Liam goes to the footy again - and remains unconvinced!

We went to see Sunderland take on Man City in April 2008, Liam's 3rd football match (the 2nd had been Durham City against Bishop Auckland: 2-0 to City, although even the home fans admitted the second was a "hotly disputed" penalty). His School had got some cheap tickets from the club, right on the front row behind the goal in the home end (see below)...

Liam soaking up the big match atmosphere/trying desperately to find something to do that might stave off the overwhelming boredom...

In truth, Liam had been less than psychotically-obsessed the 1st time he went to a live game [Sunderland 0 Arsenal 3], being much more interested in the crowd and his biscuits. I'm ashamed to admit this did cause me some grief as his Dad, as I am desperate for him to love football; perhaps too desperate really, thinking about it. Maybe Liam sees football as a rival for my attention and so resents it. When it's on the telly, for instance, it's not something we can bond over, it's something he tries to remove from his life so we can get back to more important things. like dinosaur fights. How do you play that one, Dads?

Nils, a friend from Rotterdam, has suggested taking my time, playing the long game, waiting for football to work its inexplicable magic. Stuart, a mate from London, says: "I feel the best approach is almost certainly to deprive them of going to footy games etc, thus making them WANT to attend, feeling they’re missing out... Ted already knows that I disappear off to PLAY footy, and I think he is intrigued..."

Perhaps I am pushing too early. Liam does quite like kicking a footy in the back garden, primarily for when he scores a goal and I chase him around for a few minutes, catch him and throw him into the air in an enormous somersault of celebration. (Scoring the goal does seem to be a means to an end for him...) Can't help thinking, though, that real football ain't always like that, and I'm guilty of mis-representation...!

He is three years behind the schedule I had as a kid [obsessed by the age of two, apparently]. But then, Theo Walcott only started playing seriously when he was 9 (a fact I cling to with the unattractive fervour of a never-say-die fanatic).

Here he is in the ground, with his on-off 'girlfriend', Nathalie.

It was an appalling game, so in one respect it was good Liam had little idea what was going on, but he didn't enjoy it much, to be honest and there was a scene in the Gents' at half-time of brutal father-son dynamics. We were attending to his needs in the toilet behind a locked door, when he told me, "I want to go home!" I tried to suggest the game would get better, but he then said, at an uncomfortably public volume, "I don't like football Daddy!"

When I stepped out of the toilet with him, the massed ranks of patient blokes lined up waiting for us gave me half a smile, and half a wince of sympathy.

Well, the game continued to be crap long into the 2nd half as well, but late on City got a penalty and scored from it, but Sunderland equalised a few minutes later (a cracking volley from Dean Whitehead). I threw Liam into the air loads of times, shouting "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!" which he enjoyed enormously, and when we sat down he said "Again!"

At which point I had to explain to him that Sunderland needed to score first before we could do it again, as otherwise it would be rather odd behaviour. (They didn't; City did - Liam is becoming a Sunderland jinx. Good job they stayed up, or we'd have had to keep a low profile...!)

But the day did end on a positive note: Liam was quite clearly on Match of the Day later that evening! If you freeze-frame the celebrations after Dean Whitehead's equaliser down to a frame a second, and you know where in all the indistinct blur to look, and you squint really hard, you can see me lifting him up, on the telly! Liam, my son, on Match Of The Day! (I've kept it, for use when he makes his Arsenal debut in - ooh - only 11 years from now...)

Sunderland 1 Manchester City 2 (You can't see Liam on this footage, alas...)