Forget the tabloid sensationalism. Let's consider the reality of football. It's 22 men dressed up like billboards, running around, chasing a piece of leather. It'll cost you 40 English pounds a ticket just for the privilege of spectating, countless more if you dare sample the culinary delights inside the grounds, where the beer is usually warmer than the pies. Whilst you endure borderline third world facilities, your hard earned wages finance the outrageous lifestyles of the celebrities the game creates.

It seems any sense of rational thought and behaviour seems to be eradicated upon subscription to this 'beautiful game,' enhanced not least by a media who sensationalise the sport, to sell a sensational amount of newspapers. For 40 pounds it's an experience. But enduring the freezing temperatures and a yob culture to watch a game that's probably on TV anyway, possibly make it an experience you'd rather forget.

Or not.

Football is empowered with the cruelest of gifts. An ability to grab your heart and sole, with no sense of responsibility, an ability to reduce grown men to sobbing ruins, as every possible emotion is dragged through a draining 90 minutes. Brilliant.

If it wasn't, we wouldn't go. We wouldn't care if our team lost. We wouldn't pay the money, or endure the conditions.

Let's take a local derby for example, for many, the pinnacle of the season. The day starts early, usually on Police orders. You'll probably have a pre-match drink or two, ranging from a Champagne breakfast to a few cans, then a few pints. You need it. Because stone cold sober, the day is almost unendurable excitement. Imagine a kid on Christmas eve, the sleepness night full of calculated predictions, as the heart pounds in anticipation of the day you've been waiting for as it hammers upon your doorstep. That is nothing, a local derby is everything.

It's venturing into enemy territory to do battle. It's you against them, your passion against theirs. In the ground it's 10:1 in the home team's favour, so there's the underdog angle, the minority against the majority. But in the City it's 50:50. It's your left arm against your right, both arms leading the same life, and yet they're not the same, one's left, one's right. Every town has a left arm and a right arm.

The buzz and tension encapsulates every air particle in the stadium, which is packed with thousands of fanatics. The singing is deafening, as fans wish they could extract their lungs and pump them up just that little bit more to make them that little bit louder. Arms thrust apart, you do your best to drown out the opposing fans; even if you are the 1 in the 10:1, no surrender. No way. Never.

Such is the nature of life that you will lose a local derby match. You need to. You need to experience having nothing to appreciate having everything. But those that you win, and that pivotal moment you score... It's elation no cheap street substance will re-create. Sheer joy in the stands, on the fringes of pandemonium.

So, the piece of leather those men chase around means quite something to a significant amount of people. For the fore-mentioned reasons, which made you think I was anti-football, football fanatics are sometimes patronised and ridiculed at being ignorant to the spell cast over them by the media. We're not ignorant, we choose to follow our beloved clubs. Football fans have a life away from football, but no true fan will be embarrassed to concede football is a major love in their life. The players do get paid well, but they provide one of the world's greatest sources of entertainment. And 40 pounds a ticket to be part of it? Worth every penny.

Learn more about this author, Rob Bloom.
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