There seems to have been a lot of football on TV lately. And I know, because Ninesh, watches them all, at home or in the pub. It is a passion, not just for his own team, Arsenal, but for the game itself. He sees it as an art form. While others hang pictures on their walls of their living room, Ninesh hangs images of perfect goals and beautiful shots on the walls of his mind. Poor play angers him and our small house is constantly filled with angry shouts of " what are you doing?" " Get up," " How could you have missed that." " What an idiot." Sometimes our son watches with him, sometimes he watches by himself but when the right team scores the right goal, it feels as though the whole street must be able to hear his cheers. Its odd because mostly Ninesh is quiet and self-contained. It's his passion for the game that brings him to life. And it has become part of the reason I love him.
The strange thing is, that I used to hate football. It seemed to be an excuse for racism, drunkenness and unnecessary tragedy. It gave people a reason to divide themselves into opposing teams and hate each other. I remember the shame I felt at being English after the Heysel disaster in Belgium. I remember the eery silence as a friend and I walked the streets of Liverpool on the day of the Hillsborough disaster. And the pointlessness of it all made me angry. But now, after all these years of being married to a football lover, I see another side to football. To so many people football is: " not just a matter of life and death. It's so much more than that."
While we were travelling around Europe in our camper van 7 years ago, I learnt something about football. It's an international language. It breaks down barriers. It crosses class and culture. As we drifted from one tiny village to another in our dusty van or stood on empty platforms in forgotten railway stations, it would often be Ninesh's Arsenal T-shirt that saved us.
"2 adults and 2 children to the island with the volcano,' we would say hopelessly to a confused ticket master somewhere in the middle of Sicily. He would look blankly from Ninesh to me, smile helplessly down at the children and shrug. Then suddenly, he'd see Ninesh's red T-shirt with the white canon logo and a grin of relief and understanding would spread across his face.
" Ah, Arsenal. Thierry Henri. Manchester United. David Beckham." And coming out from behind the counter, he would shake Ninesh's hand, call over all the men from the bar across the road and introduce them, as though he and Ninesh were long lost friends.
And somehow, we would always end up on the right train, with the right tickets, being waved off by a group of complete strangers who had nothing in common with us except a love of football.
And wherever we have travelled since, this has been true. A love of football is an instantaneous, international bond that means you are never lost for words, even if you don't share a language. And however poor or unhappy a nation is, however ridiculous and unethical the huge salaries payed to the best players might be,for the 90 minutes of any football game, the world stands still and the only thing that matters in the whole universe, is that your team wins.
The truth is, much as it would have once pained me to write this, the world probably is a better place for having football in it. And if you are thinking of travelling the world and don't support a team, buy a T-shirt and pretend you do.
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