Geezers' Guide To Football

Dougie Brimson

Description

Football isn't all about players, tactics or even satellite telly. It's about a culture. A culture born out of the obsession, fanaticism and humour that is football fandom. The ultimate product of that culture is the Geezer. The sexist, elitist and abusive yob who, clad in his designer clothes, follows his chosen team week in, week out. Every club has them in their hundreds, but who or what are they? And just why do they do what they do?

Informations

• Publié par: eBookPartnership.com
• Date de parution: 01 février 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780956722195
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Geezers’ Guide to Football
A lifetime of Lads and Lager
Dougie Brimson

‘..a fantastic book...a bible for anyone who wants to know what all pissed up football loving geezers spend their lives doing’ Total Football
‘Like Fever Pitch with Dr Martens on...’ Four-Four-Two
‘Hilarious.... any real football fans out there must have it in their collection’ Hull Daily Mail

Football isn't all about players, tactics or even satellite telly. It's about a culture. A culture born out of the obsession, fanaticism and humour that is football fandom. The ultimate product of that culture is the Geezer. The sexist, elitist and abusive yob who, clad in his designer clothes, follows his chosen team week in, week out. Every club has them in their hundreds, but who or what are they? And just why do they do what they do?
www.dougiebrimson.com

PUBLISHED BY CATEGORY C PUBLISHING
www.categorycpublishing.co.uk
Foreword
Over the last few years, the trickle of books dealing with the great game we call football has turned into a tidal wave of print. The days of searching around for something half decent to read in some dark, dusty corner of the local high-street bookshop or between the shrink-wrapped porno magazines in motorway service stations miles from anywhere have thankfully gone for ever. These days, the footie sections are positively bulging with reading material, and long may that remain the case.
Reluctant as I am to do it, I suppose I have to take some of the credit (or blame) for that. I have, after all, forged a career of sorts writing books about the realities of football hooliganism and the terrace culture I grew up with. There are now twelve paperbacks (and one hardback) bearing my moniker on the bookshelves of Britain and thankfully they have all been moderately successful enough to ensure that they will haunt the shelves of WH Smiths and the local libraries, for some time to come. But I wasn’t alone by any means. Oh no. From the autobiographies of has-been (or wish-they-had-been) players and managers to in-depth examinations of the financial wheelings and dealings (not to mention failures) surrounding football, every aspect of the greatest sport the world has ever known has been covered and re-covered. Almost.
You see, whilst there have been thousands of books looking at football, there have been very few that have actually looked at that much-maligned creature, the supporter. There have been some, of course, and a few of these have passed into the ‘classic, must read, must have’ category - Fever Pitch and This Supporting Life are two that spring to mind. These two books in particular achieved that all too rare feat of capturing the spirit of football fandom and getting it on to the printed page in a way that captured the essence of the whole obsession perfectly. Indeed, one of the great strengths of Fever Pitch was that in almost every paragraph you could see either yourself or someone you knew.
Sadly, there are very few books that come even close to Fever Pitch and, in truth, I doubt we will ever see another like it. Generally speaking, most books that profess to deal with football fans have been non-fiction and have tended to concentrate on specific issues such as ‘wimmin’ supporters (sic) or hooliganism, and are either brilliant (and no prizes for guessing whose I mean by that) or crap (ditto). Either that or they have been diaries of specific seasons at specific clubs and hold little or no interest for anyone other than the supporters of that particular team. That isn’t to decry them in any way. Far from it. But as a Watford fan, a book about Man United, West Ham or Hamilton Academical has no relevance to me and therefore I couldn’t give a shit about it. Sorry and all that. But that’s the way it is.
With the exception of the aforementioned Fever Pitch , much the same can be said about those novels written about the game because, as far as I’m concerned, they are all the same. And they are all crap. Think about it for a minute: boy goes to football, has fight, goes home, gets depressed, hates job, hates family, hates police, hates everyone else, hates fighting but can’t stop, gets into drugs, etc., etc. The basis for almost every single novel released in recent years. Why is it that the only person who can write a novel about football without hooliganism being an integral element is Nick Hornby? Isn’t there more to football-supporting than rucking? And yes, I am aware of the huge amount of irony contained in that statement thank you.
