Winning is overrated
Contrary to appearances, football at its very heart is nothing more than a game, and as with all
games the object is to win, to defeat your competitors and emerge triumphant, bask in the glory of
success and enjoy the spoils of victory my friend for you have won, you are a winner. It stands to
reason, then, that winning is the most important thing, maybe even the only thing that matters.
Football and reason however, are not natural bedfellows, winning is not the only thing that matters;
it’s not even the most important thing. Winning is overrated, winning is boring.
I can hear your objections from here (so stop shouting it’s very rude), “How can winning be boring
you moron?” and “oh aye I’m sure all those trophy presentations and open top bus tours get really
tedious”. I’m going to let the moron thing slide for now but let me assure you winning does get
boring and it does get tedious. The reason I am so confident in my assertion is that I speak from a
position of experience, as a Celtic fan success and silverware has become the default, with the
demise of Rangers we are now the only horse in a one horse race, and quite frankly it’s no fun.
There are few greater moments as a football supporter than when your team exceeds your
expectations, that rare occasion when the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. When
your default expectation is victory then you are robbed of those moments. Where success should be
a blinding beacon of light in the drudgery that is our existence it becomes nothing more than a
slightly brighter shade of grey.
At this point in the article you have probably mustered up some pretty hostile feelings toward me.
That’s fine, you wouldn’t be alone. I’m not well liked. I freely accept that what I am saying ensures I
come across as spoilt and ungrateful, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
There is another downside to this obsession with ultimate victory that is relevant to us all, not just
whining little shits like me; in fact its ruinous effects are evident at every club in the land. When
winning becomes imperative then our morals become skewed, our judgement is clouded and we say
and do some very strange things.
If a player is deemed to be integral to his side’s chances of success, then no matter how despicable
his conduct, he will be admonished. Men and women of normally sound mind will indulge in ‘moral
gymnastics’ of quite stunning complexity in order to somehow justify behaviour that is quite clearly
unjustifiable. The lesson seems to be that it’s okay to be a cheat or a racist as long as you’re very
good at kicking a ball. Winning is more important than being a decent human being.
You know all those fans getting screwed over by their clubs? The ones getting fleeced at every
possible opportunity? Ever wondered why they haven’t ‘risen up’ and done something about it?
Blind loyalty is of course one perfectly understandable reason; another however is that that the
‘screwing’ is usually preceded by wild promises of some future glory. The desire for success is so
strong that these promises, (no matter how clearly outside of the realms of reality they are and the
hope they foster) blind fans to what is clear to the rest of us. Winning is so important that even the
merest hint of it on the horizon is more important than the long term sustainability and long term
traditions of an old and distinguished institution. I shall return to Scotland once again for an example
to furnish my point. When Rangers were bought by Craig Whyte (at best delusional, at worst a
criminal (allegedly)) he claimed he could deliver the earth.