There’s a strange silence that descends when the fixtures dry up. You know the one. No Super Sunday, no away day drama, no VAR controversy to light up the group chat. Just a blank weekend, punctuated by the faint murmur of international friendlies or worse, pre-season speculation dressed up as “news.”
It’s in these gaps that the true fabric of football fandom gets exposed. Because if you strip away the matches, what you’re left with is everything else. Ritual, memory, frustration, and the creative ways fans try to fill the void.
The Routine Before the Ball is Even Kicked
Let’s be honest. Most of us spend more time talking about football than watching it. Matchday might be 90 minutes long, but the lead-up starts days in advance. Team news, fantasy picks, predictions from that one overly optimistic mate... It’s all part of it.
There’s comfort in the routine. The Saturday pint. The same pub. The superstitions that make absolutely no sense but can’t be broken, just in case. It’s a community in the messiest, loudest, most brilliant sense of the word. You might not even like half the people you watch the game with, but they’re your people. And that counts.
When the Fixture List Goes Quiet
Then it ends. International break. Summer break. A cancelled fixture. The fixture list goes quiet, and with it, so does the rhythm.
Some fans go cold turkey and pretend to care about other sports. Others spiral into transfer gossip rabbit holes, convincing themselves that a 19-year-old left-back from Norway is the answer to all their club’s problems. And let’s not forget the hours spent reliving old highlights on YouTube. Because there’s always time for that goal against your rivals, even if it happened six years ago and everyone knows what’s coming.
We fill the time. Not always well. But we fill it.
Not Everything Has to Be Tactical
Here’s the thing. Not all fan activity between matches is football-related, and that’s perfectly fine. Sometimes you just want to switch off the noise.
Some fans reach for a controller, diving into FIFA or Football Manager. Others look for something a little more low-key. Take Big Bass Splash Not on GamStop, for example. It’s a fishing-themed casual slot game that’s picked up some interest. Not because it’s revolutionary, but because it’s something to do when football isn’t on.
It’s not trying to be deep, tactical, or life-changing. It’s bait, reels, fish, repeat. A digital distraction for those moments where even transfer speculation feels like effort.
And no, it’s not on GamStop, which is notable for some. But more than that, it’s part of the broader ecosystem of casual entertainment that modern fans dip into. The lines between football life and digital downtime have blurred. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Modern Fandom: 24/7 Whether You Like It or Not
The modern fan is never really off-duty. We don’t “miss” games anymore. We stream them on phones, in airports, while pretending to be interested in work Zoom calls. Even downtime isn’t truly downtime. There’s always a debate, a prediction, a highlight reel, a moment of football-shaped noise keeping the silence at bay.
And when there isn’t, we invent it. Sometimes through games. Sometimes through arguments. Sometimes, just get nostalgic about a team that peaked in 2014.
It’s relentless. But then again, so are we.
In the Absence of the Game, the Game Still Lingers
When the fixtures pause, we don’t. We adapt. We find our distractions. Some go deep into tactics. Others play Big Bass Splash. There’s no single way to be a fan anymore, and maybe that’s the point. The old boundaries, like matchday versus non-matchday or pitch versus pub, don’t hold the way they used to.
Football isn’t just a sport. It’s the background noise to a lot of our lives. And when that noise quiets down, we fill the space with whatever keeps us connected, however loosely.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s a sign of how far fandom has come and how close it always stays, even when the game’s on pause.
