The Agonies of a Sports Fan

"It's a depressing world out there these days, nobody will deny." So it says on a site not a million miles away from here. Those words are resoundingly true and sports can make things so much worse. Being a sports fan opens you to the world of hope, wishing that the team or player you support so dearly wins the battle that they're embroiled in. Victory brings unbridled joy, a feeling of euphoria that is matched by little in life. Its a different matter that it vanishes when the next battle appears over the horizon (a fortnight in Formula 1, a week in football and 2 days in a Grand Slam). Yet the lows are crushingly depressing and one wishes the earth would open up and swallow you whole.

Making an emotional investment in a sports team is most often unintentional. One watches the team or individual play, finds some aspect to connect with whether it is nationality, locality, spirit, style of play or as is the case with the 'glory hunter', the simple art of winning. Games (or races or matches) are watched and before you can say "Zinedine Zidane", you're addicted. Posters go up on the wall, discussions turn to debates to arguments to fisticuffs. A moment of madness where one day you took more than a passing interest turns into a life-long curse, the inability to stop supporting your losing team is Death by a Thousand Cuts. Spare a thought for Boston Red Sox fans who went 86 years without winning the World Series. Worse yet, spare a thought for Chicago Cubs fans, they are still to win their first in over a 100 years.

It is worse still to smell victory of the ultimate goal and watch it snatched away. I went to a pub with my friend the Arsenal fan for the 2006 Champions League final where they were playing Barcelona. Arsenal had their goalkeeper sent off after just 18 minutes and at that point there seemed little they could do to stop a rampaging Barcelona. But they scored before half time and played a solid game, threatening to score more. An inspired substitution led Barcelona to score in the 76th and 80th minutes to take the lead and the biggest title in club football. The sucker punch he felt was visible as he stood rooted to the spot, unable to comprehend how life could be so cruel. Perhaps 10 minutes gives you some time for it to sink in. What of Bayern Munich fans who led for 85 minutes against Manchester United in the 1999 final only to have 2 goals scored in the final 2 minutes of injury time. Could words put into perspective the hollowness they must have felt? No words could describe the joy I felt as my team overcame impossible odds to win. 10 years later I'm trying to understand my rivals' position.

Worse still is losing at home. The last race of last season, the Brazilian Grand Prix, was perfectly set up for a duel to the finish. The leader for much of the season, Lewis Hamilton, lined up 4th on the grid with the challenger, Felipe Massea, in pole position. Hamilton's 7 point lead seemed almost unassailable. Only an Act of God could have saved Massa. Sure enough, the heavens opened as they often do during Brazilian Grands Prix. The events that followed on the last lap, will be remembered forever. Conspiracy theories on how much Timo Glock was paid to slow so dramatically on the last lap for Hamilton to sneak away with the Championship in Massa's homeland will prove difficult to counter. How many Brazilians in the stands kept control over their emotions as they actually went through the incredible highs of the first Brazilian champion since the immortal Senna to the inevitability of defeat within minutes? How many hearts broke watching Massa weep uncontrollably on the podium, his flawless victory in the race turned meaningless by the loss of the Championship?

At least India's collapse to Sri Lanka in the 1996 Cricket World Cup Semi-Final was due to our ability to snap defeat from the jaws of victory. Or in this case, crumble when a challenge was posed. Tens of millions of television sets were turned off when Jayasuriya got Sachin. All hope was surrendered well before the Eden Gardens crowd decided to add some pizzazz to the occassion. But though we lost, we didn't reserve the despair that we do when we lose to Pakistan. As in the 1st Test Match at Chennai in 1999, when Sachin brought us to the brink of victory with a glorious century. Rarely has such a collective mass plumbed such depths, as all Indian cricket fans did that fateful evening when 4 were lost for 2. Losing to the most hated neighbour, who always has that patch of greener grass, is perhaps worst feeling. Derbies become legendary for the fighting spirit with which they are imbued, but to lose them means surrendering bragging rights to friends, work-mates, in some cases even siblings, for what could be an indefinite period of time if you're particularly unlucky (or if your team is particularly poor).

Yet for all sports fans, there can still be worse to come. For a supporter of a team that wins big and wins often, a loss can be so unexpected that its jarring. As a Manchester United fan, I go through this when my club refuses to turn up and loses to Debry County or Coventry City. Clearly, it is the same for some others. Said Joe Queenan, "New York [Yankee] fans whining about their sporting disappointments to the vast American public -- poor Don Mattingly never got to play in a World Series (boohoo) -- is like Romans whining to the Gauls just because they once lost a battle to Hannibal. No, it's like Julia Roberts complaining that her teeth are too big. No, it's like a billionaire complaining about his eczema; sorry about the scales, Mr. Big Stuff, but you've still got all that money." Queenan obviously misses the point. When your team loses, all previous victories no matter how grand, are washed away (Does anyone remember the Pats were 19-0 last year or do they remember the Giants winning the Superbowl?). It ruins the day, the week, maybe the year and in some desperately sad cases, the century. In fact, it is ruinous until an opportunity for redemption is secured and the ephemerality of victory can be tasted.