I love football. I still have trouble telling offside, but I love the game. This post is sort of a confession statement where I come clean about all things football. It all began with the 2002 World Cup. This new channel called Ten Sports had started services in India and this was to be their first major event. I surely must have missed the first few games, but as the tournament progressed, I became more and more involved. I was living in Aminjikarai then, and we used to sneak in and read India Today which our tenant from second floor had subscribed to. I happened to read one such world cup special issue and got a slight understanding of which team is good et al. Like every other noob in the country, I supported Brazil. I vividly remember watching the Finals at Murali's place.
The love for English football started in the 2005/06 season. I was vacationing at Jammu after my Class 10 board examination. We didn't get ESPN/Star Sports back in Chennai, so this was all new to me. Thierry Henry had scored 27 goals that season. This was a time when, for me, Henry was still hen-REE instead of ahn-REE. Now that I think of it, I was most likely to be an Arsenal fan if not for Fifa 99. That has been the only computer game I've been decent at, and I played it like crazy those two months. The Quick-Play mode started with Man Utd and they had, like, full strength. I, for the obvious reasons, always chose them as my side and scored tens of goals (this was after I got better at it; i used to switch sides and score own goals in the beginning). David Beckham was like a god on the field and I almost always score a hat-trick with him. So there, that is why/how I started being a United fan. I downloaded wallpapers and screensavers on my absurdly slow dial-up connection, edited names of players on the Fifa 99 United team to match the team of 2006 and more such silly things.
I don't know shit about the Manchester United legacy. The reason why I'm writing this is because I don't want people to call me a phony bastard who doesn't know the first thing about the game but calls himself a United fan. My being a part of the 'United bandwagon' has little to do with doing the 'in-thing'. Let's face it, it's cool to be a football fan and even more to be a United fan. It's good to be a part of a team and United ended up being my bitch. When I see a United match happening when I'm flicking through channels on a lazy Sunday evening, I watch.
P.S. I understand the timing of this blog is very awkward, coming just days after United took its worst beating ever in a long, long time. That too in a derby match (that's me trying to show off a little). I still owe my allegiance to them and I will always be a United fan. Just don't expect me to come up with anything clever when you're sitting there analyzing the game.
The love for English football started in the 2005/06 season. I was vacationing at Jammu after my Class 10 board examination. We didn't get ESPN/Star Sports back in Chennai, so this was all new to me. Thierry Henry had scored 27 goals that season. This was a time when, for me, Henry was still hen-REE instead of ahn-REE. Now that I think of it, I was most likely to be an Arsenal fan if not for Fifa 99. That has been the only computer game I've been decent at, and I played it like crazy those two months. The Quick-Play mode started with Man Utd and they had, like, full strength. I, for the obvious reasons, always chose them as my side and scored tens of goals (this was after I got better at it; i used to switch sides and score own goals in the beginning). David Beckham was like a god on the field and I almost always score a hat-trick with him. So there, that is why/how I started being a United fan. I downloaded wallpapers and screensavers on my absurdly slow dial-up connection, edited names of players on the Fifa 99 United team to match the team of 2006 and more such silly things.
I don't know shit about the Manchester United legacy. The reason why I'm writing this is because I don't want people to call me a phony bastard who doesn't know the first thing about the game but calls himself a United fan. My being a part of the 'United bandwagon' has little to do with doing the 'in-thing'. Let's face it, it's cool to be a football fan and even more to be a United fan. It's good to be a part of a team and United ended up being my bitch. When I see a United match happening when I'm flicking through channels on a lazy Sunday evening, I watch.
