I have a friend who rejects the notion of “guilty pleasures”. There is, she argues, plenty of real and justified guilt in the world, without co-opting it to our choice of trash TV or an unkickable penchant for romantasy novels. She’s a helpful touchstone when I hear myself trying to justify the silly superhero film I went to see at the cinema on the basis that it might have carried an underlying anti-fascist message (if you squinted hard enough at the screen). My friend will sigh kindly and then remind me: sometimes it’s OK just to enjoy things.
It is, perhaps, a lesson we particularly struggle with in sport because of its very nature. A huge part of our investment is grounded in the result and its consequences for whichever athlete or team we prefer. Ask a football fan if they enjoyed themselves at the match they just paid a decent whack to see, and there’s a better-than-even chance they will tell you no. If it was a close match, they will have been too anxious to have fun; if they lost they will be mourning their defeat. Even if their own side ran rampant, you can find them complaining about the lack of challenge or jeopardy.
