For the most part of my life football, and Ipswich in particular, mattered.

Mattered to the point where as a child there would be schoolyard arguments and occasionally fights, a dislike of anyone supporting them up the road (I live halfway between Heaven and Hades) and poorly scrawled ITFC badges on desks and books.

As a teen following the Town meant autographs, fanatical collection of anything in print and the classified results meaning updating the league ladder, then staring at it working out what the next game would bring.

In my late teens and early twenties football was life, home games with my friends, away games on the branch bus and then a European tour made me believe it was religion.

I vividly remember arguing with my foreman at work about the Inter Milan first leg (Andy was a Norwich fan and often mentioned Munich, so I retorted that Bayern was nothing as we could beat Inter, the team who ended their run).

The trips made me believe that it was some kind of integral part of a Hollywood story, The Stereophonics covered Handbags and Gladrags and I couldn’t enjoy the song as I believed it was a soundtrack to our demise, it mattered that much.

Skip forward more than a decade and things are different. August last year I woke to news that a good friend had lost his battle with alcoholism. It was a shock. He wasn’t a football fan, but he was a friend and importantly just four days older than me, and he was gone.

James was quite the hedonist and I am sure he lived his life for enjoyment. It made me look at many aspects of my own life. A lot of soul searching has been done since then but one of the early realisations was that I have spent a lot of my life either angry or depressed by football and its culture.

I think the people who sit near me in the Sir Bobby Robson lower would agree that I rarely get annoyed any more, Maccy can probably vouch for it. I do however enjoy the football and if we lose I am annoyed, but for minutes rather than hours or days.

One of my workmates is a Norwich fan and after their loss to Newcastle the other week he confessed to me he couldn’t sleep he was so wound up. I explained to him my new views on football: “Nothing I personally do will change anything that my team does on or off the field, so it is not actually a problem I need to deal with."

I still sing, shout, swear but come 6pm on Saturday I am already thinking about something else.

I recently attended the god awful Leeds away match and was lucky enough to watch from the directors' box, well not their new director he is apparently quite mad and has a 'new' section he uses when in attendance.

After the match we mingled with the players and I spoke to Mick McCarthy. I was strangely happy to see how angry he was, he cared that we had not played well, let alone not won. Yes, he was probably also concerned for his own job but he wanted the win and was furious at a poor performance, Luke Chambers was the same, he was distraught.

I started to think about my stance once more and realised that although footballers are considered mercenary nowadays they are still competitors with pride and passion and a desire to do their very best.

It was refreshing to know they care, Mick apologised for such a poor show after we had travelled so far, and I offered up some solace, “There will be better days” and he looked me in the eye and said “I bloody hope so!”. Luke told us to go have a beer for him and then with sunken shoulders boarded the team bus, dejected.

Sorry for all the rambling, but now for the point I am trying to get to.

I am sure you all sit near one of those fans who knows so much better than the rest of us, the one who shouts, “You should be playing a 4-4-2!” or “You idiot, pass it!”. You know the kind, the FIFA playing kids who forget that not every team is Barcelona and not every player is Messi.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion and, yes, we have all paid to see the game, but it is this that has become my biggest bugbear with 'modern' football, not the actual game but the booing, the insults and the need to express so very vocally that you disagree or in some cases could do better.

Instant success is the craving, Hollywood and computer games have created false hope in people, a belief that the happy ending is just around the corner, when in fact it can’t be the case for everyone.

For every James Bond there is a Scaramanga, a bad guy or loser, and in the world of sport to be the bad guy/loser you don’t have to be the villain, just the opposition. Perhaps at the moment this season's downtrodden underdog who is going to get the girl is Huddersfield and the other 23 teams are the henchmen to the super-villain that could well be Aston Villa.

If this year is not our year, I won’t be devastated all summer, I used to be that person but it was not healthy for me. I also follow Tranmere Rovers and if you want to talk about having a bad time of it they are a great case study.

They spent half the 2012/13 season topping League One, now they are floundering in non-league, albeit fifth in the National League but having just sacked another manager in Gary Brabin (the non-league Jürgen Klopp), they have seen all of their 2012 stars move on, Owain fon Williams, a highly rated keeper went for free upon league exit, Max Power went for pennies to Wigan that same summer.

Their fanbase still turns out in the thousands despite this drop in form and I often think, why can’t more fans be like the Super White Army? (Yes, that is a remarkably close to a dodgy nickname).

The Wirral loyal don’t boo, and were not on the back of Brabin despite his failings and this week they appointed former player Micky Mellon as the new chief, and fans arrived at the midweek game in homemade melon helmets.

I am slipping off to a tangent so I must finish up. All I am saying is don’t let the football bring you down, just be happy you are here and able to go. Some people can’t.

