“It’s only Palace FFS”
Manchester United overcoming a team mired in a relegation fight is no huge achievement. A single goal victory over any side decimated by an injury list longer than their starting XI is no great shakes. Do not expect a commemorative DVD.
That said, the manner of United’s victory over Crystal Palace on Monday night was special. To fans of the club if no one else. In a way, the opposition didn’t matter. This was a stuttering side playing against their own poor form and lethargy.
The performance was largely dire from a technical standpoint – particularly in the first half. But whatever Jose Mourinho said at half time seemed to work. His side showed a commendable spirit, composure and conviction after the break.
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They were still lucky though. The ball bounced around the away side’s area like a flyaway in the park, and they had David de Gea to thank for being something beyond human, as is the way. That said, unstinting perseverance invents its own luck.
Nemanja Matic’s 91st minute winner was stupendous by any measure. The breathtaking quality of the goal, married with the timing and match context made for a heady cocktail. It was greeted with undiluted joy by those of a Red Devil persuasion.
The players exploded in unrestrained giddiness and relief, the away fans gooned as if their lives were depending on it, and social media was awash with supporters around the world expressing their ecstasy in capitals and swears.
It was at this point that possibly the dullest, most miserably misguided phenomenon on the modern footage age kicked in. That of the online celebration police. A sad bastard patrol who seek to moderate joy dependent upon various caveats.
They’ll interject with ‘It’s only XXX ffs’, or scoff ‘Celebrating a draw against XXX? How the mighty have fallen’, and even the quite ludicrous ‘Lol. Celebrating the Carabao Cup like it’s the Champions League!’ Like there’s a sliding scale.
Who the fuck asked you? Does your input serve any purpose other than to demonstrate how removed you are from the simple pleasures of following a football club? The essential fallacy is to suggest that there’s anything cerebral about it.
Unless you’re incredibly lucky, or your side is enjoying outrageous form, football as a spectator sport is basically long periods of tedium punctuated by heightened moments of ecstasy. If you’re not making the most of those moments, pack it in.
Winning a game – any game – in the dying seconds demands joy unrefined. It could be the World Cup final or a pointless dead rubber. There’s no Beautiful Mind style equation going on in your head of how it impacts the greater context.
Obviously, there is an element of pissing on chips going on with these attempts to temper celebration. A desire to downplay rival achievement through cold hard facts. But really, the only noticeable effect is to come across as a try-hard misery.
Rows about levels of elation to any goal are for children on Twitter who enjoy the sport of ‘bantering off’ one another far more than football. You wonder if they’ve even been to a game to savour the sweet embrace of an overweight stranger.
The truth is that the ball bursting the net in a rousing comeback is absolutely everything for a few seconds. It’s a golden window in time in which nothing else exists but that eruption of happiness/shock/relief. A joyous little death.
It doesn’t matter if it was preceded by dross. Sometimes that only serves to heighten the mood. It adds an irresistible element of ill-gotten gains. Detach your brain and engage your heart. Give in wholly to visceral abandon. That’s when you’re doing it right.
