French author and philosopher Albert Camus said: “All that I know most surely about morality and obligations I owe to football.” I too owe everything I know about life, love and loyalty, pleasure and pain to having been a football fan.
Everything I know about the inevitable turmoil that, from time to time, visits human life; and the powers and the possibilities of the human spirit that help overcome such times, I owe to having supported Orlando Pirates.
So what has this got to do with love and marriage? Everything.
The first lesson one learns as a fan is that one gets to choose one among many and stick with one’s choice for eternity.
As in love and marriage we entered into the covenant of our clubs starry-eyed. Nick Hornby, author of Fever Pitch, must have been speaking for millions when he wrote: “I fell in love with football as I would later fall in love with women: suddenly, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain it would bring.”
But as a young bride or groom (more often the bride) is told on the wedding day, kuyanyamezelwa emzini/ hwa tiisetswa — fortitude — is required in marriage as it is in fandom.
Being a fan reminds us that things — as in all relationships — will not always go as they will please us, but we are kept going by the belief that tomorrow will be better than today.
In a society where HIV/Aids is prevalent and where monogamy could be a life-saving force, true fans are the image of fidelity.
Growing up in the 1980s, when Kaizer Chiefs were winning everything (usually with the help of sympathetic referees), never was I tempted to cross over. Much as I appreciated the skills of “The Great” Makgopela and Sam “Happy Cow” Nkomo, and mourned the death of Roadblock Makhathini, I knew my admiration should not get to what, as an adult, I learned is called coveting your neighbour’s spouse.
As fans, having learned from early in our lives what it means to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse until death do us part, we are puzzled to hear that men fear commitment.
We may flirt with Barcelona or Arsenal when they are on top of their game, but we know where we belong. That is why being a good fan bodes well for prospects of being a good husband.
I do think it is a pity, though, that many wives and girlfriends have not fully appreciated the virtues of being a fan, otherwise they would not be bitching about the amount of time their partners spend “watching grown men kick a pig skin”.
If they did, they would encourage it and, who knows, even bring beer while the brothers gather around the TV to demonstrate a love that is not affected by education, age or distance. As anyone one who has loved knows, sometimes it hurts. But that is yet to prove itself a good reason to stop.