We are crossing the concourse towards London Stadium when a man asks us if we want to buy a West Ham scarf. I’m feeling ebullient so I ask him how much. He says, ‘£15,’ which rather spoils my mood, but I’ve already reached for my wallet and decorum insists I complete the deal. He doesn’t want to break my £20, so gives me another scarf – one of those 50/50 jobs reviled by snobby fans like myself – to make up the extra £5. This should feel like a bargain, but since it actually suggests a more appropriate valuation of his wares, it does not.
My son is unconcerned and I tell myself that this impartial monstrosity will at least serve as a fittingly comprehensive memento of his first ever Premier League game. It is, in fact, his first live football match of any form at all. My brother, Dara, has a season ticket and has brought me, my son and my wife’s football-mad parents for a game.
It’s fitting that Dara is involved, since he was my own entry point to live football. He started taking me to Derry City games when he was 14 and I was five; old enough to repeat the swearing I heard from the Brandywell’s Jungle stand, young enough that I still needed to bring, from home, the milk crate on which I would stand for the entire game. It was there I caught the bug and have ever since associated the smell of fried onions with the sweet, agonised ecstasy of watching live football.
My son isn’t a football fan. As previously mentioned, his main bugbear is that every goal scored (which he enjoys, mainly for the hugs the players engage in) is a goal conceded by the other side (whose anguished reactions he finds hard to take). I am pleased he’s so empathic, it’s just unfortunate that this renders competitive sport prohibitively difficult to enjoy.
I’d hoped the spectacle would jump start some actual enjoyment in him, but after taking great delight at seeing his beloved cousin, Cormac, and taking in the view from high up in the stands, he begins to lose interest after half an hour. I intuit this from tell-tale signs, like his habit of saying, ‘I’m bored,’ and, ‘This is so boring.’ By the second half, he’s watching his Kindle with headphones on and as the teams leave the field, with West Ham having lost 1-0, I’m not even sure if he registers the score.
His grandad and I will watch the highlights on Match of the Day later, but since the match was not exactly a thriller these prove few and far between. The entirety of the second half is covered in about 90 seconds.
No matter, I’ve already relived today’s events. Tucking my son into bed, I was astonished to hear him tell me there were five minutes of added time in the first half and six in the second, totalling 11 minutes in all.
‘And Daddy,’ he says, suddenly downcast. ‘Something sad happened, too.’
‘What was that, pet?’ I ask.
‘West Ham lost,’ he murmurs, clutching the unspeakable bipartisan scarf I’d not noticed him smuggling up to bed.
Perhaps, I reflect, some of that glorious agony has broken through.
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? by Séamas O’Reilly is out now (Little, Brown, £16.99). Buy a copy from guardianbookshop at £14.78
Follow Séamas on Twitter @shockproofbeats
