Robin Fairbrother and the quest for moderate excitment

Robert Fairbrother liked Association Football, ‘in a certain way.’ He had become entranced when, aged five, his father took him to his first game. He enjoyed the way that, about twenty minutes from the ground, individuals or small groups of chaps began to meld into something greater, coalescing into fellow travellers on a journey of common purpose. Silent and strong men became voluble and about ten minutes from the ground the smell of mild ale and woodbine cigarettes poured out of the public bars he passed; landmarks on the road he knew as well as a good Catholics knew the Stations of the Cross. Five minutes from the ground the men selling rosettes and scarves heralded their arrival at the nexus of his childish dreams. Fairbrother’s own scarf, which he wore as a livery of his support, included a tassel which, despite all empirical evidence, he firmly believed would bring luck for his favoured XI when wrapped tightly around his index finger.

 

Entering the ground was to enter a different world and with a small boy’s much closer to ground level experience – and a tendency to lose concentration after a few minutes, he had wandered off from his father and knew the Home Supporters terraces in minute detail; gazing longingly at the nirvana that was the Grand Stand and disdainfully at the Away fans end.

 

Programmes first came into Fairbrother’s life as a means to collect autographs. In his younger day’s quantity were much more important than quality and it mattered not a jot that he had covered the advertisements with the scrawl of the Reserve keeper, the elderly and occasional Central Defender or, on one occasion, the Groundsman’s boy. From these programmes he learnt his geography. He knew the location of Northampton and the boot making heritage of ‘The Cobblers’. Likewise ‘The Iron’ of Scunthorpe & Lindsey United informed his knowledge. As he grew he marvelled at the Manager’s Column, seeing how a man at home in the three dimensional space of the well placed cross, could struggle in the two dimensions of ink and paper. He and his father later played ‘Cliché Bingo’ – in which spotting five ‘games-of-two-halves’ and their kin resulted in victory. The wider vocabulary he learnt from the terraces, including some novel adjectives and specially deployed verbs was matched with an understanding of differing social mores when he ventured to use them at home.

Saturday spread to embrace the week but marked its end and its beginning. Small rituals developed. When unable to attend a match, he walked the dog to collect the late editions of the evening paper from the railway station so he could dissect half time reports and final scores  – saving those attested as ‘Late Kick Offs’. The autopsy of the Sunday and Monday gave way the ruminations of Tuesdays and Wednesdays as to the future deployment of players marked the progress of the week until more solid intelligence began to flesh out the selection; Thursday’s speculations gave way to a crystallisation of opinion on Friday and the squad for Saturday could be hazarded with a certainty born of conviction, if not foresight.

 

Football was the founding of his understanding of economics.  Like all boys, Fairbrother was an avid collector and here, football did him proud. He had an array of cards, all neatly stuck into the accompanying albums – with swapsies catalogued according to their worth in the keenly competitive market conditions prevailing in his school yard which brought him new joys, including the almost elicit thrill of Scottish teams. He relished the taste of such exotic names as Queen of the South and Partick Thistle and marvelled at the somewhat garish colours some team wore ‘north of the border’. Surely Hearts of Midlothian would not be allowed to wear such a shirt in England!

 

Mathematics was made a slave of his enthusiasm and what numbers could it provide. Goals for; gaols against; minutes played. At what point was the first goal scored and who was of greatest assistance to the striker. Number after number could be savoured and even some semi-coherent hypothesises could be formed as to the ways and means of victory. It was at this point he experienced a moment of life changing revelation.

 

The view of many of his fellow supporters as to the merits of, say who was best in the battle of the Billys - Henderson or Wedlock, tended to the pithy and impolite. More over they were often lacking in detailed analysis. Now working for the Lowestoft Semi-Permanent Building Society, Fairbrother would no more offer an unsecured opinion than an unsecured loan but how could any opinion on a player really hold out under any scrutiny.

