Find out what it means to me
After a curious long weekend of defending my integrity and being robustly insulted by quite a few people who don’t know me, it’s perhaps appropriate that I spent today trying to act with integrity and encouraging people not to insult one another.
As you’ll be aware, I am quite keen on the sport of football. We’ve covered this ground before – some people like me feel their heart speeding up slightly if they so much as drive past a football ground, while some people (probably a majority on this site) would rather sit very still and think about nothing but leeks. What I think we can all agree is that one of the worst things about football is the aggression, ignorance, hatred, abuse and anger it sometimes provokes. Sometimes this aspect of the game is (rightly) given so much publicity that people fail to acknowledge how it also promotes fun, understanding, cooperation and so on, but football doesn’t help itself in that regard. Displays of fuckwittery by footballers and football fans are, sadly, all too common. And as someone who spends a lot of time defending the game, wittering on about its heritage and trying to get girls to watch it, this annoys the hell out of me. I really resent that when my boy is old enough to come to the game, I will have serious reservations about taking him, because I know that not everyone there (at whatever club) is someone I can trust to act like a decent human. Yep, it makes me mad. MAD ENOUGH TO GLASS SOMEONE. Joking. Ho ho.
Anyway. So the Football Association have this campaign called RESPECT which exists to say ‘hey everyone, football is really tense and exciting and all, but let’s all try not to be awful while we’re watching it’. This year it’s focusing particularly on dad shouting at kids in park matches, and similar instances of needlessly hostile behaviour. So. Someone needs to front this campaign, someone who’s ideally a quirky comedian who can take a wry look at the subject. Where would we be without wry looks?
So that’s where I’ve been today, filming a short video where a kid gets screamed at (humorously) for failing to blow out the candles on his birthday cake, anf so on, and I appear and say well if you wouldn’t behave like this at a birthday party, then how come etc etc. I then invite people to become members of an imaginary football club which I am ‘chairman’ of (what this means in practical terms is that, in the video, I have a horrible shiny grey suit on). Football fans will be able to sign up for the ‘club’ (for free) and money will be donated, each time they do, to individual good footbally causes.
Nice.
Even if you don’t like football, you might enjoy the video as there’s that grey suit, and I get dangled upside down by a psychopath (I did the stunt for real, I should add), and I do a rousing speech and there are football mascots in animal costumes. Something for everyone. I’ll let you know when it’s online, or ‘up’ as online people say.
There you are. That’s my day reported on. I think the weird one-way war between me and that other gentleman is now in the past. If you look back at the various blogs on the subject, comments are still trickling in, most lovely, the odd one still nasty, a couple genuinely weird. But I think it’s pretty much over. If I were truly a ‘sellout’ I would be monitoring my ticket sales tomorrow to see whether the publicity has boosted them. But I’m not, of course. I’m not even going to peep.
Posted by Ingrid on January 12, 2011
Whats rrs? Anyway i think this looks like a really good campaign. It annoys me how violent football players/fans get. Look forward to seeing it when it goes ‘up’
Posted by Lydia on January 12, 2011
I’m having the RSS feed problem as well. I thought it was just mine going weird, but I think there must be a problem.
Posted by Jamie/James on January 12, 2011
Every time I go via your website to your blog, it’s not coming up with the most recent day, usually the 7th. Not sure if anyone else is having a similar problem or it’s related to @Steph ‘s comment, but thought I’d let you know..
Posted by Steph on January 12, 2011
This is totally unrelated to the blog, but I’ve stopped getting your blogs to my rss feed. I’ve tried unsubscribing and resubscribing but I think it must be a problem on your end. I had a little panic that the blogless day had come until I checked on here.
Posted by Lydia on January 12, 2011
I will watch for the dangling upside down if nothing else.
It’s good to hear that something is being done, or trying to be done about the way football fans behave. I don’t really know about what’s in place already, but I really hope this helps. I have had to watch so many documentaries about football violence as part of my psychology A2 (I have one of those teachers who doesn’t actually teach. I know nothing about group aggression but have seen a lot of footballers getting the shit kicked out of them), and it is absolutely awful and it makes me seriously angry.
Posted by Lora on January 12, 2011
I’m glad to see your involvement with the campaign as I’ve been involved with similar things in the past and there’s nothing worse than going to a football match to hear a barrage foul language when it’s entirely unnecessary. I have been known in the past to apologise to opposition fans on behalf on fellow supporter’s behaviour before now as I dislike the situation so much.
I also look forward to seeing this advert as it sounds most entertaining.
Posted by Rachael on January 12, 2011
how tall was the psychopath if he could dangle you upside-down? I’m looking forward to seeing this.
It is one of those examples of a few idiots ruining it for everyone, except there is more than a few which is why it is such a problem I suppose. It makes me sad that the police have to release warning reminding people not to get violent and be stupid before a big game.
Posted by A lot of Rachels on January 12, 2011
I tend to get uncomfortable when people start to scream some pretty horrible words or if I’m at an away game near the home fans who start to shout abuse at us because they just scored a goal. Some of it isn’t meant in any menace but you do feel that some do get a kick out of being abusive. I don’t think I’ve been to many games where I felt the crowd has been threatening (I have been scared enough to cry in one game though but that was because everyone cheered around me when we scored). My dad still refuses to wear his football shirt to away games and I think it’s just little touches that need to be made and it’ll hopefully make the game seem much nicer.
