Having researched and co-written four other books covering a number of very serious issues related to football, I began to look at why it was that I had fallen in love with football in the first place and why I did some of the things I did at games. For example, why do I, a reasonably sane middle-aged family man, shout abuse at referees, scream at players and sing stupid songs? It is totally irrational. I wouldn’t stand outside Tesco’s and do it but I’ll happily pay £27 and do it inside Vicarage Road.
And the more I looked, the more I realised that every match day, I experienced a kind of schizophrenia and adopted the persona of someone I hardly recognised. What was worse, I also saw that I was just one of thousands and we were all the same.
Just as importantly, I also realised that amongst supporters, there was a strange kind of pecking order. By that I mean that football fans can easily be broken down into distinctive groups and at the top of the tree were what I always referred to as ‘The Geezers’. The more I looked, the more I felt certain that there was a place for a book which looked at an aspect of football which rarely, if ever, receives any kind of attention.
But I also began to examine why it is that, as fans, we happily allow ourselves to be treated in such an appalling way by the clubs we love and how they get away with things that would give the average customer services department sleepless nights.
The key was how to put all of this together in a way that was, hopefully, interesting and informative, but which also put across the fact that the main reason we do all these things and put up with all the rubbish is quite simply because we love it.
And so in the end, rather than write a ‘serious’ book like the others, I decided to write what is in effect a tongue-in-cheek parody of a lifestyle. And I wrote it in the form of a bluffers guide aimed at people who have just discovered football and want to fit in with all the lads who stand behind the goals. (After all, have you noticed how no one ever admits that they’ve just got into football?)
Therefore, the book contains such vital information as how to behave in the pre-match pub, what to wear, how to get to your seat, why you should never buy programmes, why getting thrown out of grounds can be a good idea, why women should never be allowed inside football grounds, etc, etc, as well as a detailed look at the songs (including the words), a look at the distinctive mannerisms geezers have and explanations of what all those gestures actually mean.
But ‘The Geezers Guide To Football’ is, above all, a light hearted look at what, for many football fans, is not just a way of life, it is another life.
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