Football Politics – Former heroes names are sung more than any martyr, or liberator. A stadium elicits tears, more often than Auschwitz or Pearl Harbour.
Why does one support a football club? What does support in the broader context, really even mean? Have you stopped to ask yourself, why is it, perhaps, hundred-thousand stadium lengths away from what you’d consider your Mecca and Medina, you brazenly and unapologetically feel for a football club as any local would? It’s much more than the common denominator of having an invoice of your club’s most recent third kit in your inbox. It’s much more primal.
Conflict is primal. Conflict is beautiful. To the of my best understanding, when it comes down to it, it’s the white, frothing righteous rage to stand for what you believe in is what makes you for who you are. To belong. Reason takes a back seat to the almost prehistoric pang of pinning our colours to a mast, of face paints, and markings to designate our tribe. Violently bright, flagrant colours. If the conflict is presented for public perusal, it is art. And in this form of gladiatorial gallantry, there are no shadowy corners of misinterpretation to hide in, unlike literature, poetry, music, or in fact religion. There is no sleight of hand, no obscurity. People own this art, and by its virtue, it reflects theirs.