The UK is in the midst of a sporting extravaganza including the European football tournament, cricket tests, Wimbledon and London Olympics will be next on the agenda. I’m one of those men who loves sport, have always played it and like to connect with other men and my sons through it. However I am also increasingly fascinated by the emotions it generates in men and boys and its dominance in the emotional world of men.
Sport is important to most men, although clearly some men don’t connect to it and are turned off by the whole spectacle. For many it provokes an almost religious fervour in a gladiatorial arena with a massive energy on the ‘gods’ to deliver a positive experience ‘setting the devotees up for the week!’
So why is football so important to men? Why are men so passionate about it? It appears to be one of the safest places for men to express their emotions without incurring any shame. It acts like a public cathartic gym for men’s emotions, where they are given rare permission not only to feel but to freely express , joy, sorrow, grief, suspense, anguish, anger, and delirious ecstasy when the goal goes in.
“Football is a huge therapeutic experience /exercise where you have all these emotions but nevertheless they’re in a safe environment.- Ken Loach – looking for Eric
The football experience seems to create a unique vehicle for men to be at one with themselves and the football hero/team on the field models what is acceptable in this space. The little ‘god’/hero gives permission for the followers to express themselves however they want, and the normal male code of behaviour is forgotten for a brief period in time, allowing men to experience the full spectrum of emotions.
On the pitch when a goal is scored the joy is released and men are allowed unashamedly to celebrate with big joyous smiles, laughter, dancing, hugging, kissing and rolling on top of each other. When the team loses, especially in a key game, sadness is shown with tears on and off the pitch.
What this teaches us, is that men are emotionally expressive and they do have the ability to express the full range of emotions. However this freedom of expression depends on the activity, modelling, permission and geographical space. No doubt this venting and emotional expression can be a positive thing for men but what is often confusing is that when the game is over that emotional expression is locked away. Football may be a great place for men to vent, emote and be cathartic but doesn’t actually help develop emotional fitness, growth and awareness within the rest of their lives
Interesting post. All this stufff fascinates me too. Not the actually sport – I’m probably one of the relatively few men who don’t follow any sport and simply can’t bear the hype which surrounds most sport – but the fact that men get so caught up in in it and, as you rightly say, can express any amount of passion/enthusiasm/emotion but none the less in the rest of life remain emotionally disconnected and, to one extent or another, ontologically dislocated. I’m sure the reasons are complex and I wonder if anyone has studied what those reasons are. I mean asked men how is it that at the pitch this way of beahving is OK but it seems to bear no relation to what happens or how you behave in the rest of life?
I have read a few thoughts on this issue – some which I hope to blog on. I’m wondering if it comes down to how men make culturally acceptable contact with other men.
Yes, I’m sure it’s partly that but I also think it’s about how, culturally and socially, men do not learn to make contact with themselves nor are they given a vocabulary to express that. The lack of a culturally validated approach to inner life or a societally embraced process of meaning-making consigns many men to living out externals such as comparison, compteition and control. I think this stuff cripples and blights many lives but I also see signs of men trying to find ways through this.