OPINION: stop moaning about 'fake football fans'

He was talking about people who seem to enjoy the World Cup and other major football tournaments but don’t follow a league team for the rest of the year like he does.

To him, these people cannot possibly feel the depth of pain a “true fan” like him experienced on Wednesday night when England were knocked out of the planet’s greatest football competition.

Let’s remember, Wednesday’s game was highly charged and the country’s emotions were all over the place.

He needed to let out his frustration somewhere. He took it to Twitter and his comment was met with mixed reactions, as you might expect.

I have to admit, I’d felt a fraction of the same emotion at the start of the tournament in my own home.

I’m the football fan in our house, with my six-year-old a keen apprentice.

When I say football fan, I mean I follow the team of the city I grew up in.

I don’t get to many games, because I haven’t lived there for more than 20 years, but I always know how they are doing.

I am certainly no expert but I am a fan and I was very excited about the World Cup.

My husband, on the other hand, hates football.

At least he has since I’ve known him, which is almost ten years now.

He has always bemoaned the fact Premier League players are grossly overpaid and thinks it outrageous opposing fans need to be separated in stadiums for fear of violence breaking out. I can’t disagree with him on either point. The money involved in top flight football is quite obscene and any form of football hooliganism turns my stomach.

Thankfully only a small minority of fans deem it necessary to act with their fists to display their supposed loyalty to their team. In my opinion these people are not true fans at all. They show no respect for their club, or the game itself.

What a huge relief it has been not to wake up to scenes of football-related violence beamed back from Russia this World Cup.

It seems the world can come together and enjoy the game together, without resorting to a punch-up.

Anyway, I digress.

For the duration of England’s campaign in Russia, my husband has been fully on board. He has even watched games that didn’t involve England, shouting at the telly, questioning the referee’s decisions. I looked on, amazed at this sudden interest. When I haughtily questioned him on it, he quickly put me back in my box.

He said: “Well I don’t like figure skating much either, but I’ll watch Team GB compete in pretty much anything when it comes to the Olympics.”

I hate to admit he’s right again and I’m well aware this is now in black and white. He’ll probably cut this column out and super-glue it to the kitchen cupboard.

He is right though. I don’t know the first thing about curling or judo or fencing but if our national team is competing in a momentous event, I am there on the bandwagon, cheering with the rest of the country.

In fact it’s been truly lovely watching England progress through the tournament together as a family.

The past month has been really wonderful, hasn’t it?

Continuous sunshine and a national football team who have made us all so very proud. It feels like we’ve been living in some kind of parallel universe. There has been so much excitement in our home, let alone the rest of the country, as Gareth Southgate and the England squad proved themselves worthy contenders.

As a family, life was a bit different for those precious few weeks. We shaped it around fixtures and changed plans as England got further along in the tournament to make sure we wouldn’t miss a moment.

As parents, we relaxed bedtime rules and loved watching our son happy and hopeful, just as caught up in the excitement as the rest of us.

While hearts broke all over the land on Wednesday night, even that felt different this time.

Southgate’s young squad showed such promise and played with style and decorum. It might be my age, but watching those lads crumble on to the pitch having given every ounce of themselves against Croatia, I just wanted to jump on a plane and give them all big squeeze.

Thankfully, lovely Gareth was there to do that. I’ve sobbed less watching ET than I did seeing him console each player on Wednesday night.

It has been an absolute pleasure watching England play in this World Cup. We’ve loved every minute and have never been prouder. Yes, even the “fake fans” among us.