COMMENT: Father's Day is about life, death and football - and that’s fine

AS I write this column for Father’s Day, I stare at a framed photograph of Chelsea players, which is odd. I don’t really like Chelsea. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I can’t stand Chelsea. For me, the English Premier League team shares a level of discomfort with an ingrown toenail.

And yet, every Father’s Day, I’d have to call my step-father to discuss the great existential questions of our age, like, why was John Terry more irritating than a mosquito bite? Or why did the Chelsea players have such punchable faces?

They didn’t really. It was just football banter; that safe, fallback position adopted by all in difficult circumstances, a chance to say something, anything, to avoid saying the unsayable. My stepfather was seriously ill.

Don’t worry. This is not a self-indulgent opportunity to wallow in sadness just days before Father’s Day. You wouldn’t want that and nor would he. Sunday really should be a celebration of father figures, past and present.

My step-father is no longer around, but I can’t escape his Chelsea obsession. My daughter inherited his collection of football jerseys. She uses them as nightdresses and intends to wear one on Father’s Day, to celebrate her grandfather’s memory.

Normally, she makes me breakfast on Father’s Day. Normally, I’d use a Chelsea jersey to wipe up the mess made at breakfast.

Yet, the two are coming together in a surreal collaboration between my daughter and my late step-father to celebrate our love by mocking my lifelong hatred of his football club.

This is going to be a complicated Father’s Day, underlining the occasion’s sneaky genius. Life is complicated. One usually mirrors the other.

From bad artwork to well-established routine

When my daughter was a baby, Father’s Day was simple because life was simple. My wife pinned her to the ground and tried to produce a handprint painting, like a cop trying to get fingerprints from an uncooperative suspect. Paint went everywhere and I ended up with a smudged artwork that looked more like a Rorschach Test.

Were those red inkblots my daughter’s tender fingers or evidence of murders in the building? It was impossible to tell. It mattered even less. My little girl had made something for me. Badly.

But it was still an artistic offering from her and parental validation for me. I was a father like all those other fathers. I had a terrible painting on my desk.

Father’s Day, like parenthood generally, was a celebration of innocence and discovery back then. No two days – or presents – were ever the same. They were always homemade as homemade gifts were unique demonstrations of a child’s love. They were also cheap. We ticked every box in our house.

From a suspect’s fingerprints, we progressed to scribbled drawings. Then we moved into the era of T-Shirt expressionism, which involved a pallet of paints, a cheap white T-shirt and a daughter with less hand-eye coordination than a Chelsea goalkeeper (a cheap shot, but I’ll have to see that jersey all day.)

During her early primary school years, my daughter’s T-shirts made me a cross between Sid Vicious and an explosion in a Dulux factory. I only wore them at home.

In such attire, I’d make the usual Father’s Day rounds on the phone. I’d call my father to discuss the trials and tribulations of West Ham United. That took hours. I’d call my stepfather to discuss the merits of Chelsea Football Club. That took seconds.

Within a few years, my Father’s Day routine was well established. I’d eat my daughter’s messy breakfast, open her homemade present and either wear it, frame it or pin it to the front door to scare the neighbours. And then I’d talk football on the phone.

Showing in our unique, peculiar ways

Of course, it doesn’t happen this way in the movies. Fictional fathers and sons declare their love and gratitude for the roads taken together through lengthy soliloquies. They recall shared experiences. They reflect. They say what needs to be said.

We didn’t. Life doesn’t work that way. Nor does Father’s Day. One mirrors the other. They both got complicated. As my daughter became a teenager, her gifts became more creative and personal. T-shirts were replaced by Scrabble pieces glued to a corkboard to form words that defined our relationship. It was growing.

But the gifts for my stepfather became more practical. What he’d once wanted gave way to the few things that he actually needed. The options were limited, but we usually snuck in something Chelsea-related, anything to avoid acknowledging our relationship. It was ending.

So there’s the obvious temptation now to make this Father’s Day about those tricky, soul-searching questions. Why didn’t I say what I felt when he was around? Why didn’t I tell him what our relationship really was, beyond Chelsea jerseys and arguing over the world’s best striker?

But that was our relationship. And those questions were answered in a hundred different ways, from watching matches together to watching him make bad jokes with nurses. To use a football term, we left everything on the pitch.

And that’s what we’ll all do on Father’s Day in our unique, peculiar ways. We’ll show, not tell. We’ll share meals. Drink beer. Watch movies. Play mahjong. Wear dodgy T-shirts. Take selfies. Talk cock. Check on his health. Help with medication. Be with him. Think about him. Every Father’s Day is supposed to be different, but it isn’t really. It’s a chance to say what we feel without saying it (unless you really can say what you feel, which is terrific. Go for it. But if all men could do that, then what would be the point of football or steamboat dinners?)

In our home, Father’s Day has always been a matter of show, rather than tell and that’s just fine. My daughter will show me how she feels with a homemade gift of questionable artistry. And I’ll show my step-dad by keeping that bloody photo of Chelsea footballers on my desk.

Just looking at their dopey faces pisses me off, which is exactly what he would’ve wanted.

Neil Humphreys is an award-winning football writer and a best-selling author, who has covered the English Premier League since 2000 and has written 28 books.

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