Chances are none of you have spent time looking back on my 2024 attempts to produce a column alongside esteemed journalists who actually write for a living. But through the various subjects, from set-piece coaches to VAR, from the dark arts to PSR, the one consistent theme appears to be a fortnightly mid-life crisis published straight on to your Guardian app.
Perhaps the opportunity to stare at a blank document on a laptop while contemplating life once every other week has staved off other more visceral cliches; skinny three-quarter-length jeans, a moustache, a motorbike seem some way off.
But sometimes when I’m driving along, I see groups of young people just whiling away the hours drinking in the Australian evening sunshine in the park. I want to stop the car, get out and explain to them how thrilling that is, that there’ll come a time when because of geography or kids or work or whatever, this won’t be a thing – to really revel in that moment.
Obviously I don’t do it, because I’m not insane. I don’t want a group of twentysomethings to recall that time a weird grey-haired middle-aged man got out of his car to have an earnest conversation about the passage of time with them.
Such angst isn’t helped by the fact that there is a photo of me from 2010 on each article. Ethan Nwaneri was three when that picture was taken. Now he’s starting in the Premier League. I don’t look like that in the mirror.
So if you’ll permit me – fully aware of the patronising tragedy below – here is my Baz Luhrmann letter to today’s football fans. Hopefully this catharsis will stop me humiliating myself with anyone under 30 who crosses my path. And although wearing sunscreen is good advice, suggesting it to a primarily UK-based audience experiencing one of those winters seems unwise, so let’s just take that as a given.
Start the instrumental cover version of Rozalla:
Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2025, don’t look at your replies.
If I could offer you only one tip for this year, ignoring the replies would be it. You will gain nothing from watching two people you don’t know arguing at length about whether Matz Sels should be in the Premier League team of the season so far instead of David Raya.
The long-term benefits of spending less time on social media have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Results don’t matter. Genuinely. Almost no football teams win things. Desperation for a trophy is fine. But you can love a football team for your whole life, win nothing and still have the best time.
Revel in the pain of it. Every game without three points will make it sweeter when it comes. You will win again. It just may be in League Two. If a trophy ever comes, the longer the wait, the better it’ll be.
Winning over and over changes your expectations – don’t get blase about victories. They are not an entitlement.
If you go to away games, savour the journeys, the road trips, the cans on the train. There will come a time for most of you when it’s just a memory.
Don’t listen to old people who tell you football was better when they were young. It obviously was, but that isn’t the point.
If you are old, it’s OK to lose yourself in your nostalgia, like Gareth Southgate picking Bruce Hornsby and the Range’s The Way It Is because it was played as the backing music to the results on Grandstand. I thought I was the only person who felt that way every time they heard it.
There’s no one correct definition of a proper fan. Maybe you grew up next to Griffin Park. Maybe you were born in Manila but your grandmother gave you a Rotherham scarf when you were five. Maybe it defined your every waking moment 30 years ago and now it’s just part of your life. Enjoy it how you want to enjoy it.
Never tire of the beauty. Of someone dragging a ball out of the sky with their instep, or hammering one in off the underside of the bar. Admire the perfect camera angle of a shot that starts outside the post and bends in. Or just a full-back getting it launched.
There is no agenda against your club. The PGMOL is not against you. The media are not against you.
It is not simply a half-volley if the ball has bounced. It must be struck on the bounce (TO BE CLEAR JUST AFTER IT HITS THE GROUND). There is no debate. Learn this. Or never call again.
Know that however much you pantomime hate them, you would love Emi Martínez or Marc Cucurella if they played for your team.
Goalkeepers can get beaten at their near post.
Never stop playing. Nothing compares. The dressing room. The deep heat. The knee supports, the ankle strapping. Yelling shape. Not finding out someone’s actual name for a decade. Controlling a ball. Winning a header. Scoring a goal. That first post-match pint.
It is never OK to shout ‘They don’t fucking want it’ or ‘All day’.
Teach your kids to kick with both feet. I am so thankful for that.
Text your mum or dad or whoever introduced you to football after every game. I am privileged that I still can. One day you won’t be able to.
Don’t just ignore all the bad stuff: racism, misogyny, corruption, endless gambling, sportswashing, concussion, the worrying link between football and sexual and domestic violence. Terrible owners – it could be your club next. Care about where the money comes from.
Don’t judge 18-year-olds for not caring about the above as much as you. Unless you did when you were 18.
Don’t just be a mouthpiece for your football club. Supporting them doesn’t mean supporting all their decisions and values. Blind loyalty will only empower bad-faith actors. You will be there long after they leave.
Do criticise your owners for putting up ticket prices, don’t blame someone who’s spent thousands and flown miles for their one chance to watch their team.
Broadcasters: don’t bullshit fans. They know when a game is bad. Don’t pretend it was good. Fans won’t stop loving the game because of it.
Be aware of the superficiality of all football analysis – we almost never know how a footballer is feeling or what is happening in their life.
A player is not a traitor if they go and play for someone else. It’s their job.
Referees are humans too.
Don’t sing 10 German bombers. Don’t sing about tragedies. But do sing. And do “limbs”, if do is the right word. There’ll come a time when you’re sitting in the main stand and not many people are limbing around you.
Take it as seriously as you want to, but don’t be angry with people who don’t. None of it really matters.
You are of course welcome to ignore all of this advice, but trust me on the replies, and yeah, sunscreen is also good.
