More to life than football

I have been a football supporter since I was about 6 years old. I have played and watched football before that with little or passing interest, but then my brother-in-law got me into it.

I grew up as a Manchester United fan (which, by the way, given that I started supporting them in 1990, before they started winning anything, doesn't make me a glory supporter), which added to a diverse selection of teams in my family. My brother supported Liverpool, my brother-in-law was a Chelsea fan, my half-sister (who I didn't meet until I was 12) was a Notts County fan and most of the rest of my family were fans of Norwich City.

It wasn't until 2002/3 that I started becoming passionate about football though. The 2002/3 season was brilliant for me personally, I was going to watch Lincoln City on a regular basis and ended up seeing all 53 games in a season where City started as relegation favourites and yet made the Playoff Final.

Skip forward nine years and it's now coming to the end of 2011 and in that time I've missed just two Lincoln games, but, and I would never have imagined myself saying this a few years ago, I am at the point where I have a general feeling of apathy towards football.

I rarely celebrate when Lincoln City score, and often find myself sitting away from the rest of the Lincoln fans....mainly because I can't stand most of them. At away games I can be found in the stand where the home supporters sit.....mainly because the view is better and at the end of the day, if I'm going to watch a shite football match then I'm at least going to watch it from a place where I can at least see it well.

In all fairness I have had a feeling of apathy towards Lincoln for a while, but even then I was still celebrating whenever I was watching the TV and United scored......and before someone says it.....I'm not sure if you've seen the ticket prices at Old Trafford, but for the ticket, to get there, food, programme, etc, would be around £100 per game, whereas a Lincoln game is considerably less. I do go to Old Trafford whenever I get the chance, but not often. Anyway, yeah, I used to celebrate but now I don't even react.

What I've realised in recent years is that there's more to life than football. Don't get me wrong, I still love it and will still go whenever I can, but it's not at the point where I could easily miss a game and not actually be that bothered. I'm now 27 and I have started prioritising things and football just isn't a priority.

As I say, I'll still go if there's nothing else to do, but I wouldn't exactly be disappointed if I couldn't for whatever reason.