The first time . . .

They say that everyone remembers their first time. The more you do it, the more likely it is that your first time won’t be the best. In later life you can become a bit blasé about the whole experience, particularly if the performance is underwhelming or if it is a lifeless affair drained of passion and commitment. But there is only one first time.

I wanted my son’s first time to be special. He’d been to matches before; he watched me coach a team of six-year-olds to one win in a season (technically no wins, as I happened to be overseas on the one, glorious triumphant Saturday morning), and he even watched me play when he was just a babe in arms and I had hair and a decent right foot. I was superb that day I tell him, hoping it sinks in to be retold in reverent tones in years to come: “Your grandad played football. I only saw him once, and he was superb that day.” But he’d never experienced the atmosphere of a (reasonably) full football stadium at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. He’d never joined the throng hurrying to a ground early in the season filled with hope that this would be The Year. He’d never had that hope wrenched from him by a dodgy goal or a blind linesman. He’d never sung ‘the referee’s a wanker’ in front of so many people. And he’d never felt the agony of a year-long relegation dog-fight, or the special ecstasy that only comes with avoiding the drop on the last day of the season.I wanted him to know why defeat makes me mute, why penalty shoot-outs make me leave the room, and why 'You’ll Never Walk Alone' makes me cry, every time. I wanted him to experience the crazy, intoxicating joy of this special collective experience, to understand why a goal is an emotion, and why the beautiful game strips reasonable people of dignity and reserve.

I was about his age when I went to my first match in November 1975. Earlier that year I’d watched my first live game on television when underdogs Fulham reached the FA Cup final for the first (and as yet, only) time. They couldn’t repeat the heroics of their extraordinary cup run which had seen them beat Hull (at the third attempt), Nottingham Forest (at the fourth attempt), Carlisle United, and then Birmingham City in a semi-final replay. Although they had defeated their final opponents, West Ham, in a League Cup match earlier in the season, they were well-beaten on this May Day. There was to be no final fairytale for former England captain Bobby Moore who had joined Fulham from West Ham earlier that year. As a treat for my eighth birthday, my dad took me and my brother to watch Fulham draw 1-1 with Charlton Athletic at Craven Cottage. A small, shy lad prone to temper tantrums and still trying to come to terms with my parents’ divorce a couple of years before, I found on that day a new world had opened up to me. It was a revelation to realise that despite what my mum had said, there were places in the world where screaming was not only accepted but actively encouraged. And more than this, football created a special bond between me, my brother and my dad. I think, looking back, that football saved our relationship. Before, my brother and I went out of our way to find things to fight about, and my deep but unfathomable anger towards my dad had manifested in surly discontent and short, spiteful acts of rebellion. Now we had an endless source of conversation and a reason to look forward to spending weekends together. And gradually over months and years watching matches together at Craven Cottage, Stamford Bridge and Selhurst Park, at Loftus Road, Wembley and White Hart Lane, I think we grew to love each other.