However, I digress. You see whilst almost every issue surrounding the game has been immortalised in print at some time or another, and supporters as a whole have received some, if not that much, attention, there is one specific group of fans who have never received the exposure they deserve, and this book aims to redress that appalling oversight. After all, it isn’t even as if this is a minority group. In actual fact, it‘s the majority. Walk around any ground on the day of a match or stand outside the turnstile just after the final whistle has blown and you will see them in their thousands. In between the anoraks, old gits, ‘wimmin’ and kids there they will be: geezers . Bloody thousands of them. The one single group above all others that the professional game relies on, not only for income but to create that most important of things: atmosphere. Without them, professional football as an occasion would die overnight and it bloody well knows it.
Well, this book is about them and, to be honest, about me. You see football isn’t just about 90 minutes, it‘s about passion and, yes, if you like, about life. We men will do things under the umbrella of football fandom that we would never dream of doing in any other sphere of life, and within the pages that follow I will try and explain why. I will do that primarily in the hope that it will bring more understanding from those who will never be one of us but who condemn us anyway because of who and what we are. The type of people who think that abusing a player is a mortal sin and that stadium catering should be both tasty and nutritious.
But, as the title suggests, this book is, above all, a guide. And therefore within The Geezers’ Guide to Football (henceforth known as GTF) I will attempt to teach the ways of the terrace to those ‘wannabe’ individuals who, through the delights of Sky Sports or corporate freebies, have recently discovered our great game. If you are one such individual, and have just realised that standing behind the goal with other men is for you but you’re terrified of showing yourself up and looking like a complete tosser, then read on. Within these pages I will provide information and insight which will prove invaluable to you.
Yet, make no mistake, this book is, above everything else, about football. Not about the game itself, you understand, but about something much more important: the culture of the football terrace. Tragically the very last bastion of our once male-dominated culture to be found anywhere. An environment where boys can grow up and act like proper men. The last place where we males can scream, shout, abuse, swear, even cry if we like without feeling like some effeminate twat.
If it’s political correctness you want, or if you’re the type of person who thinks that females have as much right to walk into a football ground and stand on the home end as any male, you can piss off right now. This book is not for you. I make no apologies for saying that it‘s sexist, abusive, ageist and elitist. After all, it‘s for geezers. And that is the very first and most important lesson of all because, in a nutshell, being sexist, abusive, ageist and elitist is what being a geezer is all about.
Part One - The Introduction
Chapter 1 - What Is a Geezer?
Chapter 2 - Why Football?
Chapter 3 - Choosing your Club
Chapter 4 - What to Wear
Chapter 1
What Is a Geezer?
Before we get too engrossed in the educational side of things, it is important that you understand what a geezer actually is. After all, if you are already a member of this exalted breed then you will know it, but if you’re not you will need some guidance. If for no other reason than you will have to recognise your peers at some point or another if you’re going to avoid looking like a geek and want to avoid a slapping.
However, the first thing you need to recognise is that whilst everyone can aspire to geezerdom, not everyone can achieve it. Let’s be clear here: if you are some kind of first division wanker during your normal working life, going to football one day per week is highly unlikely to change that, is it? No matter how hard you try. And I must stress, and you must accept, that there is only one sex that makes the grade here. Forget all talk of ‘girl power’ and sexual equality; to be a geezer you must be a bloke, and there are absolutely no exceptions to that. If there is such a beast as a geezer-bird then I have yet to meet it, and this phrase remains a derogatory term of the highest order, to be aimed primarily at ugly ‘wimmin’, overgrown tomboys and lesbians. This is a subject we will return to later.
So just what is a geezer? Well, it‘s quite uncomplicated, really. Forget all that old bollocks about ‘new men’, ‘soft men’ or ‘lads’; a geezer is, to put it simply, a male of the species who has managed, through fair means or foul, to resist the oppressive influences of the female race. Confident and proud to the point of arrogance, a geezer will, above all, remain loyal to his sex, his mates and his chosen football club. There is much more to the actual culture of geezerdom than that, as you will discover, but you get the general idea.
For those who still need help. I suppose I should provide you with some examples - just to clarify things, you understand. After all, they do say that a picture paints a thousand words and there are enough men working in the media to provide suitable role models for any aspi