Tim Lovejoy - Lovejoy on Football: One Mans Passion for The Most Important Subject in the World

CONTENTS

About the Book

REALLY IMPORTANT QUESTIONS IN FOOTBALL

Are you a RUBBISH fan?

Could the DENTISTS CHAIR help England win the WORLD CUP?

Is it a good idea to HAMMER Razor RUDDOCK?

Are footballers UNDERPAID?

And

Did Tim REALLY support WATFORD as a kid?!?!

Packed with amusing anecdotes, bustling with great football stories and full of strong opinions, Lovejoy on Football is the must-have football book of the year. Its not rubbish. We promise.*

* Unless you're a Rochdale supporter

About the Author

Tim Lovejoy was born on 28th March 1968. He presented Soccer AM for a decade, making it into a Saturday morning institution. He now presents Something for the Weekend and Soccer USA and is a presenter on Radio Five Live 606. He supports Chelsea FC.

I dedicate this book to my brother James. Without him introducing me to The Specials, I might have been a New Romantic.

PROLOGUE

WHO DO YOU SUPPORT?

Whenever youre asked this question in the back of your mind youre getting ready to justify how true a fan you are:

Ive been going since I was five

My grandads originally from the city

My dad made me

It was the first match I saw on TV

It was the first Panini sticker team I finished

People having to justify who they support is my eternal bugbear with being a football fan. Football is for everyone, and being a fan has been taken over by what I like to call football fundamentalists, who have adopted the term real fan and used it to spread fear amongst the normal football-loving man. These people are always miserable and always trying to find reasons to drag football down, whether it be money, foreigners, ticket prices or board takeovers. Im obsessed with football, but theyre obsessed with proving theyre obsessed about football.

Football in my opinion is the most important subject in the world. Its the true world sport and the one thing that unites every nation (well, apart from America).

And lets remember, we invented the sport, so lets rejoice in it and enjoy it for what it is the best game to ever grace this planet.

I dont want to rant but Im going to anyway. We need to reclaim our national game from the fanatics, real fans, and give it back to the people. Im by no means the worlds biggest Chelsea fan, but I am a massive fan of football and in my world whether you go to away games or not, or go at all, or whether your teams the other end of the country or just up the road, or even whether youve never owned the clubs shirt, or youve got the club crest tattooed all over your body, to me its all irrelevant. I believe being a football fan ISNT about:

Stats;

Never missing a match;

Trying to prove youre a bigger fan than the next man;

Or moaning about how the game was better in the past.

What it IS about is:

Enjoying watching football, whether it be on the terraces, TV, or YouTube;

Engaging in banter with mates down the pub;

Kicking a football at any opportunity;

And being miserable when your team gets knocked out on penalties.

This book is a combination of memoirs and opinions, and I hope as youre reading it youll disagree with loads of stuff I say, because thats what football really is all about. No one really understands everything about the game, but everyone thinks theyre an expert. But as I say, when it comes to football I might not always be right but Im never wrong. Oh, and forgive me when I indulge myself in this book and go off on the occasional tangent, but this is the first time Ive written a book. Im sure J.K. Rowlings s******g herself.

The great thing about this book is how many people have written to me saying how they now fit in as a fan. I was right that I share that feeling that Im not a real fan with many of you. Whether its a Liverpool fan from Norwich or an Arsenal fan from Southampton people realised. In fact this book got great reviews from everyone apart from a couple of football magazines who trade on the old fashioned real fan ideals. However, these magazines dont sell enough copies to fill Spotland (Rochdales stadium) so it doesnt matter what they think.

LET FOOTBALL INTO YOUR LIFE

religion: the belief in a superhuman controlling power, esp. in a personal God or gods entitled to obedience and worship. 2 the expression of this in worship. 3 a particular system of faith and worship.

A friend of mine whos an artist is always saying, football has no relevance, no culture. Weve wasted many hours arguing over this. Shes of the belief that football is for uncouth morons who spend their afternoons getting drunk and singing songs, and hurling abuse at everyone.

This is true.

But its not called the beautiful game for nothing. Is there anything more breathtaking than watching a player like Barcelonas Lionel Messi dance through the Getafe defence? For the millions of people who watched that clip on YouTube, its like a religious experience.

I have never been religious. As far as I can gather church services have always tended to be on Sunday morning and that, Im afraid, was when I was out playing football. Faced with such a dilemma (OK, not that much of a dilemma) there was only ever going to be one winner.

FOOTBALL IS THE nearest thing I have had in my life to a religious enitity. It is an ever-present force for good in my and many other peoples lives. It is, perhaps, the only constant I have. If I am depressed or down, football will lift my spirits. It has and continues to play a massive part in enriching my life. It has always been there for me and I know it always will.

Now take a step back and ask yourself if you like football in any way, shape or form. If you can answer yes then this book is for you. If you said no then bear with me because I really want you to think again. In fact, I want to offer you salvation. Dont worry if you dont consider yourself a real fan. Dont worry if you have never even been to a game. I want to present to you a game that welcomes each and every one of you.

Rewind a number of years to a pointless conversation I had sometime with a fellow Chelsea fan. There we were talking about the relative merits of some player or other when he piped up with But you dont even go to away matches. What would you know? Correct me if Im wrong but how on earth does that affect my opinion on football? Why does travelling up to Middlesbrough or Sunderland or Blackburn mean you know more than me? Does it really mean that just because you go to away matches in faraway towns you are a bigger and, therefore, better football fan than me? Of course it doesnt. Now, whenever Im challenged on the subject I tell people that I go away all the time but only if its to Rome, Monaco, Barcelona or somewhere else equally glamorous in the Champions League.

OK, so I may know only a few facts and figures about Chelsea, but thats because my memory is like a sieve, not because I dont care or because I dont enjoy the game as much as the next man or woman. Its the same with music. I love music passionately but can I name every album or single theres ever been? Oh you dont have the entire back catalogue of Pink Floyd? Well, no I dont but so what? I still like music. Stop trying to test me you bloody fascist bully. Let me get on and enjoy it.