Forever Blue With Ian Cheeseman: Football Can Unite People During Periods Of Grief

Whenever Manchester City don’t have a game, particularly on a Saturday, I usually find another game to attend.

As I live around the corner from Oldham Athletic the obvious choice for me is a visit to Boundary Park. I’ve spent many happy hours watching the Latics and supping Bovril, to which I add a squirt of tomato ketchup (I highly recommend it).

I also love watching our teams in Tameside and have built up some great relationships with the people who run them, manage them and play for them. There are some magnificent people involved in local football, I can highly recommend a visit to any one of them.

Last weekend, though, I’d have been at the Etihad Stadium Stadium for one of the biggest games of the season, City against Spurs. Tottenham have been a bit of a bogey team for Pep Guardiola in recent seasons, so it would have been a particularly revealing fixture that might have given us the first real indication of whether Spurs are genuine title contenders or whether City will romp away with it this season.

Soon after the Queen passed away on Thursday afternoon the rumours started that the weekend’s Premier League fixtures might be postponed. I’ve experienced the bereavement of a close loved one a couple of times in my life. When I was just seventeen years old my Mum passed away. As you can imagine, it knocked me for six.

I went through different phases of grief, from shock and confusion to an outpouring or deep emotion. My Mum died on a Thursday and just a couple of days later, on the Saturday afternoon, City played Spurs at Maine Road. I was in a state of bewilderment at that time but I remember listening to my Dad talking to a close family friend, Marjorie, and asking her if she’d go with me to the game, as he had too much to do. He wanted to give me stability in my life at a time when my World had been turned upside down.

Marjorie went to the game and we sat together in the main stand at Maine Road. I don’t remember any details of the game, though I think City won. I do remember sitting there in a daze with thoughts of my Mum always in my mind. I’m glad I went to that game. My Dad made the right decision and getting out, with someone I cared for watching the team I loved at a place that felt like a second home, did me good.

When my father-in-law passed away a few years ago, I dedicated my match commentary, on the BBC, to him. I could feel the emotion in my body as I said my dedication on air and when my mother-in-law passed away I still presented a country music show on the BBC, even though I was in tears during one of the most emotional songs I played.

Most recently, I lost my Dad, who’d just turned 91. It devastated me, but I didn’t cancel any of my plans. Life goes on. 

There will have been some people who have very deeply affected by the passing of the Queen and others who’ve been less affected. I believe in respect. Whatever you’ve been feeling over the last few days, there will be others who feel differently to you. I believe football should have continued over the weekend, just as rugby, cricket, boxing, comedy and theatre shows did. Some might choose to stay away, others would have welcomed the opportunity to show their respects with friends and family and benefit from that feeling or normality during unsettling times. Football made a mistake in cancelling the fixtures, in my opinion and many ordinary people will have lost money they’d spent on transport and accommodation etc. When something like this happens, let us all grieve in our own way, but life has to go on.