Ian McMillan: I’m a football fan who’s running out of extra time

I remember years ago reading a cartoon strip where a couple, obviously down on their financial luck, are counting their meagre cash. The woman turns to the man and says ‘You know that bridge we were going to cross when we came to it? Well, we’ve come to it’. In the next panel of the strip the man looks unhappy. Then in the next panel the woman says ‘You know that rainy day we were going to save for? Well, today it’s pouring down’. In the last panel the man looks unhappier still. It’s not a funny cartoon, obviously, but it always makes me think about time, and preparation, and how I never want to be that unhappy man. I want to enjoy getting older.

I’m writing this in the wake of one of the most amazing afternoons of football I’ve ever witnessed. I settled down in front of the TV to watch the last day of the Championship season, not knowing what was going to happen. At one point Barnsley were staying up and Huddersfield were going down, at another point the opposite was the case.

Towards the end of the game, it 
again looked like Huddersfield were staying up and Barnsley were getting relegated and I paced the room, up 
and down the carpet like a guard in a prison camp drama. That’s the Prison Camp of Hope, the prison camp that all 
football fans have been sentenced to f
or life. If we’d have lost I’d still have written a column about life going on, but my heart would have been heavy 
as I typed.

On the morning of the game, I tried to distract myself; I went for a stroll. I chatted to the man who was doing some plastering for us. I went to the café and met my mate Iain the Artist. Neither of those chaps are bothered about football: they prefer plastering and art, so I could pretend the game wasn’t happening. As I walked back home from the café, I did that odd thing that a lot of football fans (or maybe it’s just me) do and pretend that they’ve already lost, so that if the team wins it’s an unexpected bonus.

As I turned up our street, I said to myself “Oh well, we lost but life in League One won’t be too bad, and we’ll be back”. And we were still hours away from kicking a ball.

Then my accountant came to look at my accounts and we talked about getting older, and saving, and looking to the future. And as we talked, and
I’m sure I said “Life goes on” at least once, I began to realise that the retirement I’ve been saving for for many years is not as far away as I thought it was. Oh, I won’t be retiring tomorrow, or next year, or for the next few years but what was just a dot on the horizon is now a bigger dot.

More than a dot: a balloon. More than a balloon: a small planet. The bridge is looming; the bridge that will one day be crossed. And it’s always a rainy day on that bridge.

Then my accountant went and it was time for the football. And one of the good things about football is that it really is a solid example of life going on. A game twists and turns in real time. A season builds like the longest play you’ve ever seen, the longest opera you’ve ever listened to, and nine months go by in the blink of an eye.

It was August 2012 a moment or two ago and the season began, and it’ll be August 2013 in a moment or two and the season will begin again. And we stayed in the Championship, and so did Huddersfield, and so did Sheffield Wednesday, and apparently at the end of our game both sets of fans were singing “Yorkshire’s staying up!” which is nice.

So I know that football will start again. And I know that retirement is coming over the hill like a very small horse far away that’s becoming a bigger horse that’s getting closer. And I want Barnsley to have another season in the Premier League before I’m too old to enjoy it.

I want to climb on the HST2 at Meadowhall and get to Wembley in an hour to see us in the playoff final. That’s what football does: it makes you think about time. And I’ve got plenty, thanks. Take me to that bridge and I’ll cross it. Life goes on.