Is Jamie Andrew dead wrong about football?

I went to Ibiza with a squad of mates last year. We hired some cars and, between bouts of apocalyptic alcoholism, went for jaunts around the island. Scouring the passing scenery like some down-market Michael Palin, I quickly spied something that delighted me. There was a cemetery, a big white wall hemming it in, and next to it – and I don’t mean kind of close-by next to it, or just-down-the-road next to it, but appended to the graveyard, like it was an extension – was a five-aside football pitch. I shit you not. No one else in my car found this sight as incredible as I did. I don’t believe in God or football; and now here they both were, living in harmony. How was that even allowed, I wondered? What maniac town planner sanctioned this?

“OK, then, members of the committee, that’s settled. We’re having the football pitch joined on to the graveyard. Next order of business: Georgios’ plan to put crazy golf inside the slaughterhouse.”

We’ve been culturally conditioned to accept the congruity of certain groupings of items and ideas: chip and pin, fish and chips, north and south. But there are some things in this world that our brains would, and should, never accept together: Ahmadinejad and Salman Rushdie pairing up for ‘Strictly Come Dancing’; Michael J Fox getting a sniper rifle for his birthday; and, of course, to groans of a too-easy political ass-toeing, Cameron and Clegg. Up until recently I was confident that this no-no list also included a football-pitch-cum-graveyard combo.

As we whizzed along the sun-kist streets my brain was struggling to comprehend the logistics of this double-act. Surely, I reasoned, the two places must liaise with each other to make sure there isn’t a match going on as somebody’s burying their granny next door? The last thing mourners want to see as they choke back tears of sadness is the minister hitting the deck and shouting ‘HEIDS.’

And what if there was an awkward moment of symmetry between the burial and what was happening on the pitch? You don’t want your minister approaching the graveside to a loud chant of ‘Who’s the bastard in the black?’. And you certainly don’t want his speech about your papa ‘being commended to the earth from whence he came’ punctuated by a loud cry of ‘GET IN THERE, SON!’

If you read my last article you will already know that I would place ‘Jamie Andrew’ and ‘football’ very high up on that magical no-no list of things that shouldn’t be together. I know the many reasons why this is so; I just don’t know whether or not I should be thankful, or sad that something is missing from my life. Am I normal?

First up, I have the physical grace and coordination of a roller-skating chicken, which somewhat put me off playing and enjoying the game in my youth. At school, I was the kid who was always picked last in team selections for lunch-break friendlies. Well, the term ‘picked’ is slightly disingenuous. I was the only guy left once everybody else had been selected on merit, forcing my reluctant team captain to incorporate me into his squad by mathematical default. This was normally followed by ten boys muttering ‘for f*cksake’ under their breaths.

My team would stick me in goal, reasoning that I’d be most effective and least dangerous as a keeper, owing to my tallness and large arm-span. They quickly learned that this strategy was analogous to cheering on a jobby to win the Olympic Freestyle Swimming on the grounds that it can float. Still, if I wasn’t exactly the world’s best goalkeeper I think I managed to convince in the role by hollering out ‘WHERE’S THE F*CKING DEFENCE?’ each and every time the ball thwacked into the net behind me; something which happened with monotonous regularity.

Secondly, I had weak blood-ties to football, having no real role model to school me in its ways. My father tried to condition me to share his love of the beautiful game by taking me to a football match when I was four. He later vowed never again to subject himself to this humiliation. I was bored senseless by the match, and instead entertained myself by putting on a puppet show for the large bear of a man stood behind us. Lacking puppets, I improvised and used my hands. The bear didn’t appreciate my ingenuity, and spent the entire duration of the match becoming noticeably more murderous with each new twist of plot I threw at him.

‘Ah, so the left hand was the guilty one all along,’ was what the bear would have said, if only he’d recognised the worth in my performance. ‘Get yer bufty wean tae shut up and watch the football or I’ll gub ye,’ was what he probably did say to my embarrassed father.

It’s clear that the footy gene perished somewhere betwixt ball-sack and foo-foo on the evening of my creation. Conditioning might have been successful had my parents not divorced. Perhaps prolonged exposure to my father’s football daftness would have taken its toll eventually. It was definitely in his blood. In his twenties a then-girlfriend warned him that if he chose to travel to a cup final match abroad instead of attending her sister’s wedding then he could consider himself single. And so, heel for heel and toe for toe, he fucked off to the football. In a weird way, I’ve got twenty-two grown men footing a sphere up and down a bit of grass to thank for my very existence. My step-dad took over the role of father figure when I was five; but he was more into model railways, ferns and herons than he was football. Thankfully, my model railway, fern and heron genes remained inert.

