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.