Scottish, Italian and Not a Football Fan

For this week's piece for my ABCommunities Challenge, in which I will be writing a piece in a different community here on Vocal every week of the year, in alphabetical order as they appear on the Communities page, it's time to write in Cleats.

As a Scottish-Italian who was brought up in and around Glasgow, to a family of ardent Celtic fans, this piece could easily have been published to the Confessions community. (But that will be next week.) While there is nothing wrong with not liking football and my nationality and the city I was born in should not matter, during the 80s and 90s when I was growing up, it felt like it was. It was strange for me not to like football.

That is why, although I am doing this as part of my challenge, I am one of the least qualified to write in this community, but still feel drawn to, given my love/hate relationship with the "beautiful game".

For anyone unaware, the Scottish Professional Football League, or SPFL, is Scotland's national men's association football league. The top division of this league is the Scottish Premiership, which involves 12 clubs playing a total of 38 games every season.

I could take a fair crack at naming the majority of the teams currently competing for the Scottish Premiership. Celtic and Rangers are the top 2 teams, and often the ones to beat. They are the biggest teams in Scottish football and generate the most revenue. They are also the two teams based in my home city of Glasgow. Which means, following age-old "your team is the one from your home city" rule, Celtic or Rangers would be my team. If I actually followed football and actually cared.

So why don’t I like football? Well, there are a few reasons.

I Just Don't Like It

First and foremost, I don't like it because I don't like it. It doesn't thrill me, unless it is one of the high profile games or an important one involving Scotland. I went to quite a few games at Parkhead, Celtic's home ground, as my family are all ardent Celtic supporters - well the ones that love football. The atmosphere was amazing and similar in many ways to the atmosphere at concerts. When Celtic were awarded a corner or a throw, or made a great attempt on goal and eventually scored, there were loud, roaring cheers, whereas when the away team had any bit of success there were boos. Everyone sang songs that they knew all the words to and there was a great mixture of young and old, men, women and children. Families on their day out, life-long friends and people from all walks of life.

I tried to love football when I was younger to fit in. But... just couldn't. In fact, the choice to openly not love football and to not be interested in it was perhaps one of the first times I decided to go against the crowd in school. Something I would continue with my choice of music, film, TV etc.

The Non-Football Stuff That Ties to the Glasgow Teams

It's unfortunate and not something I am going to go into too much detail about here, but one of the reasons why I've never really liked football is because of the political, social and religious aspects of the rivalry between Celtic and Rangers fans. Celtic fans were long considered to be predominantly Catholic, while Rangers were predominantly Protestant. Aside from the usual football rivalry stuff and the violence that sometimes comes between gangs of supporters, there is that extra bit of bad blood to it. I want to state that in my experience, with the people I know and love, who love football, on either side of the Celtic-Rangers rivalry, don't take part in that. But I think the shadow it cast put me off the sport.

In Defense of the Beautiful Game (Even as a Non-Fan)

Although I didn't want to shy away from discussing my reasons for not liking the game, I didn't want this piece to feel like a complete takedown or bashing of the sport. I know how important it is to people and like I said earlier, when I went to games, I understood at least the excitement. It's also rather telling that often as a Scottish person, if you go anywhere in the world (I have experienced this myself and heard many anecdotes from friends and family members) and tell someone you are Scottish, they will often ask the simplest of questions - Celtic or Rangers? To me, that speaks volumes to the impact of football and particularly Scottish football. Even if I do feel bad for the other teams competing in the same league.

I know that, just as music is for me, football is a huge passion for many people, and I think there are worse things people could be interested in.

Summary

So, there you have it, I don't like football, even as a Scottish-Italian. I don't mind it, don't absolutely hate it. But, just not interested in keeping up with it. The one sport I really enjoyed watching was tennis and in recent years, I've grown bored of that. There's nothing wrong with that. We are all different and that's what makes the world a wonderful place.

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Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: This is part of my year-long ABCommunities challenge, inspired by Rachel Deeming's own Community Challenge. In which I will be writing in a different community every week of the year, including all the communities I have so-far avoided publishing in.

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