Thirdly, I wasn’t surrounded by footballing peers at that crucial age. Many youngsters develop their silky skills in streets, parks and housing estates near the neighbourhoods in which they live, roaming in packs with other like-minded kids. I grew up in a thin stretch of countryside far from my school friends, and far from the bounce of any ball. No kerbie or world cuppy for me. Instead I’d wander into farmers’ cow fields, lie down on the grass and sing old songs until a crowd of bulls encircled me and started licking my shoes. This, horrifically, is true.

In later life I would find myself in friends’ houses and in pubs watching an eagerly-anticipated (by them) match, again bored shitless and staring longingly at my puppet-less hands. Interestingly, I discovered a few years ago that I could sometimes muster enthusiasm for a match by arbitrarily choosing a side and throwing all of my emotion and passion into hatred for their opponents. As if in a trance I found myself hollering some particularly vile things at the television screen. It was like the five minutes’ hate from 1984. Very therapeutic. My fervour was less to do with my appreciation of the intricacies of the game, and more to do with belonging, albeit temporarily, to a tribe. To be able to say, think and feel ‘WE’.

The ‘we’ that brings people into graveyards on solemn days with a shared sense of certainty and closeness. The ‘we’ that brings thousands of people into football stadiums on fortune-changing days with a shared sense of excitement and community. The ‘we’ that ‘I’ don’t have.

Although not being allied to a God makes me feel a certain sense of relief, not being allied to a football team can leave me feeling a little less male, and a lot less Scottish. When I hear the roar of the crowd on match-days, and see the fire in the eyes of the supporters, I sometimes wish that I could submit myself to the joyous madness of the mob. Flip a switch in my brain that would allow my heart to race in tandem with the fortunes of eleven total strangers, and be able to feel that battle-scarred, flag-waving togetherness that only an army of fellow fans can experience.

But then I reflect that ‘we’ also brings little guys with moustaches onto platforms in Nuremberg, and throws thousands into concert halls where Justin Bieber is playing, and I start to feel relieved that I’m a solitary, army-of-one kind of guy who enjoys getting his shoes nibbled by bulls. Maybe it is I, with my bovine-drool-sodden feet, who is the sane one, and you’re all just brainwashed mental cases who need a more sanguine hobby. Yes, I think that must be the answer. And nothing at all to do with the fact that I’m an oddball who sucks at football.

Knowing my luck I’ll discover upon death that there is a God, and He’s decided that only football fans can get into Heaven (He’s a St Mirren fan, if you were wondering). The last thing I’ll hear as He hits the lever for the trapdoor to Hell will be a cry of ‘HEIDS’ as I plummet deep into the fiery depths. My punishment? Doomed to watch an eternal game of football played out by sock puppets.

And up here on earth, my corporeal body will rot in a certain Ibizan cemetery, the cries of ‘You’re not singing anymore’ accompanying my journey into putrescence.

At this point I’d like to make a plea to regular readers of the site to comment below and tell us about weird football fusions you’ve witnessed on your travels. Perhaps you’ve donned goggles to attend a play-off in an underwater stadium, or watched as 22 confused spaniels were togged out in green and blue shirts and forced to recreate an Old Firm match by a set of very irresponsible owners. Anyway, get interacting, my little ball-kicking aficionados. Oh, and if anybody wants to take me to a match in an attempt to ignite my passion for the game, then I’m open to offers. Just please don’t use it as a ruse to stab me to death.

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About the Author
Jamie Andrew has been on the comedy circuit for just over a year, and in that time has come to the attention of at least three different people; three of whom didn’t think he was that good. Despite this, he got to the final of the Hilarity Bites New Act competition 2011 in Darlington, and had a run with his show, God vs Jamie Andrew, at the PBH Free Fringe Festival at Edinburgh. The same three people came to see him there. They still didn’t like him.

It’s not surprising that Jamie doesn’t like football, after years of being picked last for friendly games at high school. This was no conspiracy. He sucked at football. But it was the laughter he received whilst playing those early games that convinced him his future lay in comedy.

Follow Jamie on Twitter:  @nottheclimber

“thoughtless attacks on anything and everything…” Andrew Dipper, Gigglebeats

“I concur” Graham Mackie, when someone on the Scottish Comedy Forum said Jamie was alright.

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