So the campaign seems like a great thing to front and I look forward to watching it
Posted by Andrew on January 12, 2011
In other news, away from my stupidity, I am in what I suspect is a highly unusual position round these parts of being a football season ticket holder who has taken a child with him to many, many games. Currently taking my youngest, who is seven. I can’t speak for away grounds, but at the Kassam you know which area to avoid if you don’t want to encounter the very worst a man can be. And it needn’t be the deathly family area. What I have said to both my kids as they went in to their first game is that they will hear some stuff that belongs only in football grounds, and I don’t expect to hear it from them. Seemed to work (although I guess never hearing me swear at home probably helps). I think it’s worth bearing in mind that kids go to school, and, let’s face it, schools are awash with enough bad language and tasteless humour to make Frankie Boyle blush.
As far as the Respect campaign goes, I support it wholeheartedly but I’m afraid it’s doomed to failure until such time as FIFA decide to do something about it top down. When people see the Rooneys of the world clearly berating a referee and nothing being done about it, the trickle down effect is inevitable. Until they have the nerve to instigate a draconian review of the way referees can be spoken to – and I hate to say it, because I loathe the game, but rugby has it right – I fear any attempt to radically change grass roots behaviour doesn’t have much hope. Sorry.
Posted by Alex on January 12, 2011
I don’t get football. I’ve tried but I just don’t. Literally, I just don’t understand it- can’t even tell if it’s being played well or not.
However, the only reason I actively dislike it (apart from the fact it dominates TV to a ridiculous degree) is the attitude that goes with it. So this sounds marvellous.
Posted by Andrew on January 12, 2011
OK, so I read the title of the blog and thought “That doesn’t read right, surely it should be ‘Find OUT what it means to me’?” It rang a vague bell, but I couldn’t place it. Having read the blog, I was still bothered by the title. It will be a line from a song, I thought. Mark is always titling his blogs using lyrics from bands I’ve never heard of and would probably hate (with the notable exception of Ben Folds Five), so it’s probably one of those. So I thought I’d better check that there wasn’t some curiously ungrammatical line in a song by The New Pornographers (did I remember that right?) which included the words “Find it what it means to me”.
Take a few seconds now to picture me Googling the words “Find out what it means to me”.
Now take a few to imagine me seeing the results, cringing inside and being glad nobody was able to hear my internal monologue. Which of course I’ve now ruined by fessing up to my idiocy.
Posted by Kate W on January 12, 2011
That sounds like a worthy campaign to be involved in. As a non-football fan, one of the things that puts me off isn’t the game itself, but the amount of aggression (if not actual violence) that seems to go with it.
While I don’t want to encourage shiny suits, will look forward to seeing this when it’s “up”.
Posted by Carl on January 11, 2011
Good for you, Mark.
I feel I’m in the same camp as you; a passionate lover of the game, but an equal disliked of the negative aspect. Hope the campaign does a bit of good. I’m sure it’ll be as powerful as Ray Winston’s!
To any Watsonians who may have noticed my absence; I’m still alive. I’ve just been quietly observing on the sidelines as I feel I haven’t been able to contribute as well as you lovely
folk.
Posted by Matthew Evans on January 11, 2011
Hi Mark
While I agree with you to a point – there’s no room for racism, prejudice violence or other criminal behaviour in football and, indeed, junior football should be a place of respect and setting a good example etc. etc.
However, I am a season ticket holder for a Championship club, I spend all week being quiet, unassuming and respectable in my job so is it too much to ask that I be allowed to go support my team (in a non-family area of the ground) and shout abuse at highly paid young men? If only for the sole reason that they are playing for the opposition and my hostility might just put them off.
It’s a kind of release – you know?
Posted by Josh on January 11, 2011
Typo in the title anyone?
Posted by Anji on January 11, 2011
What an awesome day! Sounds like a day well spent, even if you did have to put a shiny suit on….getting to be a stunt man makes up for that!!
I love going to actual football matches, even though I always end up sat next to the drunk, who gets in late and has to go pee 50 times! And it is most peculiar how the urge over take me to yell at the ref when something isn’t right! Not that I usually do, as enough people are doing it far more colourful ways than I ever could! And I too worry about the young ones who are then hearing the colourful words and pick up on it all. Very difficult to get just right I imagine.
But nice to hear about your day, how you ever have time for ‘normal’ day to day things I’ll never know. You continue to amaze.
I also liked the work fuckwittery, and will no doubt implement it soon!
Posted by Misha on January 11, 2011
The turning point in the defence from me to my flat, was when I told them you’d once offered to hold my hair back when I was sick.
Apparently that’s a nice thing.
Anyway, I like the idea of RESPECT, the welsh are good at it, even when there’s a big match at the arena I don’t feel threatened in town by the drunk football/rugby fans, they’re a bit over exuberant yes, but not threatening.
Posted by Anna Lowman on January 11, 2011
What an ace thing to be fronting! Can’t wait to see it.
Posted by tinkissarah on January 11, 2011
The ‘dangled upside down by a pyschopath’ is what I’m most looking forward to. Sounds fun!
Posted by DeborahF on January 11, 2011
Sounds like a fun day to me – can’t wait to see the shiny suit.
Posted by Daniel on January 11, 2011
I like the word fuckwittery.
Posted by MusicalLottie on January 11, 2011
Sounds interesting; I shall look out for it!
Leeks, yum.
Posted by Katy on January 11, 2011
I shall look forward to this. Ive often thought the same about when I have children that taking them to the football wont be the best idea.
The last game I was at (Reading v Leeds) there was this awful man sat next to me who said many many nasty words which actually made me uncomfortable because all I wanted to do was watch the football and cheer on my team, whereas he seemed hell bent on fighting the away fans. Not cool. We did do some nice chants that afternoon though.
Are there famous mascots that you filmed with, or make believe ones?