All the best, Stay well
Baltacha Fan Club (Al)

Steve_M added 13:37 - Oct 11 A welcome antidote to the hyperbolic seriousness that Sky and large amounts of money have managed to convince everyone should be applied to football. Nice blog.
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MJR101 added 14:34 - Oct 11 Well said. It's not that many of us don't care any more but we just don't get upset like we used to. Huddersfield defeat was forgotten before tea was ready.
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prebbs007 added 18:26 - Oct 11 Great blog but I'm afraid I can't agree. I can forgive and forget defeats if I see effort persistence and correction of errors. Our manager first and foremost but our players also make the same mistakes week after week game after game. This I can't accept and will not go again until the dinosaur idiot has left. Sorry to be this way and I hate sitting at home in protest but it's the only think this criminal owner and idiot manager may understand. The only "voice" the fans have is to vote with their feet. Those that accept this dross condone it in a way. I can tell do that. Wish I could but it's now beyond a joke.

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Portman51 added 19:53 - Oct 11 Putting it simply, taking financial stability as a given, there are two primary objectives for a professional football club. One is to be successful. The other is to entertain. Most committed supporters want both. Being realistic, they will settle for one. To offer neither in the long term and to seem entirely indifferent about it can only lead to a disconnect between the club and the fans. I have been following Town since 1959 and a season ticket holder for much of that time. It's been a rollercoaster ride, luckily with more ups than downs. But I can't recall a time when I have felt so despairing about the fortunes of the club, when the prospects of change for the better seem so remote. Friends of my generation say the same: Why bother? What is the point of ITFC any more? The reasons have been done to death on this site for a couple of years now. In short, a football-ignorant and unadventurous administration, and a negative and unimaginative management. But we're almost certainly stuck with this regime until at least 2020 so, I ask again, for the foreseeable future, why bother? The club seems happy to drift, and is now so far from the values encompassed in the Robson banner at the back of SBR it's untrue. The ground is like a library, there's little or no passion on or off the pitch, and the club is no longer about the fans but an invisible owner whose sole priority appears to be propping up his other business interests. I have nothing but admiration for those still strongly committed for better or worse, especially those who travel regularly, but I can't find it in myself any more. As BFC says, there are more important things in life. I will still be at PR most times, but mainly out of morbid curiosity to see how bad it can get. I haven't left the club. The club has left me.

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Daleyitfc added 22:30 - Oct 11 Drivel.
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alfromcol added 18:23 - Oct 12 Daleyitfc What is you or Al's post? I like to think it's you.
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stevieiriswattii added 20:20 - Oct 12 Congratulations Daleyitfc on such a cretinous comment. I have some sympathies BalthachaFanClub, I don't really care whether we win, lose or inevitably draw at the moment. I have been fairly lucky in that I started watching in the mid 80's and from then to 2006 or so, many of the seasons involved chasing or gaining promotion, fighting relegation or being relegated. Now we seem to be stuck in the most tedious rut. Mid table safety, mixed with unimaginative football, is seemingly on the menu for the foreseeable future. I might turn up at Portman Road in the near future, but i won't be drawn in and find my pulse racing because of Ipswich, i'm more likely to be entertained by the travelling fans or the humorous comments of fellow bored Town fans.

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Brownie added 08:16 - Oct 13 Enjoyable read & I take some of your points. In particular I never boo or shout insults at the players. I try to do the same with officials but I occasionally stray. Whilst being honest the site of some managers - Warnock & Steve Evans for example - can get the blood boiling! I do think some of our apathy as you have pointed out is because of our situation. Taking the glass half full approach you mention does help occasionally. Normally I am gutted though & cancelling the recording of the championship show! COYB!

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blrmy added 09:47 - Oct 13 Thank you for this post, for some supporters theyve yet to live through the knocks of real life, for others they use it as escapism. When youve brought up a family, with all the trials and tribulations, seen family members die of cancer, and endured the long list of challenges life brings, football is way, way down the list of what really matters. I love supporting ITFC, have done for 5 decades and will always donso, but it wont impact on me emotionally, not real life problems cam and do. Perpestive is often needed.

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nw10blue added 12:26 - Oct 13 I really enjoyed this post and the points raised really struck a chord. My biggest hate in modern football is the craving for instant success from chairman to fan, managers are sacked via fan pressure or trigger happy chairmen. Fans boo and man rather than support and allow teams time to develop. Only one team can win a cup or a league, only three teams are promoted so what clarifies failure is it finishing 7th or relegation. Fans who support clubs below the championship have suffered such as Stockport, Tranmere, Lincoln, Halifax, Chester, Wrexham, Grimsby and Luton all relegated to non league and some now doing better than others. These clubs fans have every right to be devastated but they stay loyal and stick by their club, lot worse than 15 years in the championship.

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BaltachaFanClub added 17:55 - Oct 13 Thank you all for your kind comments. I am glad you enjoyed it, I always try to keep on the positive side of everything, as mygood mate Mullet will tell you. As for the one negative comment, I guess life will catch you eventually
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madmouse1959 added 21:06 - Oct 28 This club is now ran like a franchise burger chain with an owner who simply refuses to lead from the front and a manager who can not motivate a poor team . It is boring having a weekend continually ruined with poor football, poor results and poor excuses.
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