Are Utd Making You Depressed?

Nikolas said:

Football fans often perceive successes and failures of their teams as personal. That is why they usually use 'we' when they talk about their clubs. It can easily become unhealthy, especially for people who don't have many productive activities. Psychology explains many aspects of the relationship between a fan and his club.

One psychological principle that is obviously present here is 'commitment and consistency'. It is present everywhere, starting from choosing a club and remaining a fan for a long time (often a whole life).

Another principle that is also visible here on the forum is 'social proof'. People choose to criticize certain players, a manager or owners if they see other posters do so.

Even they are just customers of the company (club), they want to change managers, owners, etc. It is a long story, and a lot of people made good money from these traits. At the end of the day, a lifelong customer is always the best customer.

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Good post. Following football also encourages parasocial relationships (which anyone interested in such subjects should read about because it's a fascinating phenomenon and one that's really exploded in frequency over the last decade or so).

The more time I've spent reading neuroscience and psychology literature on football and related subjects, the more convinced I become that it's very difficult to follow football in a way that's healthy. At the very least, football subtracts from a limited available resource pool for doing constructive things.

fps said:

Football seems to do damage to a lot of people, it’s due to the powerlessness it creates, which generates really negative feelings of anger and frustration when the thing people have no control over doesn’t go their way.

Football clubs’ ups and downs don’t depress me. It’s entertainment. Football doesn’t matter, yet a lot of people spend their entire lives consumed by it. It needs to be one part of life, but for many people it is a key part of their entire identity. The ones who then get genuinely unhappy when they see these other people who don’t know they exist losing football matches need to step away for a while.

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Another good post.

Think no one should make football and United as the most important thing in their life because it really can affect your mental health, AFTV is an example of grown men having no other hobby in their life except for watching their club so when the team have a bad performance they go into meltdowns etc.

I am in the lucky position that most things in life are quite positive for me right now.
My family and me are quite healthy, we do not have financial problems, I have a pretty decent and safe job.
At the moment there are 2 things downing my mood:
Whenever I have a look into my stock portfolio I am shocked how the share prices have crashed and I know it will take months or even years before prices will be back where they were.

And then there is United. It is hard to believe how long it has been since SAF‘s retirement and that we are still as far away from the top as 8 years ago. Probably we have become even worse. Watching us play is not really enjoyable 95% of the time.

I do not start to cry or something like that but yeah, it drags me down. Of course I have other interests and football is not the focal point of my life.

There are a lot of bad things going on in the world with so many people having real problems so my issues are immaterial in comparison. Unfortunately it is not so easy to convince oneself that this is the case.

I just do not get my head around it how awful we are compared to our rivals. And I do not see light at the end of the tunnel. We are run by people without a clue about football, our manager is a nice bloke but completely out of his depth and most of us are aware that we are never going to win anything under him. And we have just had the probably worst transfer window ever.

A lot of people around me do not understand why I keep paying to watch us play, plan most weekends around our schedule just to be pissed because of another poor performance. But giving up is out of question.

Yes.

Thats it.

Im not sure I have anything left United related right now. The Sancho nonsense and further proof our club is a shambles has broken me (from a football fan point of view). Cant even get more than a little excited about a bucket load of new signings yesterday.

Feel so negative from a United point of view. Almost despairing.

The amount of money spent post SAF, we should have the best manager and the best squad in England.. Unfortunately it's not the case.

Yes

suhaylah said:

The amount of money spent post SAF, we should have the best manager and the best squad in England.. Unfortunately it's not the case.

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Yeah but it doesn't help that the strategies of our last four managers have all been very different, in other words we have had so many rebuilds that it's led to us spending far too much money since Fergie retired

It is a drug like heroin. Makes you feel good when they win. Then when they lose its like you are going through withdrawl symptoms.

I felt like shit sunday night. Only lasted a day but still. Then when we win, i feel good.

Durkheim who was a sociologist analysed how religions are so popular and some people attribute the same dynamics to sports teams or stars.

I just don't think I've got any more to give at this point. I've resigned myself to us having a rough season which I can take but with the usual section of the fan base turning on the manager already this season en masse it's just going to be another shitshow of the United circus except this time it's a manager who has close ties with the club and is one of us, somebody who I believe has made greater strides than the so called 'big name managers' before him.

Always said I have mentally drawn a line in the sand when it comes to Ole, not because I think he's the second coming of Fergie but because we have no better alternative and no structure behind him and he's made better progress in multiple areas, finished 3rd only a few weeks back and after 3 games it's 'sack him!' all over again. I just can't be bothered with that mentality.

It's extremely tedious and knee-jerk and the true feeling of support I thought a club of our size had by default of it's size and stature has been shown up for what it really is. This isn't an attack on anybody here in particular but it just now feels to me that I'm lumped in with another billion powerless fans, a large section of whom seem to lap up the media and call for the merry-go-round to continue.

...I just want it to stop so I can get off.

Another season of a long top 4 race, already a long way off the pace in autumn. Yes, this genuinely makes me depressed. Bored of this shit.

Nope. Angry more.

Ole and his shite lack of knowledgeable coaching are making me very depressed.

To be fair I got used to it.

It used to damage my weekends and general attitude, but I got used to it, which is sad, because I'd prefer to say that I got rid of such feeling.

I watch United, sometimes I feel it's because it's always been like that, but even when I tried to stop, it was much worse. The game doesn't start hours before kick-off, like it used to, and just after the final whistle it actually ends, doesn't leave me the feeling of disappointment when we lose for the next days.

