When I won a free £1,000 bet, my friend advised me to put it all on a home win for Fulham. Which is how I ended going to my first football match – and I loved it

I never imagined that going to my first football match would be one of the consequences of writing a feminist book on the history of women’s swimming. But that is what happened. This is how it went.



My book, Swell: A Waterbiography, landed on the William Hill Sports Book of the Year shortlist, for which it gave me a free bet of £1,000. A grand is not a trivial sum of money for me – I have bought cars for less – but I am from arts and crafts stock, and the world of odds is a mystery to me.



“Were you not raised going to the races,” asked my friend John O’Farrell, when I requested his help. “I was raised in amateur theatre,” I told him. But I wanted the best chance to come away with my stake, at least, so John advised me to put the lot on Fulham to win at home against Burton. Fulham is his team, and my brother-in-law Jon’s, and that was connection enough for me.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest We sit almost at eye level with the game. Photograph: Jenny Landreth

As well as being wise counsel, John is a good storyteller and understands how to drive narrative. “Let’s go and watch the game,” he said. “So you can see what happens to your bet.” I was up for that: it sounded like a brilliant way to end a chapter. We gathered a gang of four – me, John and his wife, Jackie, and a friend called Tim.



Two days before the match, Ruth, my sister, texted me to say that going to watch football was like going to mass. “Just sit and stand when everyone else does,” she advised. “It’s like theatre, only cheaper,” said John. “And shorter,” added Jackie, knowing my aversion for long plays. “It’s like being at the Tunnel Club,” said Tim. From all these references, I gathered impressions about ritual, community and raucous narrative. But when we arrived at Fulham’s ground, Craven Cottage, I suddenly felt like a tourist: this was a language I didn’t speak, a building I would visit on a city walk in another country. But as we slipped into the stream of people, and as I squished myself through a narrow turnstile, I started to feel part of something.



That first view from the top of the stairs! If it is familiar to you, maybe you forget how vibrant it is, the whole of the pitch laid out, parakeet green. Squares of light on crane legs at each corner, cutting through the grey drizzle mist, making the grass positively glitter. Serious men wandering across it, staring down, carrying hooks like a granddad’s gardening tools, patting down tiny divots like attentive housekeepers laying a royal banquet. We sit almost at eye level with the grass.



Fulham score their first goal at 17 minutes in, and I find myself spontaneously leaping up and yelling “yesssssss!” with the crowd. I’m getting more tense – this is not fun and games, I am here to win after all. At 34 minutes, we get a second goal; it hasn’t taken long before I’m calling Fulham “we”. It doesn’t feel at all like mass, or the theatre. “The thing is,” I say to John, “actors do the same thing every night. These guys have no idea what will happen next.” These actors constantly surprise me. The way they communicate without a word, the footwork, the twists and turns, the energy and skill, the little dramas that happen in corners that you mustn’t get distracted by because play carries on, somewhere else.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jenny at Fulham. Keeping an eye on that bet. Photograph: JL

The ball goes offside. “You know the offside rule,” asks John. “Of course,” I reply snootily, as if this is an insulting cliche about women – but, of course, I don’t know it.

At half time we are 3-0 up. We stay in our seats for the interval (“It’s not called the interval, Jenny”); John and Jackie have bought flasks of tea and a tin-foil parcel of Christmas cake, which is more filling than what you get at communion. Watching football makes you starving.



The sky darkens during the second half, and the colours begin to pop. The Burton yellow, the neon-orange shoes against the green. The bright flash of ads for “beautiful Danish furniture” across the periphery of my vision. Everything is sharper, except my attention, which wanders a bit. I’m brought back by the rumble of thunder from the goal end – it is men, singing “He’s one of our own, he’s one of our own” as a substitute is brought on. I am sure the announcer declares the sub’s name to be Jo Stalin.



Ninety minutes plus three. We did it! The score is 6-0 to Fulham, and it is unprecedented, apparently. Plus, I have won my bet. People tease me that I am a lucky mascot, and I think to myself: “You’re joking … But, actually, I am, I am really lucky.” I want to take that luck to another game, and I want to go and watch women play. I want to sing “She’s one of our own,” maybe. So, next, I am going to see Lewes women’s team. If you hear that they have have had an extraordinary run of luck, you will know. That’s me, that is.



Swell: A Waterbiography is out in paperback on 8 February.

