Is soccer making you sad?
Your team loses 4-0. You contemplate suicide. We might be taking the game too seriously, writes Andrew Woods
AS each football season draws to a close, most supporters are left feeling apathetic, drained or possibly frustrated. Some will be recovering from shock and feelings of anguish and anger. Waiting in the wings is the World Cup, a roller coaster of emotions which almost always ends in disappointment.
None of these feelings are new to seasoned football supporters, but there seems to be growing evidence to suggest that, for a number of people, the low points associated with supporting a football team are edging towards clinical depression.
Psychotherapist Steve Pope has seen a sharp spike in football matters causing depression among his patients. “If you are depressed, then your team losing can intensify that,” he says. “There are some for whom a weekend has been entirely ruined purely by football. Would they have been arguing and brooding if their team had won? No.”
For many, a loss associated to a team’s fortunes can be intense yet short-lived. As daily life seeps back into view, the memories of the game are contextualised and dealt with. But for some, it takes on a deeper significance.
“When Steven Gerrard slipped during that Chelsea game, you could feel this massive, emotional shockwave,” says Pope. “I am not a Liverpool fan myself, but even I found it devastating. That one mo- ment, which has been relived thousands upon thousands of times, will be causing severe depression among many supporters, leaving them unable to concentrate at work, with relationships wobbling under severe strain. A fight may break out between husband and wife over who takes the bins out, but essentially it goes back to Gerrard’s slip. If he hadn’t fallen over, the argument would never have happened.”
John Williams from Leicester University is an expert in fan behaviour. “Media coverage of football has become much more pervasive, extending well beyond the limited context of sport and involving many more commentators — on blogs, phone-ins, dedicated sports channels,” he says. “At the same time, other traditional identity sources — family, community, politics, religion and place — seem to be in relative decline. A club can become an extension of one’s identity, especially for men who find little status or satisfying identity in work or family.”
The expanded media coverage means losses are amplified; mistakes are analysed in forensic detail, and feelings of loss can easily turn into embarrassment and anger.
“Football has intensified,” says Williams. “There is no escape now from hurtful post-mortems. We are all ‘experts’ and this is very powerful and keeps exchanges alive, but leads to more conflict.”
With players bursting into tears all over the place, it’s clear that for all concerned football is a more emotional business than ever. The sense of theatre has been intensified by the clubs and TV companies. The message is: this game of football really matters. You must have an emotional stake in it, otherwise you’re not part of the collective conversation.
Phil Banyard of Nottingham Trent University has studied the effect of failure on football fans. “Football has become a powerful emotional driver,” he says. “The allconsuming media surrounding it leads to an increase in intrusive thoughts and nurtures the notion that we are the sport. Some fans experience almost pathological lev- els of obsession and anxiety.”
Some will say you need to experience the lows in football, as in life, to fully appreciate the highs. But Banyard thinks something masochistic is at play. “Are football fans deliberately seeking out this stress and misery?”
In severe cases, losing will feel like grief. As one anonymous fan on a football message board put it recently: “I can honestly say that I have felt less emotion at funerals than I did watching QPR get relegated.” —© The Daily Telegraph, London