 

Football had too many variables, so many of which were difficult to quantify. Certainly it was true to say that many a Centre Forward – a class that a future Fairbrother would classify as ‘brylcreem boys’ -had a higher tally of goals than say a mild mannered Inside Right but without the latter’s play the ball may not of been fed forward with such efficiency. Was the Left back who had, apparently, a quiet game to be gainsayed or praised for being the mere presence which kept the defence together? Were the team playing into a low winter’s sun be compensated for it and where was the efficiency of the linesmen in spotting off sides factored in. When he got down to it – would goals against duffers be worth less than others? Clearly the rating of football was so problematic as to be beyond any reasonable man to do so without several months of work on each match. He resolved at that point not to try to understand the game or its individual parts in the future but to enjoy the thing as a whole. Yes, he would admire the well placed header and share in the incredulity of the crowd as a young keeper having a mare of a game watched the ball trickle past him into the goal but he would not attempt to understand the interaction or have a view on it.

 

Time passed, as time tends to do and Fairbrother left the town of his coming of age and was sent to a branch elsewhere. This was clearly an occurrence which would be repeated from time to time and so he could not expect to recover the loyalties of his youth to the local lot.  It was at this point he decided he needed to choose a team to give his support to once and for all, and, as is typical of the man, he did so by resort to reason and research.

 

Supporting a team was something which he took a seriously as did his proposal to Rebecca, the  future Mrs Fairbrother. Supporting a team, like marriage, was not an undertaking to be attempted with a light heart. His was not the embrace of a tempting mistress, some flighty piece like Huddersfield Town, who had won the First Division and enabled bragging rights for their supporters. Would not then he have to set his cap at Everton or Newcastle United the following seasons. Nor could he support the town of his birth. It occurred to him that it was an odd thing to follow a team through an accident of delivery, especially as his mother was called before her due time while visiting a cousin in Lincolnshire and a life devoted to the fortunes of Gainsborough Trinity had less than he had hoped.

 

Reflecting on the matter, Fairbrother came to the conclusion that he enjoyed football but was not overly wedded to the idea of excitement – not for him were the helter-skelters of the fun fairs. Likewise life was full enough of misery – he had, to his regret – attended the repossession of defaulters – to wish to add more to his life. He never understood why Rebecca insisted on reading novels where dreadful people ended up in tricky situations, work provided enough of that sort of thing.

 

It was important to support a team – it gave you a place to look for to start reading the papers rather than having to make a choice each time. A First Division club was required. He reasoned that, wherever he was sent, the chances of the papers carrying match reports was much higher and the wireless may even attend on such a team. He did not crave the excitement of victory – and becoming a target of the jealousy of others – or the agony of staving off demotion. Draws were preferable, providing a goal was scored. Too often some well-intentioned loved one would ask ‘how did the football go?’ If he could reply ‘Dumbarton’s Johnson scored a blinder’ then they could both get on with their lives. If no goal had been scored he would feel obliged to give a greater description which neither he or the enquirer really wanted. If defeated, he would prefer to have lost by the odd goal, especially if his team scored last, thus giving a sense of redemption in defeat; if victorious, an early two goal lead would reduce the need for anxiety.

 

The tables and statistics of the First Division since the return to play after the Great War – the Victory Cup and War time local league were not considered an adequate guide – to the 1930-1 season were perused. Teams that regularly appeared somewhere between fourth and eighteenth were considered. No club quiet managed the model of median average which he desired. Aston Villa looked promising, rarely straying outside the parameters and when they did it was in the safer half of the table. Newcastle United was not out of consideration but had flirted with danger at the bottom of the league and like Aston Villa lacked consistency in drawing matches.

 

With no clear winner their Cup form was scrutinised. The FA Cup was not the bread and butter of every day support but an occasional take or leave it treat. A matter of rating was given. Losing in the Semi-Finals was the greatest of heart breaks and so scored badly. Losing in the earliest round available, however, meant the whole business was over and could be ignored so it received high marks. With a lot of early exits and a couple of wins the decision was made and thus it was that Mr. Robert Fairbrother became a supporter of Bolton Wanderers.