Hail, hail and all that.

There are reasons why they call it the beautiful game. Running on to a pitch to playfully slap the opposition and potentially ruining everything is not one of them.

Dickass.

I've been going to Celtic games for 8 years now. Conveniently I started going just as we got good again. I really went because it was time spent with my dad and I never do see him enough despite the fact he was working at home at the time. I also went to make a statement. I was gonna pay attention, learn the rules (including the elusive offside rule which traditionally my sex fail to comprehend) and understand the history. I sat there in my green and white hooped shirt which was a little too big for me since back then girls strips didn't exist (neither did xxl strips, fat people just has to tuck it in) next to my dad, pie in hand and appropriate football saying ready to shout at intervals (I stopped at 'go on my son' though). Boys at school were surprised when I could hold my own in petty football fights. I knew my rival teams almost as well as my own and I had the advantage of being a girl so none of my arguments could end in getting beat up (mostly). This empowered me.

A couple of years ago I lost interest. Things between my dad and I were going rather craply thanks to my no-good-dirty-rotten-cheating-son-of-a-whore boyfriend. I missed an old firm game for him and took crap from his sister's boyfriend (who was a drunken Aberdeen fan). I had to deal with angry texts from him during games he thought I was gonna miss to see him and lastly I was accused of caring more about football than him and that I was a terrible girlfriend. I admit fully I was pathetic at the time I dated him and my biggest ever regret was not leaving him when I should have. The point is I barely knew who was in my team and going to games became a nuisance rather than entertainment.

Once he was out of my life I was still in two minds about football. Did I really care that much about a bunch of over-paid, stupid boys kicking a ball?

The answer is Fuck Yes I did. I have sat through games in the freezing rain, full of the flu, unable to even stand as we took hopeless penalties against Valencia. I've sang til my throat cracked to cheer my boys on and swore more than usual in front of my father. Strange men have hugged, punched and groped me all at football matches and I once yelled at an old man. The best experiences I have ever had at games have been the European games.

It's the crowd mentality. The referee gives AC Milan a penalty for no good reason just after you did the unthinkable and put a goal past Brazil's goalkeeper and the sheer rage flows through you. You want him to suffer. The string of expletives is only topped by the booing everytime he interrupts the game afterwards. There the panic that grips you everytime Kaka goes near the ball. The memory of the last time you saw him and he ran from nowhere, faster than you've ever seen a player run at Parkhead. He terrifies you and he humbles you and you hate him a little for scoring the penalty so well.


And then there's the joy when that ball finally hits the back of the net at the end of the game. The guy next to me is a lot more shy than the usual drunken lot I end up sitting beside. He moves to embrace me in the 'feckin hells yeah we are good lets all hug and love each other' way that men do and then casually changes his mind half-way through. I get dragged by the neck by my dad instead.

But don't despair, readers. I spend the more boring games coming up with amusing stories for the players and crazier fans. For instance, I believe Gary Caldwell, Celtic defender and class A pointer, is simply in the wrong profession. He probably became a football player because that's what all the boys were doing. And he got put in defense since someone bigger and more arrogant wanted to be the striker. He got where he is today through his outstanding ability to point out just who is going to take the ball away from him and score. If there had been a market for it he could have lived up a mountain, with a crazy beard. People would come from all over the world to ask him to fortell their futures and he would point at potential people would crap up their lives. Sadly he was born in the wrong age and can but point at the opposition instead.

And that is why my dad curses his name every weekend.