Football Fan Frustrations.

This weekend marked the opening round of fixtures for the 2013/14 season of the Barclays Premier League. Some sectors heralded it as "the return of football", even though the English Championship actually started last weekend (as did the German Bundesliga), and the Champions League qualifying rounds the week before. Heck, there had even been an international tournament played during the summer, plus numerous friendlies and World Cup qualifying matches. 

In any case, for avid followers of the Premier League, so-called real football had returned. There are many people out there who look forward to watching football clubs in the top tier of English football duke it out on the pitch every weekend, and really do miss it during the summer. Non-Premier League football is no substitute for the real thing.

So anyway, being an Arsenal fan, I was really hoping for a good opening-day result against Aston Villa, especially as we were playing on home turf. For those of you who follow English football, you'll know that, unfortunately for me, Arsenal fans don't really get what they hope for much these days.

After opening the scoring after only six minutes, we duly went on to concede two goals from penalties, got a player sent off, and concede another goal from a counter-attack. Well, these things happen in football, and being an Arsenal supporter since 2007, I've gotten used to this kind of disappointing result.

What really pisses me off, however, is when people rub these results in my face. How can I watch football in peace when someone else in the room is dissing my favorite team, insulting its players, heckling the manager, and basically calling out doom and gloom for Arsenal after only the first match of the season, and all this at the top of his damn lungs? It's already painful enough to suffer a home defeat - I don't need someone rubbing salt and lemon juice into my wounds.

I get it, heckling is a part of sport, and that includes football. But that doesn't change the fact that it's not a very nice thing to do, and especially when you do it to someone who never heckles your team (or any other team, for that matter) back.

Yes, I am passionate about football, but it's not something I like to talk about. The enjoyment (or otherwise) that I get from it I mostly keep to myself, and the same goes for my opinions on the topic. I don't like people insulting my team, so I don't insult other teams. (Criticism, though, is tolerable. The problem with most people is that they tend to get too emotional when it comes to football, so criticism usually turns to insult.)

Football is known as a game for the working-class, so naturally there are a lot of fans who are idiots/douchebags. However, that doesn't make it an excuse for a person who usually respects other people and their opinions to act like these idiots/douchebags when it comes to football.

I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who prefers to be left alone when it comes to watching football. The problem is, there aren't enough of us to be truly understood by the rest of the football-watching community.