What does it mean if you don't follow a club?

If there is no figurine, poster, sign, scarf, mug or plaque on your office desk or home living room which displays your allegiance to some suburban club in a foreign land whose accent you can't quite mimic, don't worry. It is still legal in Singapore to not follow an English Premier League club.

- Rohit Brijnath

It's August and if you think they're speaking a foreign language at the water cooler, don't panic. Football season has begun and on footballpoets.org — a place where you may not necessarily find the literary equivalent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, himself a fan once — someone wrote last week: "So here we are".

Back on page one. The opening chapters.

The new season is a 380-episode, money-soaked, magic-tinged soap opera with some fresh characters and an unknown script. In an unpredictable world, the football season offers familiarity, the club a refuge, the competition a distraction, the weekend a time to mourn goalkeeping blunders and insist inept referees deserve life without parole. You know, the normal polite stuff.

If, like me, you don't support a club, you may be considered to have no meaningful relationship. Marriage is a mere piece of paper, this is apparently far more profound. When my colleague, his name best left unmentioned, got married in October 2024 and was teasingly asked if he'd be watching Manchester United during his honeymoon, he seemed affronted by the question.

"Of course."

Then he magisterially added that he'd informed his wife that football comes first.