Not Man and Boy: Listening to Villa

Cod Almighty | Article

by Alistair Wilkinson

18 September 2007

Weelsby Woods: we shall speak of it no more. There was a digger, and football cannot compete with a digger. Poor little man, he was dragged away, and he never recovered. To cheer him up, someone (I'm not naming names but it begins with M and rhymes with 'dum'... ow!) suggested he splash in a puddle. Its appearance was misleading: much like Neil Woods, it could be dismissed at a glance but on closer inspection depth was revealed. George fell in; to the puddle, that is, not Neil Woods. I had intended to take the camera but I forgot. This is a good thing because those bad-dad feelings would have had me taking a picture of a thoroughly soaked, thoroughly miserable little boy whose interest in football couldn't have been any lower. I giggled.

Close control by the youngster

How's the kicking? It's going great; he really kicks it now, instead of just shunting the ball with his leg. Sadly, this increase in skill has led to complacency: he no longer needs to say "kick!" There's a drop in cuteness points right there, but we can climb back up the 'aw' scale with another anecdote.

He shoots he scores. "Goal!" George shouts, and Daddy is left in a crumpled heap.

"That was fantastic!" Daddy enthuses.

"Get up, Daddy," George commands.

"Gimme a minute," says Daddy, laughing. "I fell over in disbelief."

"Yeah, you fell over in disco beef!"

To make football even more attractive we bought a Postman Pat ball; it burst. I refused to buy another. Did I refuse to renew my season ticket? I did not. I bought it with glee, inflated with hope and excitement for the season ahead. Five games in and deflation threatens.

The full kit

This is my sons' paternally proffered destiny, the emotional boom and bust of football fandom. I considered buying George a season ticket, but remembering that Charlie and Lola attention span, I saved my £70 for next season. Or I could buy the new strip, and one for George, and something for baby brother. What about the bedding? I can't. I still have nightmares about that picture of Reddy. Still, sleeping in the colours might aid the insidious onset. Nah, too calculating; I need to be subtle. Perhaps I could bribe him?

Football fans are easily bribed. On a Saturday way back in May I listened to Aston Villa v Sheffield United. Their club being swallowed by another American billionaire, the Villa fans were salivating at the thought that many more footballers would soon be affordable. What am I trying to push my boys into? The Villa faithful were chanting loud and clear across Radio Five Live: "One Randy Lerner, there's only one Randy Larner!" Do I want my boys involved in something where passion is shown to a person simply because he has money? Does sport, does anything, get shallower than that? The fact that I was only listening because I was cooking the tea and have a faint desire to see Sheffield United fail? Better to love a man for his money or dislike him for his colours? There's an issue for the future.

Money. Too much of it sloshing around, but never spilling from the top table of the game, and everyone else desperate to catch the tidbits that are allowed to fall off the edge. We got £17,000 from the Premiership. The weekly wage of a squad player. Thanks for that. I'm not bitter, I'm worried. Will I and my sons have Grimsby Town a few years from now? Well, there'll be something. Will they want to go? My season ticket was £285. That's a lot of money for fourth division football, but it's by no means the highest. I'm not going to go down the well-trod path of the cost, both financially and morally, of supporting a football team; if a fan can do it, a fan can do it. I want to talk about wanting to do it. Will George want to spend £285 (stick a nought on the end by the time he's old enough) on Grimsby Town? A Sky subscription's dearer, but it's warmer at home. A weekly trip to the pub certainly isn't cheaper, but it's comfier, and the atmosphere might even be better.

'Better' is something that I'm going to have to battle against, but is that a fight I can win? The whizz-bang of Sky TV and even the cardboard cut-outs on MoTD make us look small and insignificant to everyone outside - and to some inside - of Blundell Park. In the war against this I take him out in black and white - I'm sure he gets pitying glances - and I bought both Wembley games on DVD. Sadly the quality was still very much VHS. How did George enjoy the Auto Windscreens final? Charlie and Lola have had some competition for time on the TV recently. Not, I'm sorry to say, from the magnificent Mariners; Thomas the Tank Engine bumps them even further down the list.

Town on tour

I want to be able to give Grimsby Town to my sons, all of it, warts and all: the cost, the misery, the anger, the apathy, the animosity, the jealousy, the bitterness and even the ridiculousness, and all for mere seconds of joy. That would be my gift to them: a lifetime of memories good, bad and indifferent. I would give it to them and they would make it their own. Unfortunately they will also be given something better, something more. Frank Lampard for instance or Alan Shearer the pundit, there's something better, something more. Blue, red or the wrong black and white: if George and his baby brother can ignore them I'll fall over in disco beef.

Is Al's approach to parenting essential to the future of Grimsby Town Football Club, or should we call social services? Share your thoughts using the Cod Almighty feedback form