Office Discussion: Football - Being a fan during Covid Football

Before Covid, I’d given up on Premier League football. Watching the ‘best footballing product on the planet’ wasn’t appetising to me anymore. Super Sundays didn’t feel so super to me.

I’m in the boat of people that watch football for the love of the game. I’d been turned off by the sanitisation, commercialisation and domination of the Premier League. . Before the lockdown, my attention had long-turned to non-league football. My favourite type of game is on a drizzly Tuesday night in November when I’m surrounded by like-minded football crazies. Arrive at 2.55pm; pint by the pitch; no need to book ahead; pie and Bovril at a good price; win a meat platter on the raffle. What more could you want?

For those that have never been, you’ll find that a lot of the players are ex-academy or former league dynamos. As a result you do get good games and great moments as well as a closer experience. In my opinion the only difference is that the players at lower levels are often just not as consistent as the pros – no surprise following the graft of a long and hard week at work.

Yet with non-league on hold, the current English Football lockdown options open to me are the Premier League and the Football League on subscription TV, or the option to pay £10 per game to watch games on I-Follow.

Armchair fans have oft been a derided lot. Can you call yourself a fan if you’ve never been to the ground, heard the roar when a goal is scored or lost a pound on the half-time prize draw? Certainly Sky, BT and the BBC have slick operations with multiple cameras, replays and, on occasion, expert analysis. So why bother heading to the ground? The Armchair experience has it all!

From my experience, I-Follow has a long way to come. When I treated myself to a game, I’m not sure I was expecting National Geographic HD, but certainly the jerky movement of the single camera had me feeling seasick by half time. I’ve not been back.