Let it go: The case for a sabbatical from this sad Leicester City side
Kicking off at 7pm on a Sunday night is awful for a match-going fan, but for those of us following along at home, it’s perfect. Do whatever it is you need to do, have a nice dinner and sit down to watch your team.
That is, of course, if you support basically any team other than Leicester City.
I’m an unusually attentive football watcher. I watch on an iPad with the sound down and tin-foil hat on so the opinions of the commentators don’t affect mine. I note the movement of players, the patterns of play and, at the moment, who looks like they can be bothered.
Last Sunday I got settled in, watched the players do their awkward walk-up-to-the-camera-then-cross-their-arms thing, the whistle goes and football happens. I usually feel nervous, excited or at least something. But I felt absolutely nothing. I would have taken anger at the point, or even an active feeling of apathy. Nothing, nada, zilch, zero.
Full disclosure; I now live 186 miles away from Leicester so I don’t get down to many games. I understand my buy-in, both in terms of money and time, is small. I truly applaud anyone who manages to spend the time and money to go out and watch Leicester at the moment. You are the most important among us. But why? What makes people do this? Loyalty? Routine? Hope?
We know it’s a combination of these things, in varying parts for different people, but that night, after 20 minutes, a switch flipped inside of me. No more. I’m going to watch something enjoyable that I haven’t seen before instead.
I have to say, it was freeing. Life is fleeting - why spend 2 hours watching another goalless Leicester loss when you could do anything else? For the unfamiliar, the Inside Out movies are about five anthropomorphised emotions that live inside a teenage girl's head and help her govern her emotions. Initially, Joy is the driving force and is replaced by Anxiety as the protagonist grows up.
Joy being replaced by Anxiety is very much how it feels to be a Leicester fan at the moment. At this point, we are all but down, not mathematically but certainly vibes-wise. How do we salvage something or any meaning out of this season? If our squad was a hairline, we’d be booking flights to Turkey and that will only be exacerbated when we’re offering Championship football to prospective signings. We regularly play a front line with a combined age of 104, our defenders don’t seem aware of the basics and our midfield passes like a lost ball is a death sentence (but they still manage it anyway).
With a Monday night kick-off against Newcastle on 7th April, there won’t even be much time for the social element beforehand. A slog from work to another numb defeat against a team with nation-state money and a recent trophy? By all means, go for it, but if you’ve got something better to do, go and do it. When we get so little back from this team, why give anything to them? It feels like running through the motions at the end of a bad relationship - the layers of resentment are so thick they’re clouding any reasonable judgement.
With all this against us, how do we ‘protect our peace’ and make ourselves enjoy something from football for the end of this season? There has been talk of calling in our promising young loanees and just playing out the season with some local lads in the team, playing for the joy of it.
But dropping a 15-year-old Jeremy Monga into some chastening defeats in the men’s game before he goes off to Man City for £500 and a Greggs gift card might not be the light in the dark we think it is, either for us or, more importantly, the player. Parachuting a promising 15-year-old into a desperately out-of-form team could cause lasting damage to a player and a person at a crucial stage in their development.
I’m not arguing that we all turn on, tune in and drop out of the season completely. The ritual of paying too much to get there, too much to get in and too much to have a drink is a pattern many don’t even want to break and it’s all relative - it doesn’t feel like too much when it’s going well. But it’s going horribly. Everything is difficult right now and if football can’t provide you some joy, don’t feel ashamed of taking some time away.
If you want to keep watching a Leicester team with some grit, you have options. In the Women’s Super League, Amandine Miquel’s Leicester side are putting up a great fight to beat the drop. Most WSL matches are free to stream on YouTube, and due to not often being picked by Sky Sports we’re watchable for free quite often. They’re going into a tough run but the last two games of the season, potential relegation six-pointers against West Ham and Palace, should produce some excitement, certainly more than the corresponding dead rubbers for the men’s team.
What I am suggesting, for those interested, is that you just let go. There’s no shame in it. You’re not less of a fan for doing it. Relax, recuperate and come back with full focus next season. Hopefully, we as fans and the players themselves can return to a new season as a biggish fish in a medium-sized pond, with a few new players and some smiles on everyone’s faces.
I, for one, can’t wait to be back for a tight 2-1 away win at Preston in August.
