Confessions of a Non Football Supporter
“COME ON!”
I had spent the last ten minutes shouting similar words of frustration at the Dutch football team each time they had kicked the ball at the goal in front of them only to miss, have it blocked or bounce it off a goal post.
“YOU’RE SO CLOSE!”
I was not shouting these words at them directly of course. It wasn’t as if I was sitting next to the coach in the stadium (even though he seemed to be shouting similar words in Dutch). In reality I was sitting next to my beloved Dutch wife, in our front room, shouting at the Dutch team via our television. It didn’t seem to be helping much, probably because they could not actually hear me. My wife seemed deeply amused by my actions nevertheless.
“And I thought you were not into football that much,” she says with a sly smirk.
It is true. Normally I have no interest in football at all. In fact, under normal circumstances I have about as much interest in football as most people have in the study of agricultural crop rotation. I just seem to get sucked into it when the world cup starts, more and more each time… Although I still was not going to admit that I have no clue what the outside rule means, especially to my wife who is the football expert of the house.
“Yeah… Well… I’m not but this game is really tense,” I offer as a shorter explanation as I sit there wearing my orange t-shirt and with little Dutch flags painted on my cheeks. Maybe she has a point. Maybe I do get a little too enthusiastic for someone who claims to have no interest whatsoever in football.
But I am quickly distracted once more as the Dutch team suddenly gets the ball again and starts running like crazy towards the other team’s goal as if they just stole the dinner of a particular hungry, fast moving pack of wolves.
“YA!”
The ball is suddenly kicked and it sails through the air towards the goal.
“YA! YA!”
The members of the defending team try desperately to knock it off course. Each one of them fails. The ball continues its journey towards the goal until…
“YA… COME ON! COME ON!”
… it bounces harmlessly off a goal post and flies off in a random direction.
“NEEEEEEEEEE!”
“You do know you’re not actually Dutch right?” My wife asks, just to make sure. I get the impression that she is no longer watching the game and is instead transfixed by my out of character football enthusiasm.
“England is already out. I have no one else to support. Don’t take this away from me.”
Slightly more apropriate : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s (or less :) )
Hehe. Very appropriate. This is also appropriate for how I usually am: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESVjzf4FzyU
I’m not Dutch either, but now that the U.S., Colombian AND French teams have been eliminated from the World Cup, the Oranje team have effectively become my Obi Wan Kenobi: they are my only hope. :P
(I tend to get this worked up over soccer and baseball games, and I don’t care much for either sport at all.)
And much like Obi Wan Kenobi they were struck down. Hopfully they will ‘become more powerful than you can possibly imagine’when they play Brazil for third place.
Crop rotation in the 14th century was considerably more widespread …
Sorry, it’s so rare that I get a chance to properly insert that quote from The Young Ones into everyday life. As for football, I do enjoy it and used to follow it more closely. Now I tend to focus on the national team events. Less time consuming and you can pick random countries to support for obscure reasons. Still, with all of the other teams I support on a national basis already out (and out early in some instances), I’m so glad the Netherlands is hanging on once again. Hup Holland Hup!
Luckily I have an obscure reasons to support Germany now that Holland is out. My wife’s brother’s girlfriend is German.
offside rule Stu ;)
— Dutchie in England, with a husband who shows very similar behaviour to you…
I rest my case :p I think I translated it word for word from Dutch when I wrote it down with out just using the English term. Oops.
I’m not Dutch, actually I’m italian and I live in Italy and I didn’t know how many italians support Netherlands (me at first)!
The irish pub in Florence was full of Dutch and Italian all for the same team of course! :D
…and of course, Italy too is out of the Worlds Championship!
And we’re all going to have support German or Argentina now :p
Now Stu? What are you supporting? Yesterday the Holland won a beautiful 3th place… today it’ll be the time of German vs Argentine! :D
Is it too late to say Germany? :p
Same here, not having the national team in this competition anymore, i became a dutch supporter. When i thought the math was going to the penalties, i told to my lovely dutch husband: we are going to the penalties. he told me: you do not have dutch blood, do you know?
oh my……
We were very unlucky to have penalties again. My family in law got a laugh out of my reactions at least. They were very surprised to see how into supporting the Dutch team I got.
Haha, so true! I hope for a Netherlands-Germany final, so I’ll win no matter what happens (I am German but have lived in the Netherlands for most of my life)
I hope for you that German wins now :p
I know I’m late here, Stu, but I’m so the same as you. Daft isn’t it? I also hate it if people criticise ‘our’ team. How dare they? :-))
‘You know you’re Dutch right?’ was the exact responce I got from my best friend when I was drapped all in orange (plus flag-cape) and was shouting in the pub.
He just didn’t understand…probably because England were still in at this point.