Pfizer and AstraZeneca aren't the only life-saving shots in the arm. But, when it comes to attending football matches, a double vaccination has never been enough for some.
On Saturday night, at Hampden Park, the National Stadium, I attend my tenth game of the season. Or, should I say, my tenth game since vaccination, reduced crowds and mask-wearing allowed us to start hitting the football grounds again.
Not saying I missed the sport during the last season of closed grounds but, since the Scottish turnstiles began moving again this summer, I've attended two matches at the delayed Euro 2020, an SPFL Premiership game, a Scottish League Cup match, a Champions League qualifier, a Europa League play-off, two West of Scotland League matches and a Saturday 3pm friendly, arranged on the Friday night, between Forth Wanderers of that West of Scotland League, Conference A, and Stirling University of the Lowland League.
I even went down to Bradford for my first ever Rugby League match.
Had it not been for this burst of ground-attending, the ankle I somehow managed to damage in a twist as cruel as a sprain afflicting my physical movement just as a pandemic loosened its hold on my leisure time, would probably have cleared up by now.
More annoying, the sprain prevented me achieving ten (soccer) matches before September. A Monday night non-league game, between Saturday and Wednesday outings, couldn't be medically justified as I found it increasingly difficult to get from couch to kitchen.
But it was a long 17 months without live - properly live, in-the-flesh, breathing-the-same-air-as-the-players - football watching. As I sat with raised foot in ice, looking at overly-familiar living room walls between forlorn glances at the West of Scotland League Twitter page, the term "medical" became increasingly expansive:
The financial and physical traumas of Covid have, so far, missed me. However, an increasing fixation with the council's bin-emptying schedule and passing fantasies about petrol bombing the "outdoor gatherings only" barbecues organised by the people down the road who get increasingly loud until I can't hear my television and then, when we go to bed, and they're more pissed, their kids start running up and down the street shouting every 20 minutes until three in the morning because they're oh-so fucking liberal in how they look after their kids aren't they the attention-seeking private school utterly fascistic plastic hippy bastards... persuaded me I probably hadn't completely escaped the pandemic's effect on an individual's mental health.
As I began gleefully racking up the games again, I looked forward to last Sunday's Old Firm game by Tweeting that I would be, whatever the on-field result, maintaining my record of having attended every Celtic visit to Ibrox, to play Rangers, in the 21st Century.
I found this notable only because the last Celtic visit to Ibrox to play Rangers which I had missed was the very last one of the 20th Century. But it was only as I woke up on the morning of the game, lamenting Sunday football - not even a 17 month break has made me like attending a game on a Sunday (Even if indulging in a bit of Ford Super Sunday, it's prmarily a day for the sofa, chocolate and period dramas - Hebrews 11:24-25) - that I realised the truly notable aspect of this claim was the fact it was utter bullshit.
Rangers hosted Celtic three times last season. I attended none of those matches. Yet, somehow, the fact no-one else did - that no-one else other than press, officials, players and strangely large ball boys attended any matches in Scotland last season made me feel that the fact I'd paid to watch every single Rangers home match of 2020-21 on television or laptop - that I'd paid my season ticket for the Covid season - put me there, in that ground, more effectively than all but the other 40-odd-thousand who'd done likewise.
But I wasn't there. And the following list explains how I cannot escape that reality.
Because, for me, every match I attend is a privilege and an honour and a moment in time rarefied by the fact I am, ye know, there.
In the season Covid intervened, in the truncated 2019-20, I was two games from registering the biggest number of matches attended since, probably, the marathon Bluenoses know as 2007-08.
I didn't attend all of the record 68 competitive games Rangers played that season - I missed around 20. But chuck in a few friendlies, Juniors (Scottish non-league) and internationals and was easily approaching 60 all in.
While I always remember a new ground or team - I'm always painfully aware of who and what I've never seen in the flesh - the slight dubiety, a few years later, about whether or not I made a couple of away games that season encouraged me to begin noting every game I attend. For about ten years now I've composed lists of all the games I go to.
What the hell. yeah, it's incredibly anal but it's the closest I'll ever come to a diary and, as the creatives of the world crumbled under the influence of a global pandemic confining them to barracks in a way they once dreamed of, I soon realised simply noting down a game you've been to is the start of writing more. The unexamined life and all that.
