On May 27, 2009, the UEFA Champions League Final was held in Rome and featured Manchester United, the team I support, against Barcelona. It was a game that highlighted the brilliance of Barcelona; they won the match two nil.

'United bewitched by magic of Messi' was one memorable newspaper headline the following morning. I watched the entire final in silence. Inside I was screaming, sobbing, cursing, groaning, yelling, urging and criticising, but I was literally speechless.

I watched the football game in the maternity ward of a hospital and while United were getting a lesson in football, my three-hour-old son was sleeping peacefully in a cot next to my exhausted wife.

She wasn't that bothered by the result, now that I think about it. My phone was on silent but the screen was lighting up with text messages every few minutes.

Some had sentiments such as "Congrats on the new arrival!" and "Hope Mam and baby are doing well!" but most read along the lines of "Ronaldo totally found out tonight" and "really shoddy defending, this is embarrassing".

It was a day of mixed fortunes: the birth of my second child but my favourite team gets beaten in a European final. You can't win them all!

I'm not embellishing or hamming up any aspect of my story. Perhaps some readers think I'm projecting a blokey image to solicit a few guffaws, nudges and winks from the boys. After all, men love football and women are sick of men watching football, right?

If ever there was a gender cliche, this is the one; it's as hoary as women love shopping or men leave their undergarments on the floor.

Yet if it wasn't for football, a lot of men would lose a link that maintains their friendships and keeps them happy and motivated in life. Football really is that important.

The Mental Health Foundation is the UK's leading mental health research, policy and service improvement charity. They discovered in a recent study that one in four football fans said the sport was one of the most important things in their lives.

While a cynic might suggest these football fans must not lead very exciting lives, it's a figure too significant to dismiss.

Cathartic

The foundation's website has produced an A to Z of mental health, and under F you'll find this about football: "It has been suggested that the atmosphere of a live football match is socially inclusive. Fans can behave in ways that encourage a cathartic release of tension through shouting, screaming, gesturing and chanting.

"Pent-up internalised feelings and intense emotion such as frustration, annoyance or sadness can be vented in a socially acceptable way."

They are not pretending that aggressive yobs can justify their behaviour by claiming it's good for their mental health, but it's clear there are positive benefits to what's described as a "socially inclusive" activity.

The Mental Health Foundation also makes the point that watching football provides people, mostly men, with a valuable opportunity for real social connection in an era when the internet is increasingly assuming this role.

Not only that, it gives fans a "sense of belonging, identification and inclusion within a larger group".

Young men are at the highest risk of suicide and it is young men who make up most of the crowds at football matches. Research suggests value in understanding the significance of football, and sport, in what is a very sad but complex occurrence among the under 30s.

In yet another study, carried out in 1990 by the 'British Journal of Psychiatry', two Scottish medics found that around the time of a World Cup tournament, there was "a significant reduction in numbers of emergency psychiatric admissions during and after the World Cup finals in both men and women ... these findings may be due to the enhancement of national identity and cohesion".

Declan Lynch is the author of 'Days of Heaven: Italia 90 and the Charlton Years'. The book provides an account of how the Irish football team, in qualifying for the 1990 World Cup, lifted the mood of the nation and had a huge positive social impact.

Lynch says that football, and sport in general, suffers from a problem of perception: "As with most things in life, the opposite is true of what is generally perceived. There is nothing more serious than football and sport, but at public level the opposite is portrayed."

The author is keen to stress how significant sport is for the Irish male.

"On a very basic level, most men would find no meaning in life without sport," he says. "If you took it away, even the very seasons themselves would be meaningless.

Linked

"For example, spring begins with Cheltenham, summer is World Cups and Royal Ascot, winter is the Premier League and the Champions League; they are all inextricably linked. It's what men look forward to.

"Football gives a man a sense of something greater than himself, and something that is in many ways a thing of beauty. Sport is invariably the best thing on television because the practitioners have the most talent."

But Lynch again underlines the problem of perception when it comes to men and sport.

"Unfortunately men are often denigrated when it comes to being fans of football," he insists. "It's said that men are just looking at that nonsense on the telly, it's just silly grown men running after a ball, whereas the reality is a very beautiful display of improvised and brilliant craftsmanship by men who are doing their jobs."

Could it be argued that football creates a subtle but definite bond between men?

"Football and sport is a fellowship, and a form of communication between men, but is sadly disparaged because it's thought men aren't discussing their feelings.

"How can this be the case when men are talking about something that inspires loyalty, love and commitment?"

Lynch reckons there is a massive misunderstanding in relation to men discussing last night's match at the water-cooler.

"Men converse at a very sophisticated level and there are subtexts to our conversations; make no mistake there are very real feelings and emotions that come out."

Eoin McDevitt presents 'Off The Ball', the evening sports radio programme on Newstalk 106-108. He encounters the typical male devotion to football and sport on a daily basis, but thinks the whole thing should be kept in perspective.

"There is some element of truth in the argument that football is trivial and it's only 22 men kicking a ball.

"The odd time I do think about it and I wonder why I'm getting so emotionally attached to a game.

"I'm surprised sometimes when people get so feverish if on the show we say something about a Liverpool player, for example. You'd get 100 texts in straight away from Liverpool fans; people would be genuinely angry and it gets people's emotions going."

McDevitt maintains that a fundamental attraction drives the passion and interest in football.

"The essence of sport isn't actually the aesthetics; it's not necessarily about how it all looks. Yes, there is style and skill, but for me the essence of sport is the human drama of what's going on out there. The great moments in football mightn't be a great goal. If you think about a lot of goals that Ireland have scored at World Cups -- they weren't things of beauty, but it's the passion of the moment."

Match

I'm sure there can't be many men reading this who haven't had a showdown with their spouse over a televised football match. Luckily we have McDevitt on our side.

"Dare I say it, but imagine the scenario of a wife at home and she's annoyed at her husband for spending too much time watching football or getting too emotionally involved. Maybe she should imagine what this fellow would be like if he didn't have that outlet!"

Eoin doesn't play as much football as he used to and he misses more than just the time spent on the pitch.

"I played for a team that involved training several nights a week, but once I started presenting 'Off the Ball' I had to leave it. I think I didn't really appreciate it at the time. Now I look back and I think 'I really did enjoy that.' And the team I was on generally lost!

"But we still trained regularly together, we'd be thinking about the match the night before, play the game, then have a few pints afterwards."

For a lot of male radio listeners it must seem like McDevitt has the best job in the world: facilitating and chairing the 'fellowship' of football appreciation, as Declan Lynch describes it.

A man's interest in football is something that defines his gender; it's even a great social leveller in that any man, regardless of background, can discuss and analyse a match in any setting.

However, the reverse scenario happened to me when I first met my father-in-law. Keen to impress the man whose daughter I was courting, I wanted to make the right impression and thought our common conversation link would be our local Kildare GAA.

The truth is I wasn't that immersed in what was happening on the GAA scene and so I relied on my powers of bluff when talking to my wife's Dad. Neither of us ever got into specifics and spoke only in cliches.

It was only about a year later did I discover that he actually wasn't a passionate, in-depth GAA person. Of course he supported his county, but I was completely wrong in my assumption that the normally quite reliable bond, ie, sport, would set us off on the right footing.

And so the two of us would stand there, bluffing away, with him being too polite to admit he wasn't hugely into the sport and me blathering away about "strength in depth".

We had a good laugh about it, but the incident underlines how important the connection of sport is for men. Perhaps the mothers and wives and girlfriends of Ireland will read this and understand the significance of it all, and let us watch the match in peace. With a nice cup of tea. And maybe some toast.

Health & Living