a football fan’s survival guide

It doesn’t really matter who you support. Football is a cruel, cruel game. All of us fans have had moments of shock, disappointment, and feeling like a right knobhead. We want our teams to play like winners who’ll fight for the badge to their last breath. More often, there’s so many clowns on the pitch we think the circus is in town. We’ve endured abject surrenders in the pissing down rain, watched multi-millionaire managers lose the plot, and signed players who couldn’t pass a parcel, all to the sound of Michael Owen’s ’expert’ analysis. Season after bloody season. It stings so much your team might as well be sponsored by Dettol. Why do we do it to ourselves?

There’s a lot to love I guess. Nothing will ever emulate the high that a major win or seeing your team lift a trophy brings. Take Manchester United winning the treble: footballing perfection. And nothing else will ever come close. Life doesn’t get any better than that.

As I talk you through everything from transfers to trophies to touchline tantrums, join me as I give my definitive take on football. There’s a lot to get through, so take my hand like an over-eager mascot and walk with me out of the tunnel into the glaring floodlights of what it means to be a fan...

...and how to survive it.

Mark Goldbridge, real name Brent di Cesare, is a former police officer turned hugely successful football YouTuber and radio presenter on talkSPORT. A Manchester United obsessive, he set up The United Stand, a fan community platform with 1.59 million subscribers on YouTube. He then went on to set up That’s Football for football fans beyond United, soon to hit 1 million followers. This is his first book.