Last season I had nothing to examine other than the fact the two games I was about to attend in March 2020, on the Friday Sturgeon and Johnson stopped the football, were Juniors side Royal Albert at home in Stonehouse on the Saturday and an Ibrox Old Firm derby on the Sunday. That would have taken me to 44 & 1/2 games for that season (oh aye - sometimes I only see a fraction of a game. But I'll note the fractions).
Although I would have had at least a couple of further games to attend if 2019-20 had been concluded with fans in attendance, 44 and one half would have taken me past 2014-15's total by 20 minutes (Rangers v Hearts postponed after 25 minutes due to snow).
Damn. So close. And yet I've had not one word of sympathy from a nurse, doctor or any care home staff.
Like most of the planet lucky enough to avoid the worst of Covid (again, so far), I've spent a year and a half fantasising about what I would do first when this horrible pandemic finally lost its grip on our lives. Right beside visiting to LA for the first time (I watched every series of Bosch on Amazon Prime) was returning to Hohe Warte, but this time to actually see First Vienna FC play, rather than just wonder open-mouthed around the history-laden old bowl imagining it rammed with 85,000 for Austria v Italy a century ago.
At the present moment in time, for all sorts of obvious reasons, these remain fantasies.
However, in the weekend just past, on Saturday 30th August 2021 I saw Royal Albert and their adopted home, Tileworks Park, in the flesh, for the first time ever; the day after that I was present, in the Bill Struth Main Stand - its listed facade built the same decade as Hohe Warte opened - as Rangers beat Celtic at Ibrox for far from the first time but in an atmosphere wildly celebrating the victory almost less than it warmly celebrated the return to the communal life for everyone present.
I met my pal at full-time. We went for a pint. I limped home elated, to my sofa, wondering if re-watching a recording of a tight Old Firm game counted as enjoying a period drama. There would certainly be chocolate consumed.
Covid isn't finished with us. But I've got another list to start typing - for 2021-22, another season in which I attended football matches.
2019-20:
(On holiday for Rangers pre-season friendly v Oxford United
– disappointed as I’ve never seen them before; and couldn’t be bothered with
friendly v Marseille – seen them three times before and we were just back from
hols and wanted to watch the Cricket World Cup final on telly. So we did.)
NORWAY* 0 – 5 NETHERLANDS* (Firhill; UEFA Women’s Under-19
European Championship finals, Group A; Tue16/07/19)
RANGERS 6 – 0 St. JOSEPH’S* (Ibrox; UEFA Europa League, 1st
Qualifying Round, 2nd leg; Thur18/07/19)
SCOTLAND* 0 – 4 NORWAY (Firhill; UEFA Women’s Under-19 European Championship
finals, Group A; Fri19/07/19)
RANGERS 1 – 1 BLACKBURN ROVERS* (Ibrox; Pre-season friendly; Sun21/07/19)
FRANCE* 3 – 3 NORWAY (Firhill; UEFA Women’s Under-19 European Championship
finals, Group A; Mon22/07/19)
GERMANY* 3 – 1 NETHERLANDS ((Firhill; UEFA Women’s Under-19 European
Championship semi-final; Thur25/07/19 [4pm])
RANGERS 2 – 0 PROGRES NIEDERKORN (Ibrox; UEFA Europa League, 2nd Qualifying
Round, 1st leg; Thur25/07/19 [7:45pm])
RANGERS 1 – 0 DERBY COUNTY* (Ibrox; Pre-season friendly; Sun28/07/19)
RANGERS 6 – 1 HIBERNIAN (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sun11/08/19)
RANGERS 3 – 1 FC MIDTJYLLAND* (Ibrox; UEFA Europa League, 3nd Qualifying Round,
2nd leg; Thur16/08/19 [7:45pm])FIRST HALF ONLY (sale
of house fell through, saw e-mail at half-time and went home with score at 2-0)
RANGERS 1 – 0 LEGIA WARSAW* (Ibrox; UEFA Europa League, Play-off Round, 2nd
leg; Thur29/08/19)
