BLOG 4

Passages from the last section: Nick looks back over his life and soccer as a whole "One thing I know for sure about being a fan is this: it is not a vicarious pleasure, despite all appearances to the contrary, and those who say that they would rather do than watch are missing the point. Football is a context where watching becomes doing- not in the aerobic sense , because watching a game, smoking your head off while doing so, drinking after it has finished and eating chips on the way home is unlikely to do you a whole lot of Jane Fonda good, in the way that chuffing up and down a pitch is supposed to." (178) Nick has learned every aspect of the game and is defining what a true fan is from an ordinary one. "I know that I have apologised a great deal during the course of these pages. Football has meant much to me and come to represent too many things , and I feel I have been to watch far too many games, and spent too much money, and fretted about Arsenal when I should have been fretting about something else, and asked for too much indulgence from friends and family. " (190) Nick's love for soccer develops from a small interest to an obsession he can not let go of. Soccer was like a missing piece to his puzzle. "Absurdly, I haven't yet got around to saying that football is a wonderful sport, but course it is. Goals have a rarity value that points and sets do not, and so there will always be that thrill, the thrill of seeing someone do something that can only be done three or four times in a whole game if you are lucky, not at all if you are not." (191) Here, Nick is analyzing that basketball,football and other sports can not come close to how soccer is played. Soccer points system is what makes the game so exciting and fun to watch and play. The technique and ability that players have to get goals to Nick is astounding. " A more interesting question is this: what does it do to the fans? How is your psyche affected, when you commit yourself for a lifetime to the team that everybody loves to hate? Are football fans like the dogs that come to resemble their masters? (233) Nick was given tickets to an Arsenal game and did not know much about the team and towards the end of the book he knows almost the whole history and stats behind them. "I started playing football seriously -- that is to say, I started to care about what I was doing, rather than simply going through the motions to appease a schoolteacher-- at the same time as I started watching.So I have been playing for two-thirds of my life, and I would like to play throughout as many of the three or four decades remaining to me as possible." (235) Nick comes to a realization that soccer has changed his life for the better. Without soccer Nick would not be in the position he's in today. he found himself through the sport he loves and will continue to love.

Link- BLOG 3

In Nick Hornby's book Fever Pitch , Hornby describes the stabbing of a young Arsenal fan at a rivalry game against Everton. He also describes two other incidents where there was a lack of fencing and security which cause chaos towards the end of the games. Though this link, and story describes violence used for a different cause, the soccer world was stunned by the number of people killed in Egypt after a soccer game. As the President of FIFA puts it rioting at a soccer game takes away the "beautiful" side of the game. Unlike Europe and Latin America, soccer in Egypt has always been tied to politics. The riot that occurred outside the soccer stadium was not intervened by any police officials or military. However, outside the soccer stadium large crowds of men waved flags supporting their teams and huddled toward Interior Ministry headquarters. Tear gas was fired because they thought they were trying to break into the building, when all the people were doing was setting up a protest. The violence that led to 74 people killed, had nothing to do with the soccer stadium itself, social and cultural differences were behind the deaths. Attending soccer games in a Egypt was a way to let go of frustration of the horrible leaders. Hardcore soccer fans known as ultras had an important role in the uprising that toppled over leader Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Soccer is a worldwide sport that is enjoyed by many but when violence occurs and people are killed the joys of the sport are no longer there

BLOG 2 section 2

http://www.pixton.com/create/comic/f1po612r

Blog 4 Eli

This is a Paul Davis highlight real.  Paul Davis was a striker for Arsenal who Nick references as scoring a incredible diving header to win the game against Charlton on 21.3.89.  The first goal on this highlight video is the diving header.  This game was significant for Nick because he remembers turning down an invitation to his friends birthday party. Nick thinks, "I had been exposed as the worthless, shallow worm I was, and I went to the game. I was glad I went, too. Paul Davis scored one of the best goals I have seen at Highbury..."(206).
 
 In this game as described by Hornby, "the greatest moment ever" happened.  Hornby tries to describe how he felt and ends up concluding that even an orgasm wasn't as good as watching the goal at the end of the game. This is a video, which includes interviews and footage from the game.




This is the Littlewoods Cup semifinal rematch versus the spurs that snapped Nick out of depression.  Nick  says, "That night, I stopped being an Arsenal lunatic and relearnt how to be a fan, still cranky, and still dangerously obsessive, but still a fan nonetheless"(174).




This was a devastating loss in the Littlewoods cup final versus Luton. Arsenal lost 3-2 and missed multiple chances including a pk by Winterburn. This is a loss which Hornby still feels bad about.




This is a memorable end to a game against norwich in which the final score was 4-3, there were poor refereeing decisions, two penalty kicks, and a fight--all things Nick Hornby thoroughly enjoys.  

