Nick Hornby, fandom, and sporting obsessions
The HinduThere existed a strange hierarchy when I was growing up. “For alarmingly large chunks of an average day, I am a moron,” wrote Nick Hornby in that marvellous book of football and obsession, masculinity and fandom and growing up, Fever Pitch. It is now 30 years since that book was published, and Hornby, who was taken to his first football match at 11 by his father has “grown up” and moved on, winning awards as a novelist and being nominated for the Oscars for his screenplays among other things. Hornby followed Arsenal with the sort of passion, indeed obsession that passionate obsessives understand but those outside the charmed circle of sports fans find hard to abide. And from that moment on, enjoyment has been a much more elusive quality.” As for those who thought sports fans were idiots or morons, here’s Hornby: “Be tolerant of those who describe a sporting moment as their best ever.
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