Sometimes, I wonder where the line between dedication to a sports team and unchecked insanity lies. Having team T-shirts? In the clear. Wearing a replica jersey out in public? Generally safe. Team tattoo? Off the deep end.
Where that line gets blurry, though, is in the wee hours of the morning out here on the Pacific coast, where dedication to watching your team is balanced with an ungodly early weekend morning.
Welcome to the life of a big soccer fan on the West Coast.
Thankfully, the decision was made for me yesterday morning – I didn’t even have Fox Soccer Channel on my TV to catch my favorite soccer team, Arsenal, opening the season against Fulham in a match that started at a nice and early 4 a.m. Sunday morning. Without the channel, and with no chance of any bar or restaurant opening that early for the game, I rested easy Saturday night without the psycho-early alarm set.
I’ve done it before – but generally for matches at a much more reasonable time. I’ve woken up at 7 or 8 in the morning to lie on a couch and watch my team, and I also skipped class two years ago to see them play in the European Champion’s League final…which happened to start at around 11 in the morning. While the West Coast usually gets the better deal for American sports, we get the shaft our here for most anything from Europe – Formula 1 races, another favorite of mine, also start at 4 a.m. and yes, I’ve gotten up for those too.
But I just couldn’t get up at 4 a.m. this weekend. I would have had a better chance to stay up all night for the match, but who’s to guarantee the local pub – a mainstay location for soccer fans in the U.S. – would be open for a few sleepy Arsenal fans for the opening day?
On second thought, maybe I should’ve given it a try.
Bleary eyes and the feeling of sleepiness at a time when the only people up are delivering newspapers is a small price to pay for indulging in a passion. Sure, there may not be many soccer fans in the United States, but when you meet up with them it’s like being in a secret society – the average American sports fan would ask for a dictionary to translate conversations about reds and blues, teams pushing for Europe or trying to avoid the drop, derby matches and divers. Joining in on the fun can be daunting, but with the English league just starting this weekend, there’s plenty of time to pick up following the sport.
Don’t ask me to explain why I got hooked on the sport in the first place. I don’t even fully remember how it happened – it just did somewhere during bored afternoons in high school, when what’s now Fox Soccer Channel would show replays of matches and, for even higher comedy value, the British sports news show, which is kind of like SportsCenter but with better accents and fewer gimmicks. For a variety of reasons, my heart got stuck on Arsenal, one of the perennial top teams in England who play in the north of London and won the league title the first season I was a fan. I was hooked, and the 2002 World Cup just sold me even more.
Add in a few more years, plenty of time spent checking ESPN’s Soccernet Web site, and a few friends made through a shared interest in the sport and my team, and we return to yesterday, the start of a new season, and the usual expectations – we’ll win the league and Europe, we’ll smash in more goals than last year and let in fewer, we’ll beat all our rivals (including defending champions Manchester United) and demolish our traditional North London enemy, Tottenham Hotspur.
Of course, that never happens – but seeing how it does play out is half the fun. Heartbreak, joy, dismay – all can happen within a half, and amplify that by the passion of watching the sport with others who know and love it, and the experience is brilliant. Now, excuse me while I figure out which player’s name and number I should get on my new jersey, which I’ll wear while wielding a mug of coffee some early weekend morning cheering on the Gunners.
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