The Fever Pitch Experiment

You probably already know (or if you don’t, we’re telling you) that Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby is required reading for anyone, on either side of the pond, who considers themselves a fan of the beautiful game. In fact, we’re so confident in its powers of persuasion that we’re using it as the bedrock of this little social experiment. Our hypothesis: we can convert a non-fan into a soccer follower. Not just a non-footy fan, but someone who — by their own admission — just can’t understand how people can get so excited about any game.

In this case, Fever Pitch is like the gateway drug: the bridge between our subject’s comfort zone and the bizarre world of supporterdom. But we’re not going to stop at getting her to read a book. Our goal: full-blown conversion. Did we succeed? Is there any hope for a non-sports-fan in trying to understand what goes on in the mind of a footie fanatic? This experiment stretched over eight months, and we hope you’ll like what we’ve found.

Part 1: We introduce the experiment and our subject, Emma. Plus we fry some bacon. (02/23)

Part 2: With the reading not coming along at the pace we’d like, we skip ahead a few steps and try to foist a couple of mid-table Premiership sides onto Emma, hoping she’ll spontaneously develop a rooting interest. (03/14)

Part 3: It’s a big day. Emma takes a big bite out of the book, and watches a full Premiership match, and picks a team to support! Read about all this, plus horses and hand-rolled cigarettes. (03/25)

Part 4: The book progress slows to a crawl, but the footie bug has gotten under Emma’s skin, and is beginning to dictate her every thought and action. That’s a bit extreme, but if her facebook status updates are any indication, the experiment is working… (04/15)

Part 5: For the first time, Emma watches her adopted team play a full match from within the normally-raucous confines of Scallywags. If the on-field action doesn’t win her over, maybe the “soccer breakfast” will… (08/24)

Part 6: In the thrilling conclusion of this ridiculous saga, Emma decides once and for all whether the soccer bug has truly infected her… or, at least, whether she can understand why others might get sick from it. (10/30)