Michael Carrick and Yaya Toure do battle in Manchester United vs. Manchester City from last season.

Author: Herzog’s Child

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Writing in the late 60s in his introduction to “The Football Man,” the late Arthur Hopcraft rightly asserted that, in terms of what it does to people, football has no equal in sport. Attempting to define its magnetism and enduring allure, he also noted that something so deeply woven into the fabric of society could not ever be regarded as merely a “game.” With a focus on the most common sentiment uttered by those who have no passion for it, Hopcraft went on to say that “no player, manager, or fan who understands football, either through his intellect or his nerve-ends, ever repeats that piece of nonsense trotted out by the fearful every now and again which pleads ‘After all, it’s only a game.’” Like any devotee, he recognised that football – with its dramatics, celebrations and crises, tribalism and triumphs – was something more that what it appears to be on the surface. It is something altogether deeper. Any supporter who has experienced the deflation of defeat or the euphoria of victory will testify that football is an assault on the nervous system. Any observer who has bore witness to the winger in flight, the toe-controlled 50-yard pass, or the simplicity of a killer through-ball will declare it is also a form of art. The reason why so many are compelled by it is because a combination of both creates a ceaseless obsession, a snare no one can wrangle free from. Next Monday night will once more serve as a reminder of how this is undoubtedly true.