#Monafife
The lockdown has given many of us the opportunity to do things we otherwise couldn’t do. For me, it is the opportunity to watch regular ‘live’ football at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon (albeit from the comfort of our sofa).
In recent years I have often travelled to watch lower league Scottish football teams, enjoying cold, dark (and inevitably wet) afternoons, standing behind a goal, nourished by tea, Scotch pies and Tunnocks wafer biscuits. Such expeditions bring with them the pleasure of testing Scottish public transport timetables to the limits (Alloa Athletic and back in a day was quite tight!).
In January this year I made it to Methil on the Fifeshire coast to watch East Fife Football Club v Dumbarton. I was joined by our son Tom (not a professed lover of the sport) and his 18 month daughter Rose (not YET a professed lover of the sport) who live nearby. The pies were exceptionally good; so too the football (even Tom said so). A man behind us repeatedly shouted ‘Monafife’ (Come on East Fife), and offered paternal encouragement to any player who showed promise: ‘That’s my boy, that’s my BOY!’ Rose, who spent the first half focused on her humous and bread sticks, would repeat this phrase when prompted in the weeks that followed: ‘ats my BOY, ‘ats my BOY!
But mine wasn’t the regular Saturday ritual enjoyed by thousands every week. Until now. To raise funds for the club in the absence of live games, East Fife are broadcasting recordings of full re-runs of ‘classic’ games and inviting donations from appreciative viewers. It is done in real time. Tweets are issued in the days up the game; kick off is 3pm Saturday, and goals are tweeted as they are scored in ‘real time’. There is only one camera viewpoint, replays come only when a goal is scored, and commentary is provided in a biased way as if by the man sitting next to you. And yes, I often overhear the man shouting ‘monafife’. Wouldn’t be the same without him.
It isn’t quite perfect. In the build up to the game, the tweets recognise that most people watching it will know the result. ‘Remember, we were losing 2-1 with only 10 minutes to go’. ‘Remember the Annan game, a miracle it wasn’t stopped due to snow?’ So I now have to avoid the Twitter build up to avoid knowing the result.
But, through this, lockdown for me means ‘live’ football and associated rituals on a Saturday afternoon. The TV is draped with the East Fire scarf; the tea and Tunnocks wafer biscuit savoured at half time (more difficult to get a warm Scotch pie to go with it) and updates of the game sent to my sons (who seem increasingly more irritated by them than amused). And the replication of the cold, dark and wet? More difficult. Ironically, watching the blizzard stricken Annan Athletic v East Fife game, I had to pull down the window blind to stop the warm spring sunshine reflecting off the screen. You can’t have everything…
Jeff