RANGERS 0 – 2 CELTIC (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sun01/09/19)
SCOTLAND 1 – 2 RUSSIA (Hampden; Euro 2020 qualifier; Fri06/09/19)
SCOTLAND 0 – 4 BELGIUM (Hampden; Euro
2020 qualifier; Mon09/09/19)
RANGERS 3 – 1 LIVINGSTON (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sat14/09/19)
RANGERS 1 – 0 FEYENOORD (Ibrox; Europa League Group Stage; Thur19/09/19)
LIVINGSTON 0 – 1 RANGERS (The Tony Macaroni Arena [Almondvale]; Scottish League
Cup quarter-final; Wed25/09/19
RANGERS 5 – 0 ABERDEEN (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sat28/09/19)
RANGERS 5 – 0 HAMILTON ACCIES (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sun06/10/19)
[Sun 13/10/19: Gave away my ticket for Scotland 6 – 0 San Marino in Euro 20202
qualifier as I was on holiday in Minard, however I gave it away for free;
Doesn’t count as a game on the Attended list but I “supported” Scotland that
night]
RANGERS 2 – 1 MOTHERWELL (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sun27/10/19)
RANGERS 3 – 0 HEARTS (Hampden; Scottish League Cup semi-final; Sun03/11/19)
RANGERS 2 – 0 PORTO (Ibrox; Europa League Group Stage; Thur07/11/19)
RANGERS COLTS 2 – 0 WREXHAM AFC* (Ibrox; Scottish Challenge Cup ¼-final;
Sat16/11/19)
SCOTLAND 3 – 1 KAZAKHSTAN* (Hampden;
Euro 2020 qualifier; Tue19/11/19)
RANGERS 5 – 0 HEARTS (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sun01/12/19)
RANGERS 0 – 1 CELTIC (Hampden; Scottish League Cup final; Sun08/01/19)
RANGERS 1 – 1 YOUNG BOYS BERN* (Ibrox; Europa League Group Stage; Thur12/12/19)
LANARK UNITED 2 – 0 KELLO ROVERS (Moor Park**, Lanark; SJFA West League One;
Sat21/12/19)
RANGERS 1 – 0 KILMARNOCK (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Thur26/12/19)
WISHAW JUNIORS 2 – 0 KELLO ROVERS (The Beltane**, Wishaw;
SJFA West League One; Sat28/12/19)
MARYHILL FC 2 – 6 ARDROSSAN WINTON ROVERS (Lochburn Park, Maryhill; SJFA West
League One; Sat04/01/2020)
GARTCAIRN JUNIORS* 1 – 3 WHITLETTS VICTORIA (MTC Park**, Airdrie; SJFA West
Championship; Sat11/01/20)
RANGERS 2 – 0 STRANRAER (Ibrox; Scottish Cup Fourth Round; Fri17/01/20)
RANGERS 1 – 0 St MIRREN (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Wed22/01/20)
JOHNSTONE BURGH 4 – 1 YOKER ATHLETIC (Keanie Park**,
Johnstone; SJFA West League Two; Sat25/01/20)
RANGERS 2 – 0 ROSS COUNTY (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Wed29/01/20)
RANGERS 0 – 0 ABERDEEN (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sat01/02/20)
RANGERS 2 – 1 HIBERNIAN (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Wed05/02/20)
RANGERS 1 – 0 LIVINGSTON (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sun16/02/20)
RANGERS 3 – 2 SC BRAGA* (Ibrox; Europa League Last 32, 1st Leg;
Thur20/02/20)
RANGERS 0 – 1 HAMILTON ACADEMICAL (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Wed04/03/20)
THORNIEWOOD UNITED 2 – 0 MUIRKIRK (Robertson Park**, Viewpark; SJFA West
Region, League Two; Sat08/03/20)
RANGERS 1 – 3 BAYER LEVERKUSEN (Ibrox; Europa League Last 16, 1st Leg;
Thur12/03/20)
****************************************
Covid-19 intervenes. Football in Scotland stops.
****************************************
SUB TOTALS:
[Rangers: 26.5]
Europe: 8.5
League: 14
Scottish Cup: 1
League Cup: 3
[Scotland: 3]
UEFA Euro 2020 qualifiers: 3
[Scotland Youths:
1]
UEFA Women’s Under-19 European Championship finals: 1
[Miscellaneous: 13]
UEFA Women’s Under-19 European Championship finals (in addition to the
above Scotland WNT U-19s match): 3
Scottish Challenge Cup: 1
Scottish Juniors: 6
Friendlies: 2
TOTAL: 42.5
Venues: Ibrox x 26.5,
Hampden x 5, Firhill x 4, Tony Macaroni Arena, Moor Park**, The Beltane**, Lochburn
Park, MTC Park**, Keanie Park**, Robertson Park**
* New Team (to me, i.e., first time I’m
seeing them)
**New venues.
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