The Football Fan that is me

I'm forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air, they fly so high, they reach the sky, and as my dreams they fade and die. Fortune's always hidding, I looked everywhere, I'm forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air

For those of you who had seen Green Street Hooligans then you’ll be very familiar with this chant of the Green Street Elite. This is such a wonderful film. If you would like to see Frodo Baggins breaking the noses of people twice his size by headbutting them in then you ought to see this one.

Spurred by that, I saw Real: The Movie. A film about Real Madrid, the most successful European club in history and what it means to different sets of people. From a Japanese girl who’s obsessed with Beckham, a Senegalese man who has to walk 60km every time to watch the team play because that’s how far the nearest TV set is and a history teacher who never liked football was transferred to Madrid and was dumbfounded on what the deal is with the football club anyway? Now, that got me thinking. Well, dreaming actually. Wouldn’t it be just grand to live in a city like Madrid? Or Milan? London, even? But definitely not Manchester. People would tell me that, “Oh you should see the paintings in Madrid!” or “You just have to shop at Milan!” but as soon as I get there, I would only have two destinations on my mind – the Santiago Bernabeu and the San Siro. Everybody has a 10-year-old inside them somewhere and that was mine talking.

Last weekend I finally managed to do something interesting worth mentioning in a long time. It has to do with, what else, but football. Haha it’s a futsal tournament actually, organized by ASAS – that’s Alumni Sekolah Alam Shah, by the way. I know what most of you are thiniking and the answer is no, I didn’t took part as a player. I was part of the supporters @ hooligans. Though I was given the title ‘manager’ for one for the teams but without any managerial powers. My main job was to believe in the team no matter what happens and I have to make the players believe that as well, especially when things turned sour. I guess I didn’t do too bad at all because the team went to the final! Yeah! We were unlucky really. It was all square after regulation time and penalty shoot-outs. In the end, the flip of coin determined the winner. We just chose the side that was facing the floor. Even though we were second best overall but we had the best supporters. Everyone else was just too damn serious. We were the liveliest and noisiest bunch. Everyone realized how cool it was to be a 99. It was a good Sunday. And the humiliation of Arsenal made it even better. It was the 2nd annual. And be pretty damn sure we’re coming back better for the 3rd.