Post-HAVING BEEN ON THE WRONG END OF THE FUNERAL ACTIVITY routine.

[Nev]

Win = watch every bit of football I can.

Lose = the game doesn't exist.

It used to be like that but I'm not so bad now, I think we're in good hands and the direction of travel is positive and despite the two poor losses I think we'll have a good season. After Newcastle I said we'd finish above them, the same can't be said of Liverpool but then perhaps that was bit fanciful anyway.

[Nelly]

Football aside from Villa is a source of either jealous hatred or a sort of teeth-grinding frustration in response to a sense of disrespect towards Villa from a sport that seems to have forgotten us, or seemingly purposefully ignores us. So I tend to avoid it at the best of times. But Lord, after a pummelling, football is so dead to me. I just bury it and ignore it's grotesque corpse until I foolishly get excited about the upcoming game.

Things are different now, but in the past typically I didn't want to hear about Villa either - none of the out of touch social media, the empty quotes from the players, I don't want to dissect the loss and wallow in it, just take it, move on and never talk about it again.

I probably sound like a really angry bitter person there, I'm not, I just really want us to finally start living up to our name and history.

[Bent Neilsens Screamer]

It doesn't really bother me as much as it used to in my younger years.

Same. The disappointment soon subsides. I was up town for the Newcastle game and already several pints in so that helped blur out that result and yesterday I was sitting in the garden watching it, which was nice.
I love it when we win but generally take the losses on the chin.

[SamTheMouse]

I usually shoot loads of zombies in the face.

Ah. You live in Walsall?

Hah!

Actually yes, once upon a time.

[Sexual Ealing]

It doesn't really bother me as much as it used to in my younger years.

Same. The disappointment soon subsides. I was up town for the Newcastle game and already several pints in so that helped blur out that result and yesterday I was sitting in the garden watching it, which was nice.
I love it when we win but generally take the losses on the chin.

You mustn't drink in town.

[RamboandBruno]

What do you do in the aftermath of the rare occasion that we are the ones receiving the funeraling rather than carrying it out?

Some of mine are:


- if i didn't see the funeraling in question, I make a point of not watching it, not even our goals, not on telly, not on twitter, not at all. If it comes on whilst I am flicking channels, for example, I rapidly change channel again. So I haven't seen yesterday's goals, and nor shall I.

- absolutely no watching MOTD at all that weekend, not the Saturday or Sunday one, not even the other games.

- no consumption of any other football media such as televised games, web sites, papers, tv etc for at least three days

- no discussing the match with anyone other than on here (misery loves company) and occasionally my brother, but he follows similar roles so any discussion is kept short.

Something else that happens, which is not a rule so much as just something that always occurs, the morning after the day of the funeral, the instant I wake up, I find myself in a normal state of mind for up to around ten seconds, at which point I remember the funeral, and darkness descends.

Also, a follow up, related question, but does anyone else find watching our matches on telly way, way more stressful and nail-biting than actually being there?

Pretty much describes me to a tee. Although i get more agitated watching a game on tv, but my heart rate/stress levels are up more at the ground, but thats normally alleviated by the group mentality and shared trauma normally, joy more recently

[Richard E]

The original post pretty much sums up my approach.

In 2011 when that lot were handed a trophy on a plate by Arsenal, the next day I systematically expunged all references to it from the newspaper using a pair of scissors and disposed of them before reading what was left.

[ROBBO]

In Oz I can watch all games live or the next morning. Problem is I always get up and watch  it live no matter what time it's on. I am a pretty rational person as a rule but Villa has and I suspect always will bring the stupid out of me.

[Pat McMahon]

When we win I consume every piece of football media available. When we lose I do the opposite.

This. Also agree it is more stressful not actually being at the match. Which seems like it is the opposite of what it should be.

Same here. In the ground you can shout, swear and externalise but much harder to do in a pub in London ( for me) with an absence of like minded souls. I don’t have any paid sports channels so rarely watch us on the box as a result. The radio is even worse as unless we have the ball in the opposing box I’m convinced the opposition are bearing down on our goal.

There have been many Villa goals over the past decade I still haven’t seen because they were scored in a defeat which I couldn’t stomach watching on highlights. These days I sometimes watch MOTD to get it over and done with, as I did last night.

Losing on a Friday dampens my mood for the weekend, losing on a Saturday usually means drowning my sorrows and losing on Sundays means I’m pissed off at work on Monday. The worst was losing the Sunday late game when I lived in China. Trying to get to sleep at 2am Shanghai time after the Phil Dowd capitulation ( there were others obviously) was impossible and I was tetchy with my colleagues all day, all the worse because I couldn’t share the pain with anybody who could remotely understand.

[Legion]

Funeraling or funeralling?

[paul_e]

In Oz I can watch all games live or the next morning. Problem is I always get up and watch  it live no matter what time it's on. I am a pretty rational person as a rule but Villa has and I suspect always will bring the stupid out of me.

I'm in the UK so I don't have the exact problem but I do the same for both Villa and for England rugby so I suffer for tours/world cups down your way.

I NEVER watch games on delay, without the unknowable aspect to what is happening (even if I have no idea what the result is I know that it's already decided and I could easily find out) I just can't get into it so, win or lose, if I've missed a game I'll check the score and then just settle for highlights.

I actually suspect that the only reason I like live sport is the infinite possibilities side of things, as soon as a game looks settled I'll get a bit bored unless something spectacular is going on (cricket is best for this because you can sometimes see the result coming a long way off but still a bowling spell or a session of batting can be utterly riveting even when completely removed from the context of the game).

[edgysatsuma89]

In Oz I can watch all games live or the next morning. Problem is I always get up and watch  it live no matter what time it's on. I am a pretty rational person as a rule but Villa has and I suspect always will bring the stupid out of me.

I can watch any game/sport I want in the UK and only for £6 a month (also films/TV) 😎. I rarely do though with football, I just can't be bothered most of the time. I'll watch anything if I have something to root for though, sometimes incredibly petty reasons but say Arsenal v Chelsea? *as Bob Mortimer* "No Thank Yoooou".

[Bad English]

Funeraling or funeralling?

I'd go for funeralling as we have a polysyllabic stem, 'funeral' ending with an unstressed final syllable consisting of consonant-vowel-consonant ending in L. In British English we tend to double our L in this case (cf. travelling, equalling...) which is fairly exceptional as you normally double on a stressed syllable (as in occur/ occurring, refer/referring...)

Of course, users of simplified English in countries that like guns and extremely large portions of food do not always do this, and will write 'traveling' and the like.

[pauliewalnuts]

Funeraling or funeralling?

I actually ummed and aahed over this before starting this thread. I decided that as 'to funeral' isn't even a verb, no matter what you all think of my choice, you can all go and fuck yourselves, you ungrateful wankers, because I do not care.

[Legion]

Love you, too. It's ll.