Playing Your Rivals: Why Losing Is Not An Option

As the Chelsea versus Manchester United game approaches, the office banter reminds me how many fans come out of the woodwork around the time of the big matches regardless of the team they follow.

For many fans defeat will be more painful on the Monday, than on the Saturday

Beating a rival or top club is about more than league position to most, whenever two teams that have support in the office clash the build up is always intense and highly amusing.

Even those who do not follow football closely will usually translate their loose geographic, or ancestral roots to a club, into highly charged banter with opposition fans, before, during and after a big match.

I know from experience that going into the office on a Monday after a big win against your boss’ team is fantastic, when your team is defeated, well its not worth thinking about

A good example of this is last weeks Chelsea vs Aston Villa game, which pitted two of the members of my office against each other.

The build up saw one of the Aston Villa fans in the office constantly reminding his Chelsea co-worker of the score earlier in the season, bombarding him with emails and links to the match report for the previous game.

However 7 goals and a day of rest later, the Aston Villa fan was conspicously quiet. The victor moved quickly, gaining his revenge by pinning 7 copies of the weekends match report to the Aston Villa fans desk, just in case he had not caught the scores over the weekend.

Banter and fan interaction is the best part of following football, be it in the pub, the office, on the plane or in the train, start talking about football and I can talk to anyone.

So whilst the league may be important to both sides, pride and office bragging rights mean that in offices up and down the country, where Manchester United and Chelsea fans normally cohabit peacefully, this weekend the gloves are off and losing is not an option.

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