Tuesday, October 17, 2006

My Fulham First

Last night I went to my very first Premiership football match. I have adopted Fulham as my local team. It was either Fulham or Chelsea, and I opted for the underdog. This harkens back to the late 80's when I started going to Vancouver Canucks games and they couldn't win a thing. The shock of a win induced an unbelievable euphoria - like last night as we won 2-1.

Some small observations: the pitch is much smaller in reality than it is on television; the smell of the freshly cut grass was wonderful (and then rudely interrupted by the scent of cooking sausages being prepared for half time); and apart from one particularly crass and unmistakable refrain, I cannot comprehend football chants. But admittedly, the best part of the evening was discovering that the Fulham mascot is....a badger. Those of you who know about my well-established badger obsession will understand (and probably wonder at) my excitement.

2 comments:

Steven W. Beattie said...

Over the summer, I read Among the Thugs, Bill Buford's book about football hooliganism. Scary, scary, scary. Does that kind of stuff still go on at matches?

Slant said...

Apparently, Fulham has a reputation for having the politest fans in the league.

I have a friend here who was almost beaten up because he was wearing a scarf with particular colours on it. When he explained that it wasn't a football scarf but was his university scarf, this didn't help. So....yes, that scary stuff still goes on.