I had taken my son to England in October 2007 principally to see my father who had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. This cruel affliction is rapidly disabling his mind just as polio disabled his body fifty years ago. When the diagnosis was relayed to me half a world away in Sydney, I was overcome by the awful, empty feeling of helplessness and guilt that I’ve dreaded ever since I emigrated to Australia fifteen years ago. As I tried to explain to my son and my daughter what the diagnosis meant, I found myself telling them stories about my dad and what he meant to me. I wanted them to know him as he was, as I remembered him, before the disease changed him beyond recognition. “Do all your stories about Granddad involve football?” my daughter asked at one point. “Not all of them,” I said, hurriedly trying to think of one that didn’t. He has achieved so much in his life; his book Designing for the Disabled remains a guiding text for architects, planners and occupational therapists. He developed the idea of “architectural disability” to describe the ways in which the design and layout of the built environment can discriminate against different groups of people, not only those in wheelchairs but also adults pushing prams, tall or short people, children and older people. He devised the ramped kerb that enables people in wheelchairs (and people pushing prams, or riding scooters) to cross roads. This remarkable, simple modification is now a standard feature of pavements around the world, and it is almost impossible to imagine urban life without it. He was the chief author of the British standard covering access for the disabled to public buildings, and in later life his research exposed a hitherto hidden form of discrimination against women in the provision of public toilet facilities. But most of my fondest memories of him do indeed revolve around the beautiful game: watching Bobby Moore, George Best and Rodney Marsh playing together at Fulham; staying up on Saturday nights to watch Match of the Day, and The Big Match on Sundays; going to the FA Cup final replay in 1983, when my dad had his pocket picked at the turnstile and Brighton were mugged by Manchester United, and we sang “You only sing when you’re winning” as the United fans celebrated their fourth goal; agreeing with Brian Clough that he wasn’t the greatest manager in the world but he was in the top one; arguing over whether Justin Fashanu’s goal for Norwich against Liverpool was the greatest we’d ever seen. I could never have admitted it then, but I was wrong. There is one goal that will never be surpassed, and it wasn’t Fash’s. Carlos Alberto’s goal for Brazil in the 1970 World Cup still gives me goosebumps every time I see it: Clodoaldo beating four Italian players (inexplicably absent from most footage of the goal) and in the process more than making up for the horrendous mistake that led to Italy’s goal. Several passes later, the ball is played to Pele twenty yards from the Italian goal. He waits, and waits before laying a pass into space on his right. Carlos Alberto is not even in the frame as the ball rolls gently into the penalty area. Then he appears having sprinting all the way from right back (or so I like to believe) to wallop the ball into the far corner of the net. The greatest goal, scored by the greatest team that ever played the beautiful game.

And so I felt almost a moral obligation to take my son to a match while we were in England. It was as if I was continuing a family tradition, albeit one that had only been invented a generation before. For various reasons, we couldn’t go to a game with my dad. We were fortunate, however, to time a trip to visit my brother and his son in Bournemouth to coincide with a home match against Swansea City.

Football is a heady mix of tradition, ritual and superstition, leavened by luck and coated in blind faith. It is not about skill – that is a bonus. It is not (only) about goals, though it’s hard to explain to a non-believer why a 0-0 game can be better than a goal-fest. And it’s not about winning trophies, since unless you support one of the Big Four, trophies will be few and far-between. Winning is a bonus too, a great joy when it comes, but never to be taken for granted. Most supporters learn to live with the aching pain of losing; they understand that it is the essence of the game. For these reasons I wanted my son to experience the ordinary emotions of football. Even if I could afford to, I did not want to take him to a Premier League match because I didn’t want him to gain a false impression of what the game is all about or be seduced by the glamour and wafer thin commitment of most players and many fans. So it was that my son’s first time was a clash of the ages, bottom versus top in what we used to call the Third Division, Bournemouth against Swansea City, the cherries and the swans, the Bs and the birds.

The day had almost everything a fan could desire. Before the match, the Bournemouth mascot, a seven-foot cuddly toy known as Cherry Bear leapt the perimeter fence for a couple of priceless photos. My son cried at the noise booming from the North Stand, but by the end was singing his heart out. The game itself was a peach. Five goals, two penalties, several bookings (at least one a complete mystery to all), Darren ‘Sicknote’ Anderton rolling back the years, and the glorious humour of the crowd. When Swansea scored their fourth the Bournemouth faithful tried to inspire their team by whistling the theme from the Great Escape. They chanted ‘England, England’ as the Welsh fans celebrated going top of the table. But in the end Bournemouth were as soundly beaten as the bass drum at the back of the North Stand, and for long periods the home crowd was out-sung by the swathe of Swansea whites over in the far corner who danced and shouted like they knew that promotion would be their season’s reward.

During the match I worried that my son was emotionally overwhelmed by the experience. He found the noise and the crowd terrifying at first, but by the end I could see the flame had been lit in his heart. A few days later he sang his match report to my dad and acted out the match highlights on the carpet in front of the television. Months later I overheard him chanting to himself ‘Boom, boom, boomboomboom, boomboomboomboom BOURNEMOUTH!’ and I know that his first time was everything I could have hoped it would be. And now, best of all, I have an ally in the domestic competition between me and his sports-sceptic mother, and a companion on the couch at four in the morning to watch a match on the other side of the world. I am not alone anymore. We are a crowd.

Ben Goldsmith