It’s a wall of indifference, cemented by contempt for the fact I’m speaking to them at all: a clique of four fans two rows behind me loudly ask each other trivia questions every half time. During a recent cup game, not on the season ticket, the seats between us were empty. They weren’t 100% sure if David Beckham had played in the Champions League for Milan. Distracted, instinctive friendliness made me turn and say: “Yup, remember he actually played for them at Old Trafford?”

Four sullen, slightly insulted middle-aged faces blocked my path into their circle. Too soon, I realised – far too soon. I’m 46, a fan for 38 years and a season ticket holder for a couple of decades. But I’ve only been in my current seat for 18 months. In this area of this grandstand, I still only speak when spoken to.

David Beckham playing at Old Trafford for Milan. Photograph: Jon Super/AP

“The football family” is a noxious phrase. It patronises and commodifies us oiks who never buy enough burgers, stay away if it’s raining and constantly gripe about not signing Cristiano Ronaldo. Few of the truly familial interactions of matchdays are marketable. With season tickets now commonplace, many of us build up friendships and interpersonal dramas with the characters in our immediate vicinity.

Everyone sitting among regulars has someone in their ear with an encyclopaedic knowledge of every referee’s career mistakes and another who can link every opposing player with your most despised derby rival. There are those who do league only – no cup matches; there’s the woman who nervously thumps your back when we’re taking a penalty; and there’s you, who knows yelling “turn and face it”, “clear it first time” and “CONCENTRATE!” 13 times per game is the kind of insight everyone craves.

My club’s recent financial problems meant renewing my season ticket for 2012-13 would give hundreds of pounds to shysters or liquidators. So I spent the first six months of that season buying tickets on a game-by-game basis, touring parts of the ground I hadn’t seen after years spent in the exact same seat.

I inevitably tired of the ticket office and at Christmas 2012 bought a half season ticket in the stand opposite my former regular perch (post-liquidation football demanded a different view). By May 2014 I’d enjoyed precisely two conversations – my neighbour asking if his dad could have my seat next season and me eventually saying yes. In July 2014 I attended a pre-season match nominally to research the view from the tier above. In reality, I was surveying it for camaraderie potential.

I’ve settled in OK – nods of recognition and glances of mutual disbelief when our defence goes AWOL. My observations have drawn little dissent. My high point came in April. When our captain elbowed an opponent’s face, I emitted a baleful “Oh no – why did you do that!” before the ref displayed the red card to the astonishment of everyone not so hungover they couldn’t follow the ball. Those next to me asked me what happened. They spread it to their neighbours in seats further afield: “The new fat bloke says elbow to the face.” With replays proving me correct, I could renew knowing I wouldn’t have my lunch money stolen in 2015-16.

But mainstay status is further away than ever. In October I prematurely squealed “He’s been sent off!” as the ref ordered our centre-half to change his blood-stained shirt. And, rashest of all, my attempted invasion of the trivia clique. It would’ve been another two years before I could even say hello to that quartet – perhaps the week after a particularly volatile game had us all turning wide-eyed to each other, seeking confirmation that this is absolutely the worst ref we have ever seen. It would then be another three years before I could chat to them. First name terms? Never happened in all my years attending football.

Fans only linked by their club randomly interact at away grounds, online and in pubs. However, the season ticket intensifies impromptu friendships – the guy sitting on my right this season began greeting me with a handshake – and, equally, can have you anticipating someone’s grating mannerism or griping tone with decreasing patience from August to April.

A man behind me pounces with contrary sarcasm on anyone’s declamations. Someone backs the manager; he says it’s “a bit early to declare this season a success”. A player is slated for making a mistake; he contests that “he’s not the worst one on the pitch”. We cheer wildly after a decisive goal in the last minute; he says “we’ve beaten the team at the bottom of the table, whoop-de-do”. Occasionally these tensions need confronting. Last decade I became friends with a younger neighbour after I’d exploded at him for continually referring to our most successful post-war manager by his surname and he’d tired of me defending his tactics.

Most of the familiarity breeds affection. The four season tickets currently to my left are permed between grandfathers, dad, wife and three kids from teenage boy to female toddler. Their conversation ranges from greats of the 1960s to “why can’t we get a McDonald’s on the way home” debates. The pensioner behind is cloyingly delicate with his grown daughter – “sorry petal” – between her dragging him back into his seat as he frenziedly christens referees as cheating fat bastards. My pre-liquidation neighbour would pretend to hide whenever two middle-aged twins took their seats a few rows down. They’d done nothing untoward for five years except jointly “eject” a drunk who’d pushed their dad. It was so incongruously and brutally clinical we sat open-mouthed for that entire game.

Hatred of derby rivals, colossally incompetent referees and even violence in the stands can function as a social service for those who don’t watch football from hospitality boxes or locally docked yachts. Football unites – but while the underlying and saleable reason is shared love, the accelerant for sense of community is always a common enemy. Like, for example, impertinent loudmouths eavesdropping on your trivia quiz.

• This article appeared first in When Saturday Comes

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