Never a fan of football, or any sports for that matter, Olly Mann explains how the combination of fatherhood and Boreham Wood FC have changed his attitude towards supporting a team
Olly Mann is a presenter for Radio 4, and the podcasts The Modern Mann, The Week Unwrapped and Today in History with the Retrospectors
I HAVE A favourite footballer. His name is Chris Bush and he’s a defender for the National League team Boreham Wood in Hertfordshire. He’s 31, and he plays in the number 5 shirt, and…well, I can’t tell you that much more about him, really, because, in general, I struggle to focus when it comes to football.
My crippling disinterest in "The Beautiful Game" has been lifelong. At primary school, my classmates spent lunchbreak playing keepie-uppie and trading Tottenham Top Trumps, while I was in the library getting kicks from books and computers. In Games lessons, like all fat kids, I was put "in defence"—which involved chatting to my mates and occasionally pretending to be bothered about where the ball was. I became expert in imitating the body language of the boys who cared: cheering when a goal was scored; channelling their indignation when there was a near-miss; approximating their joy at a free kick, although I didn’t understand the rules.
As I got older, I stopped trying to fake it. Instead, I wore my aversion to football as a badge of honour; a fundamental part of my identity. “It’s only a game!" I’d tell Dad, as he urged me to watch England flunk yet another penalty shoot-out. I’d separate the Sports section from The Times and chuck it straight into the bin, as if it contaminated the rest of the paper. When a big game was on, I’d go shopping, and post performative photos of me doing so on social media, smugly demonstrating how much more free time I had than the mindless majority around me, endlessly absorbed in their silly competition that pointlessly resets itself every 12 months. And, genuinely, I credited some intellectual advantage to the space in my brain I’d cultivated for non-sports trivia.
But, occasionally—typically, in the backseat of a cab, or when meeting a friend’s father—I’d find myself confronted with a well-intentioned opener like, “Cor, terrible season we’re having, eh?”, or simply, “Who do you support?”, and feel my heart sink, knowing my reply would inevitably disappoint. Sometimes, such fellows would field me a friendly follow-up: “Oh, right, are you a rugby man, then? Cricket?”—an equally unhelpful line of enquiry, given my total indifference to any sport aside from the Olympics (and there’s only on
