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by Wayne Reeves

Created on: June 09, 2008   Last Updated: May 06, 2010

When you first find a new sport, it can seem to be the best thing you've ever discovered. Everything about it is perfect and the balance it brings to your life is overwhelming; this has mostly to do with the fact that you'll be at an impressionable age, new experiences usually have the best chance to stay with you.

So it is that a 12 year-old boy can find the brutal sport of American Football on a TV, in the UK, eventually becoming a die-hard fan for the rest of his life. For him, football was a bridge between the realities of fantasy and growing up. Never had his life had an outlet, a true means of escapism was found within football.

The players of that era were like Gladiators of old Rome - willing to fight to the end for ultimate victory - whatever the cost. Never had he seen a sport that had captured his imagination; from players and teams to the huge stadiums that he had only dreamt of as a youngster.

He would go on to experience many big games and wins as an adopted San Francisco 49ers' fan, taking in some of the greatest players of their generation. But now times have changed, the aura of invincibility of the NFL has been broken. Sport was a distraction through the developing years of youth, now its ability to hold your attention is more difficult.

Through the years, sports can become a familiar and somewhat repetitive entity. In the never-ending media circus many sports are now, there never seems to be any significant break from either games or news about players. As fans get older, the time that anyone can devote to such trivial matters declines rapidly.

Life has a habit of letting you know that it isn't all about fun-and-games any more. If you can find all the time necessary to follow your chosen sport then you are very well-off both financially and emotionally. As time marches on, you can get the sense of "deja-vu" with sport, things have a habit of feeling the same, as though the game is stagnating before your very eyes.

The NFL is a great sports league, but after following it since 1985, the quality of many seasons doesn't appear to be anywhere near the level of the early years; those years that enticed that young 12 year-old to take a keen interest. Having seen so many Super Bowl champions and many, many games, it really is difficult to feel as motivated as that boy was.

The game will always be a close friend, but other things are demanding my attention at this point in life. Other than school, the NFL was all-consuming, now its an interest that has to fit around all manner of other things. Something you'd never think as a child but if the game was gone, life would still go on and the sun will still rise in the morning.

A fan still exists here, but one that doesn't rely solely on sports to fulfil his every-waking moment: no walls are plastered with posters of the latest sports stars now. Football is still a favourite sport, no other sport can really top it. It's a part of my life now, not my entire life.

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