Blog 3 Eli

This is a dialogue between Nick and one of his students, who he figures out is an arsenal fan.  This is a hilarious passage because the bad kid--the one who sits in the back of class, has a mod haircut, and likes Arsenal--upon being questioned about Arsenal by a teacher responds doubtfully that the teacher knows or has any passion for the gunners (arsenals nickname). Little does the kid know his teach, Nick Hornby, is one of the most obsessed and passionate Arsenal fans in the world.  It is hilarious to hear Nicks response to the questioning of his fandom.

Blog 2 Eli

I created one drawing of the Arsenal stadium, Highbury.  In the drawing you are looking up a ile along a row of stairs. To the right of the drawing is the Arsenal scarf that got stolen from Nick at one of the games. I used the effects and colors on scribbler to show the different ways that Nick feels while he is at the stadium.  The first drawing shows a calm Nick.  The stadium is a pleasant Arsenal red and the lines are less bold.

This drawing reflects the tone that Nick more often feels while he is at Highbury.  The dark black lines make the setting a bit more serious.  He talks about how before every game he is serious and solemn, and to him being a fan is not all fun and games, but indeed suffering and worry.  The highlights of pink and yellow over the dark black is how he feels when Arsenal wins the cup final at Wembley.

This drawing with would be how he feels after there is violence at the stadium. This drawing has a more serious tone to it.  Also the red symbolizes blood and violence.

Pictures

In the first section, Nick goes to his first Arsenal game and is amazed by the fans and is intrigued by their reactions at the game. This picture shows the excitement of English Premier League football.


This pictures shows a game at Arsenal's stadium. Arsenals football team becomes Nick's prized obsession. He starts to learn more and more about the team.

Blog 1 Eli

"From where I was sitting I could probably have counted twenty thousand heads; only the sports fan (or Mick Jagger or Nelson Mandela) can do that" (19).

This quotation was a cool description of how awesome and incredible the atmosphere in a soccer stadium is.  This is an important quotation because it captures the importance you feel when you watch a soccer game live.  As he explains later in the book you feel big: like one big animal ready to work together and cheer  for your team.  It also talks about how he was instantly attached and fascinated with the fans.  When I went to my first real live soccer match in Argentina (River Plate vs Newels Old Boys) soccer instantly became something bigger.  It was no longer something that I was good at, practiced often, and occasionally watched on tv.  It became a passion.  The fact that so many people--only numbers you would see at concerts or political speeches--can all come together and make the stadium shake with cheers and passion is incredible.   It is almost overwhelming the insanity of the fans.  Letting yourself become one of the fans is incredible.  This quotation captures how important soccer is to many peoples life, and how instantly you can be hooked to the game.

"My opportunities for intimidating people had been limited hitherto, though I knew it wasn't me that made people hurry to the other side of the road, hauling their children after them; it was us, and I was part of us, an organ in the hooligan body. The fact that I was the appendix--small, useless, hidden out of the way somewhere in the middle--didn't matter in the slightest" (54).

I this quotation, Hornby talks about how being a fan made him feel like part of a hooligan's body.  It made him feel big, powerful, and part of something.  He described how he wasn't a very big kid and how he often got made fun of at school.  I can also imagine that because of his parents divorce he would often feel powerless.  Being a soccer fan was exactly what he needed: It made him feel big, strong, reckless, and powerful, all things he didn't have in his life apart from soccer.  

"The audiences I had hitherto been a part of had paid to have a good time and, though occasionally one might spot a fidgety child or a yawning adult, I hadn't ever noticed faces contorted by rage or dispare or frustration. Entertainment as pain was an idea entirely new to me, and it seemed to be something I'd been waiting for" (21).

In this quotation, he talks more about how watching soccer includes pain and frustration, and for him the pain and frustration hooked him to the game and gave him a place where he could openly be unhappy.

"(...Let's say that three thousand of these are away supporters; that means that among the remaining fourteen thousand from Derby, there were a number of people who went at least eighteen times to see the worst football of last or indeed most other seasons. Why, really, should anyone have gone at all?)" (19).

To me this quotation relates to how for Hornby being a fan includes suffering.  He feels in order to be a true fan you have to make the away games, watch your team in the freezing rain, and most importantly suffer with the team.  I also like this quotation because it captures Hornby's unique writing voice.  Hornby likes to use parenthetical writing, which is very funny(as we discussed in class his writing is more of a COL--chuckle out loud--than a LOL).  He also has his own very distinct writing voice.  This quotation shows how no mater how bad the team, there will always be the obsessed soccer fan.  

"I just didn't want to have fun at football. I had fun everywhere else, and I was sick of it.  What I needed more than anything was a place where unfocused unhappiness could thrive, where I could be still and worry and mope; I had the blues, and when I watched my team I could unwrap them and let them breathe a little" (43).

This quotation really explains how being a soccer fan was an escape from life for Hornby. Watching a game created a place where he could let out his sorrows and unhappiness.  Suffering for him was part of what made being a fan important.  Suffering was a comfort for him.  Watching his team alowed him to unwrap his blues.