mood dramatically based on their performance in a given match, or lack of activity in one or both of the two transfer windows (we have been linked with every player imaginable this summer, but have one meager signing so far, and he was essentially free). Football fans make American sports nuts seem relatively tame by comparison, from the 24-7 news cycle of football news (isn’t ESPN quaint?) to the outbreaks of violence and harsh racism that have often plagued the sport. Football fans are a rough and tumble bunch that consider their team as an extension of, or sometimes replacement for, their actual family. Two stories this week demonstrated this obsessive nature and the ways that it can cross over, far too easily, into insanity:

First was in Brazil, where the dark fantasy of far too many fans came to pass with tragic consequences. All rabid football fans can point to critical games that their team lost based on a bad call by an official, often one that you start to sense has it out for your team. Until this year, Arsenal has often been the victim of bad calls that cost us games, league titles and advancement in the Champions League – as well as nightmares and agida that persist for years. Thus dreams of decapitating said referee occasionally find their way into our thoughts, though we would never act upon them (though egging their car certainly seems reasonable, right?). In Brazil they lived out this fantasy after decapitating a referee and hanging his head on a stake: Guardian. The fact that he had murdered a player beforehand certainly made the act seem a bit more justified, but many football fans the world over were snickering through their shock.

In the second incident, fans took their desire to keep a player with Portuguese club Sporting Lisbon a step too far. Loyalty to the home club is an essential feature of the football fan’s life, and those players who have the gall to seek out greener pastures are worse than the most traitorous Benedict Arnolds (I still despise RVP, for example, and can’t help but secretly root for a minor injury in a game against the Gunners). But fans in Portugal took this loyalty oath a little too seriously, hatching a plan to kidnap a player potentially destined to leave for Chelsea (Daily Mail). Luckily their plan failed, while in South America Columbian defender Andres Escobar was later killed after scoring an own goal (GQ) and several others have suffered similar fates (or narrowly escaped the meting out of “justice”).

While the Americanized film version of Fever Pitch might have been cute in looking at a rabid Boston Red Sox fan, it might have fallen a little short of capturing the maniacal nature of the authentic “sports nut” and their preferred sport, football.