The Reassuring Banality Of Football’s Distraction Power

A heads-up before we get going with this article: it’s an uncharacteristically personal piece which is probably quite self-indulgent. It’s certainly not in TTE’s usual focus, although it is about Reading Football Club (in a way). But I found it cathartic to write and it may be of help/relevance to some others, so here you go.

I had a break-up this week. I won’t fully go into it as that’s not the point of this article (this ain’t The New York Times’ Modern Love column), but suffice to say it was a healthy and mature experience, and for that I’ll be eternally grateful. Still, it’s been a tough few days.

Hopefully it’s something you haven’t had to go through, or if you have, it’s been as easy as possible. Either way, we all have tough times in our personal lives – I’m not talking about one bad day at work, but the kind of existential life event that knocks you back for quite some time. If not a break-up, perhaps a bereavement, losing your job, seeing a happy Oxford United fan. You know, the scarring stuff that stays with you.

The bittersweet truth with all such experiences is that you heal over time. Things will get better, just not today. Not tomorrow either, but at some point in the future. Joy, after all, has a habit of returning.

What this article is about though is the painful, immediate aftermath – and how football’s so important in coping with it.

A trip to Sainsbury’s

One of the things that makes football so deeply special is that, because we’re all so invested in it, so plugged in, this sport extends well beyond matchday. Football gives us a lot to think about throughout the week. Is any of it really that directly consequential towards our own lives? No, not really, but we get obsessed by it all the same.

Take this week for example. Even though Reading’s season is officially done on the pitch, we’ve still had plenty to chew over. Besides the fallout from a particularly depressing final-day defeat to Blackpool, go on social media and you’ll see plenty of debate/venting on Leam Richardson’s future, the Royals’ summer transfer business, individual rumours and loads more.

A couple of days ago I was walking out of Sainsbury’s in a bit of a daze when I got a push notification to say Reading’s retained list had been released. Are the employment futures of any of those players actually relevant to my own life? No, but it was the first big bit of post-season official news to be confirmed, and fortunately (for my sake anyway), it demanded attention.

And since that news was released, I’ve had plenty to ponder. Why have we offered Andy Rinomhota and Kelvin Abrefa fresh contracts when they weren’t being played all that much? Does Michael Stickland being released mean Abraham Kanu will get more of a shot next season? Where will Mamadi Camara end up?

The marvel of the modern age is that you can engage on all of that in an instant – and with potentially hundreds or even thousands of fellow supporters. You can immediately dive right into tweeting your thoughts or chatting with your mates on WhatsApp. If you’re especially old-fashioned, you can – dare I say it – even talk to people in person.

Personally I’m privileged to also be in a position where I can go further. I can write an an article like this and publish it without any editorial oversight to stop me (mwa ha ha), as well as enjoying some excellent submissions from our website contributors and watching Ben, Ross and others continue to knock it out of the park on TTE’s audio and visual output.

Was this entire article a way of guilt-tripping some of you into offering written or video submissions for The Tilehurst End? I will neither confirm nor deny. Anyway, I digress.

Matchdays real and imagined

There isn’t anything quite like the matchday routine for getting you into a different headspace.

For me, a typical Saturday home game involves a bit of editing in the morning, travelling from South London to Reading, probably doing some reading along the way, chatting with Bobbins midway through my walk up the Y23 stairs, live-tweeting the game, posting Ben’s post-match video (if he’s been bothered to do it), and then writing/editing the player ratings and match report – either on my way back to London or at home.

Whatever your own routine looks like, it’s a few hours of your day at least when you get to be somewhere you want to be and indulge in a bit of hope. After all, as much as we like to pretend we’re cynical creatures, deep down we go to the SCL because we love the possibility of Reading scoring a few goals and getting a win.

No one of a Reading persuasion will have any memories of the weekend of September 10, 2022. The Royals had been scheduled to play Watford away from home on the Saturday, only for the game to be postponed late on, leaving would-be attendees at a loose end.

I do remember it however as I was going through a break-up at that point too. Being at a loose end was pretty much the worst thing possible for me. The game eventually came out as a drab 2-0 defeat, one of many such results that season. How I would have loved the distraction of a depressing Reading game on September 10.

Some of you may remember the weekend of September 25, 2021, though. On the off chance you don’t have an encyclopaedic recollection of the Veljko Paunovic era, it was the day Reading beat Middlesbrough 1-0 at home. Alen Halilovic scored the only goal of the game, beating future Royals ‘keeper Joe Lumley.

It was also a couple of days after I had a bereavement. I’m so glad I had the distraction of a Reading game to take my mind off things for a few hours, and more to ponder in the following few days: Pauno’s 4-1-4-1, Dejan Tetek playing right-back, Junior Hoilett putting in a shift as a false nine, Danny Drinkwater’s range of passing. None of that ultimately aged well from Reading’s perspective, but at the time, it was just what I needed.

I don’t know what the future has in store – on any front, really. I do know however that football will always be there to distract me and joy has a habit of returning.

Right then, enough of all that. Is there anything in this Sam Nombe rumour?