Powerful word is addiction. The dictionary definition reads that it is "the fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance or activity." When you consider the word or you think of people who are addicts, it is synonymous with people like Gazza, Pete Doherty, Amy Winehouse, Paul Merson to name but a few. When you think of those who are addicts, many people can end up looking down upon them, or pity them, or think they are better than that person because they themselves do not suffer with that problem or any addiction. There is still a stigma attached to both the words addict and addiction. And there is an irony there, because many people who do not consider themselves an addict in any shape or form are sport fans - and which group of people have the biggest addictions? Yup, you've guessed it, it's sports fans.
As I write this, it is in the aftermath of of England's unreal European Championship Semi-Final against Denmark, where they progressed to the Final with a 2-1 victory over Denmark after Extra Time. The euphoria that the victory has generated is sensational, football fever is gripping the nation, as maybe, just maybe, football might be coming home. Already, we look forward to the final against Italy on Sunday with a mixture of trepidation and excitement, as this could be the moment that England win another major trophy to go along with World Cup triumph in 1966, 55 long and distant years ago.
This to me, is a very surreal time, as my club football team is Leicester City, who in the last 5 years have won the Premier League, got to the Champions League Quarter-Finals, and most recently won the FA Cup. Those sort of things, just do not happen to a football club like Leicester, they happen to other teams, big teams, but not mine. But yet, they are happening and have happened. I saw them with my own eyes, quite literally in the stadiums where it happened. And it is the same with England. Reaching the Semi-Finals and Finals of major tournaments are for other countries, not for us. We're the plucky lot that reach a Quarter-Final and bow out as soon as we make contact with one of these other, proper teams. Yet, like Leicester, here we are, in the Final, after reaching the World Cup Semi-Final in 2018. To do it once is luck, twice suggests that there is actually something happening here.
With Leicester and England, the outpouring of joy and emotion is related to what has gone before. The years and years of habitual failure, of under-achieving, of relegations, missed opportunities, of embarrassing defeats and tournament exits. We've seen the lows, and experienced the hurt that they bring. So when you experience those highs, those wild and joyful moments where it all starts coming together, you better believe we are celebrating wildly. That we're going to shout and dance and sing at the tops of our voices.
Any why do we do this? Because the truth is that only sport can provide you with those highs. Those moments that produce the most purest form of happiness. Those moments where for a short period of time, you lose yourself and your surroundings and your circumstances, because nothing matters as much as that moment, that sporting moment that has took you to that place. Got money problems? Irrelevant. Having relationship troubles? Forgotten. Work getting you down? Non-existent. It's now escapism from your life, as you are transported to that dreamworld.
When your sports team achieves the ultimate in dramatic fashion, such as England winning the Cricket World Cup in 2019, or Danny Hipkiss running to the line in a Twickenham final to win the league for Leicester Tigers or Youri Tieleman's thunderstrike that won the FA Cup for Leicester City, you are taken as an individual to another world and dimension which you will never forget. It is those moments that you live for as a fan, and ones that you always dream of happening, and there you are in that moment, living them out. There is a reason no fan can sleep the night before a big game. They are not just nervous, but they are mapping out all the possible eventualities that may unfold the next day. They can dream and picture the last minute winner, the memorising catch or last-ditch tackle that secures victory for their side. I would not consider myself a creative, but all the possible scenarios I dream about before a big game are worth of a Hollywood blockbuster.
And yet these moments, as great as they are, are bittersweet. Because the reality is that once they have happened, every second, minute or hour that goes by, you go further away from that moment. You cannot relieve it truly, even if you refresh the YouTube video time and time again, in the days, weeks and months after the event. You can get close, but you never truly get to relive those moments of pure joy and happiness. And so, because of that, you have to chase them again. You want to feel that way again. Want to have that happiness back, to be transported to that place again. And it is why sports fans are the biggest addicts of them all. Because even when all the evidence tells you to walk away, or not bother, every 12 months you still renew your season ticket. It is why you still queue up for tickets for the Cup Final, even if your team is by far the underdog. It is because you could never live with yourself if you missed out and your team won. If you could have been there but you turned down the chance or the ticket. FOMO is real folks, and it lives inside sports fans.
And it is why, we as sports fans, are the biggest addicts of them all. Like all addicts, we're chasing that buzz, that high, that feeling of happiness. And we do it time and time again, and for some of us, we always will. So the next time, you hear about an addiction or someone who admits they are an addict, and you are a sports fan. Don't be snobbish or look down on them, instead empathise with them, the truth is that you are the same. I am a sports fan and I am an addict.