The Round Ball Game - II

[french frank]

... yep, that's what I don't get.

Like all those people 'identifying with' Princess Diana after her death.
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I think there is genuinely a detached, dispassionate discussion to have about it, away from all the present excitement of the current events. But perhaps not on this thread which is for the enjoyment and jubilation of the moment.



[Signed: One who has just discovered this is not the same as the competition held last February and won, so I read, by Bayern Munich. I wondered why there was so much excitement over a competition which was already over.]

[vinteuil]

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"jubilation"? o pshaw

... fine - magna est veritas, et praevalebit, but not here.

Time for me to shut up, perhaps

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[Mario]

United . With the Stretford End......The theatre of Dreams. Without.....another big cold football stadium with an occasional day in the sun.

Why does this make me angry? (Maybe because it's accurate?)

To all in England...

My sincere and heartfelt...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xJcE9tnY6E

Mario

[Sir Velo]

... what I always find weird is this notion that WE have done it. As far as I could see, it was eleven or so men running after a ball on a football pitch wot done it

I think Mitchell & Webb had a good sketch


.

It's that vicariousness innit guv? We can never do it ahselves so av to dream..

[LMcD]

... what I always find weird is this notion that WE have done it. As far as I could see, it was eleven or so men running after a ball on a football pitch wot done it

I think Mitchell & Webb had a good sketch


.

Link posted the other day - can't remember where - absolutely brilliant! (Not that any of the attitudes portrayed in this sketch would ever be found in a true Tractor Boys or Owls supporter ).

[teamsaint]

Why does this make me angry? (Maybe because it's accurate?)

To all in England...

My sincere and heartfelt...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xJcE9tnY6E

Mario

Ah, just a bit of red ( and white stripe ) devil coming out. And a bit of poetic licence, meant in an appreciative way .

Tweaking the tails of the big and powerful is fun....when it occasionally happens.....

[teamsaint]

It's that vicariousness innit guv? We can never do it ahselves so av to dream..

I don't think that is quite right, not for me anyway. I'm happy just to be there,in a place which for whatever reason is special to me, of which I am a small part. I never really dream of scoring that cup winning goal....

[LMcD]

If we do become European champions, will it once again prove to be The Sun wot dun it?
(It's unlikely to be GB News, which apparently now has fewer viewers than the Welsh-language version of a children's TV programme).

[Serial_Apologist]

I don't think that is quite right, not for me anyway. I'm happy just to be there,in a place which for whatever reason is special to me, of which I am a small part. I never really dream of scoring that cup winning goal....

I surmise Sir Velo to be referring to what some would call "substitutionism" - in the sense of the individualised wish fulfilment of the would-be doer, symbolised as the displacement and denial of its own disempowerment at the hands of forces it cannot on its own acknowledge. Something like that.

Were it otherwise, I don't think we'd be getting the same over-compensatory degree of mass emotional discharge.

[Frances_iom]

I surmise Sir Velo to be referring to what some would call "substitutionism" - in the sense of the individualised wish fulfilment of the would-be doer,...

there was a brief interview with a "cultural anthropologist with a psychological background" at the end of the 5-6pm slot on R4 on the fateful Tuesday - I only caught part of it as preparing a meal but it seems that the human brain is especially hardwired for such mirroring of others actions - males especially it seems tho also seen in females - same mechanism as bonding within groups in warfare.

[teamsaint]

I surmise Sir Velo to be referring to what some would call "substitutionism" - in the sense of the individualised wish fulfilment of the would-be doer, symbolised as the displacement and denial of its own disempowerment at the hands of forces it cannot on its own acknowledge. Something like that.

Were it otherwise, I don't think we'd be getting the same over-compensatory degree of mass emotional discharge.

I don’t think this is what I would describe as vicariousness though.

[jayne lee wilson]

... yep, that's what I don't get.

Like all those people 'identifying with' Princess Diana after her death. It's not real

( .. "O it's real for me!" - = "It's my truth" )



.

If you don't get it, how can you judge it as unreal? Whereof you do not know, thereof be silent…..
(The raucous Mitchell & Webb sketch is cheap and shallow, with more than a hint of tired, dated middle-class snobbery toward sport. So deafeningly relentless, it becomes the thing it presumes to mock. So it doesn’t hit any of its presumed easy targets. Just very clichéd water off the ducks’ backs.
(Do M&W know that arch-Liverpudlian Jamie Carragher, playing for our beloved club (and England) all his devoted career, now writes for the Telegraph as well as analysing for Sky?).

Your Royal Family/populist analogy is so far from the truth as to be simply sad, puzzling, not upsetting at all. (And more complex in its mythology than you suggest - people identify with famous figures, the icons in pop culture, whether tabloidised or not, in music, film or aristocracy for many reasons - not all of them by any means due to “fake” emotion; how would you tell?).
So why not accept the things you don't understand with dignity for yourself, and respect for others' deep, self-identifying emotions?

****
Commuting academically between Switzerland and UK in 1982, I found myself without a TV as the World cup began.
One day there was a knock at the door. A Film Studies guy who I barely knew, with no interest in Sport, was there - with a portable TV in his arms: “I can't bear the thought of someone who loves football being without a TV for the World Cup”. Somehow word had got back to him about my plight….

He loved watching the late night movies on TV, at a time when the only other option was a trip into town for the Arthouse. But - there he was, empathetic and prepared to give something up. “Oh its Ok, I’ll go to a friend’s…” It may have helped that we were both recently out-and-not-so-proud as a little nervous; but what wonderful generosity and empathy. It was an example of humanity I never forgot.

(While in La Suisse, Mum would send me cuttings about Liverpool FC from the local papers; once the Italians at the University there heard I was a Liverpool fan, they brought in the Gazetta dello Sport, proudly showing how each match had two pages of broadsheet analysis devoted to it every Monday; I hardly had to pay for a meal out again, and got some great lessons about pasta cooking.......shared identity, passion, belonging).

****

The first match I ever cried over: West Germany 3 England 2 - Mexico, 1970. A long and emotional story since: the story belongs to me, and I to the story. As for many many others.

Milan, Madrid, Montevideo, Buenos Aires..... Liverpool and Manchester.......Napoli in the time of Maradona……others too.
All these cities identify, intensely, with their football teams and even if you hadn't lived there most of your life, you could be caught up in that identity, that intensity; belong to it and own it, take it into your heart like Great Art and Music. It is, in the deepest sense, a culture.
It can sweep you up in waves of emotion, high and low; you can wait years for the next high, and you never, ever lose faith in your team, your city; never give up. It becomes a part of you.

[vinteuil]

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... ah, enthusiasm

Nope, not for me

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[Sir Velo]

The first match I ever cried over: West Germany 3 England 2 - Mexico, 1970. A long and emotional story since: the story belongs to me, and I to the story. As for many many others.

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The really, desperately sad thing is to think that this was your own real life experience.

[teamsaint]

The really, desperately sad thing is to think that this was your own real life experience.

My own real life experience of the feelings I had watching that match, my first experience of sharp sporting disappointment, was indeed my own real life experience.
It all happens in the head.

I do seriously wish that people who come on this thread to try to belittle, foist their own agenda, point the finger, point score or whatever, would go and do it somewhere else.
This thread is usually the most civilised place on the entire internet. I like it like that. You know, when we talk about football .