Fitba Hell

TONIGHT I had the misfortune to tune into Radio Five's football phone-in and its unnervingly po-faced devotees. That the inanities of these people get aired is depressing enough - someone pass me a spoon to gouge my eyes out with the next time the radio spews out the dread words "Spoony, just wanted to talk about the left-back situation at Barnsley" - but what's particularly unsettling is that the programme's most alarming listeners are rewarded for their efforts.

The nominees for Fan of the Month were announced tonight. Among the choices were a Wigan supporter who hasn't missed a game in the last seven centuries and blithley drags his hapless wife along to reserve fixtures in Plymouth. He was competing with another candidate whose team I can't remember, thanks to a disturbing image that's dominating my memory banks: this second nominee deserves the accolade of top supporter for February, we're told, because his entire body is covered in tattoos advertising his team of choice. Are we really expected to vote for him because, say, 'Man U' is scrawled onto his shrivelled appendage but expands to reveal his team's full moniker when he becomes aroused by a Gary Neville square ball?

The sort of fixations venerated by Radio Five are less popular in everyday life; most people equate blank-eyed obsessiveness with a predilection for random violence. I certainly feel like I've been assaulted, which is why I'm on my 17th cup of coffee tonight. I don't want Tattoo Man getting into my dreams.

NICK Hornby wrote in Fever Pitch about years of mediocrity culminating in a moment of miraculous triumph, when Michael Thomas prodded in the last-minute goal that gave Arsenal the league in 1989. My football life is the anti-Fever Pitch.

I became a Pittodrie regular in 1983, a year of remarkable achievements unlikely to be repeated by Aberdeen FC. Only a few years later started a long period of decline, at first steady, then precipitous. By 1999, specious stastics had been uncovered to show that Aberdeen were the worst team in Europe, only 16 years after defeating SV Hamburg in the Super Cup to become the continent's best side.

I shouldn't whinge, of course. Most fans will never see their team launch a spectacular comeback against Bayern Munich or outplay Real Madrid in a European final. I should cherish those memories, I hear you say. But there's a problem: our family moved to Aberdeen in November 1983, and it was only then that my interest in the local football team was sparked. Until then I'd lived in rural Aberdeenshire and enjoyed successive passions for tractors - I knew far more about Massey Fergusons than Alex Ferguson - and Star Wars.

As Aberdeen switched through the gears against Real Madrid on a sodden Gothenburg night in 1983, I sat in the corner farthest from the TV, engrossed in a comic-book telling of Return of the Jedi. My dad, teetering on the edge of the settee, implored me to watch something that he claimed I would never forget. I tried, but couldn't get my head round the arcane adult obsession with two groups of men chasing a ball. Seeing me fidget, he gave up and I re-immersed myself in intergalactic battle. I only looked up in curiosity when I heard the guttural roar that followed John Hewitt's diving header.

This is why, when I witness the current team lurching from one ignominy to another, I draw no consolation from my memories of Gothenburg: they scarcely exist. The miraculous triumph preceded the mediocrity, and I missed it. So excuse me while I wallow.

TIMOTHY Treadwell spent 13 summers living with grizzly bears in Alaska until he and his girlfriend were eaten by one. For the last five of those summers he made video recordings of his adventures. These form the basis of Grizzly Man, a new documentary by German film-maker Werner Herzog.

Treadwell had drifted through life without finding a vocation. He’d been a waiter and an actor, unsuccessfully auditioning for Woody Harrelson’s role in Cheers. He’d changed his name and changed his life story, in a vain attempt to pin down a version of himself that he liked.

This mixed-up soul thought he’d found his niche by abandoning the chaos of the human world. But he had a sentimental view of nature. He gave the bears childish names like Mr Chocolate and larked about with them as though they were friends. He thought he’d found a place of order, a place he understood. Then, one day in 2003, a disaffected grizzly mauled and devoured him.

So what’s that got to do with football? The answer is that football supporters seek a similar sense of order amid chaos. Even if our team is faring badly, there’s the reassurance that at least it’s there, a constant focus for hope and ambitions. Pre-season, the Scottish Cup final, the World Cup: all come around at the same time, again and again and again. There was a sense of bewilderment among football aficionados at the uproar caused when the SFA insisted on playing a World Cup qualifier a few hours after Princess Diana’s funeral; football had always carried on regardless.

But we make the same mistake as Treadwell: we expect the dependency to be mutual. In reality, fans are routinely treated with casual contempt. Fixtures are shunted about to suit TV schedules, magnates buy into clubs as property investments, players kiss badges then double their wages elsewhere.

There’s a chilling moment near the end of Grizzly Man. The bear we presume to be Treadwell’s killer stares into the lens. You might recognise the look if you’ve been foolish enough to engage a professional footballer in conversation; it’s the same look of glassy-eyed indifference.