The Pandemic and The Football Fan
A tale as old as time – mankind needs to watch twenty-two sweaty athletes kick a ball for ninety minutes to maintain sanity. In the midst of a global pandemic, the days have rolled into a monotonous series of boredom and mild hysteria. Watching my favourite team, or even my least favourite, has become a welcome dose of unpredictable, spontaneous entertainment in a generally dull and subdued time. March 2020 – the national month of hand soap and loo roll. Amongst the panicked shoppers and lockdown banana bread-makers, the general mood of the nation was relatively hopeful. I was similarly positive as I naively thought the postponement of all football was just a reasonable precaution and we would be back in the stands by summertime. Well, how could I have predicted that a year later I would not have smelt another cup of Bovril or got an earache from an angry, potty-mouthed fan beside me. When the Premier League returned with ‘Project Restart’ in June 2020, it was like Christmas mo