We all got used, that's it.

Yes, it is a sad sad demise. ...up.one week down the next.

Sometimes a manager is so utterly stubborn that he’ll refuse the obvious - even though the average Joe from the local pub can point it out. Today Ole did that with Pogba. I have a hard time remembering watching a - by many - “class” labelled player, having this bad a game, and Ole fecking kept him on.

I swear, when Bellerin had the ball in our box I would’ve yelled “don’t touch him, don’t touch him” a billion times if another player than Pogba marked him... but with Pogba, I knew he’d poke out his leg the fecking dope. He’s got such high thoughts of himself - he always does it, despite a rich history of failing to control his fecking tackles.

This will be the 20-20 season for Liverpool. Last time United won the league I was a teenager. Now I’m soon to be 27. I expected nothing and yet I’m still let down.

CL love it, but our bread and butter the PL, it is fecking me right off, we are shit, Ole does not seem to have a clue who or what he wants to play, seriously thinking of turning sky/bt off

Majority of United games nowadays, yes depressing.
After venting usually here, or to friends and families, usually it's gone... until another pop up again after the next bad game, which happen more often than not.

Maybe I would like to suggest fellow posters to release it sooner than later. Learn how to get used to it, by managing it best mentally. Every person is different, and have their own ways. Best tips is maybe to acknowledge that "any of this about United" is largely not something that you can control so you can only "let it go". Just release your "specific depression because of United" quickly. Take care of your mental health.

Depressed? Fml

The inconsistency is more draining. The same team that got trashed by Spurs at home is the same team that beat PSG away and ruined Leipzig. Yet, the same side lost against Palace and Arsenal. You just don't know what's going to happen. It's more frustrating because you know it can work, but sometimes it does work and it works really well, and sometimes it fails badly.

It's a bit like a puppy who just keeps pissing all over the carpet, when you know full well that they know better and can do better.

Today's result was depressing for sure, losing to a wank team.

Losing to Arsenal makes me depressed.

Can we just play away for the rest of the season

Need new tactics for the league games i think.

There are more important things in life that I actually have a control on. As much as we feel it during the game, people shouldn't get depressed over something they cannot change.

During the end of the Fergie era I started to watch less of us, guess getting older had something to do with it, I used to watch all the youth teams on Saturday mornings, pre season etc and used to do anything to catch our games, then when I got into my 20's I could only watch about 15 games a season.

About two years into our demise I started to wonder why I bothered trying to find streams, or why I'd cancel doing something else to watch tumescent football - I still love United, but I got to a point where it wasn't entertaining, I dont mind us losing, its the cowardly way we've gone about playing (our football wasn't the best in Fergie's final few years) that was the final nail in the coffin.

I think the hierarchy at United (and Ole) fail to understand that football is entertainment, there's going to be a generation of United supporters growing up knowing only boring, defensive football, and wondering how we were once known as the all out, swashbuckling side we once were.

Anyway, I catch a game if I happen across one now and again, maybe 5 a season, which if you said that to a 15 year old me I'd have laughed, which is a depressing thought actually - but I made the conscious decision to not let football effect my mood for 3 days at a time (I spent two years of Moyes and LvG in a constant state of depression).

/rant.

Seven games in and eight points behind Leicester...

TMDaines said:

Seven games in and eight points behind Leicester...

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Plus 12 GOALS behind too

As shit as we are I'm massively grateful for the distraction and would miss it even more if it wasn't on right now.

I liken it to taking a cocktail of Cocaine and Heroin over a period of time, alternating between the two.

I'm driven by compulsion to watch United. I can never understand why people don't watch us even when we're absolutely terrible. Now, I'm not saying that's wrong, I can respect someones choice to just check out, but in my own mind I have a hard time not watching the games come what may. I get as annoyed, disappointed, elated and joyous as when I was a teen, yet at the same time those annoyances don't bleed into subsequent days like they used to. That being said, I have every impulse that I had when I was a teen in that I cannot miss a game. The only thing that's changed is how much more annoyed I get at football in general. For eg. When opposition players make bad decisions or sloppy passes even versus us, I still get annoyed because I've learned to analyse and sometimes micro-analyse games and for some reason I can't fathom sloppy mistakes in general. Little things like defenders not playing the ball in front of the defender to run onto, or players passing to the weak foot of a player, etc.

I think that this is the norm and the Fergie era was some long ago marvellous time in history. A bit like when folks look back at the 60s decade as the best time in England. Im past getting excited when we string a few wins together as its always a false dawn. After the lockdown I got tricked into thinking again that maybe..just maybe. So not depressed just flat.

Judas said:

As shit as we are I'm massively grateful for the distraction and would miss it even more if it wasn't on right now.

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You say that but I forgot all about football during the last lockdown. Only when it came back I wasn’t sure how I didn’t go mad without.

United are truly depressing at the moment, that loss to Arsenal was something else. It doesn’t help that pretty much the majority of my mates are Liverpool fans.

Pathetic how much yesterday’s match actually affected me. Believe this cloud won’t be lifted until the Glazers are gone and that isn’t happening soon.

If the success of the first team dictates your long term emotional state, I imagine it would.

Not me personally. There are many positives about the club, like the women's team, the youth teams have some really talented lads coming through and even our loans are doing alright.

Also, in a time with an American presidential election serving up two geriatrics, a global pandemic and another bloody lockdown - seems pretty small fry.

depressed? No.

they are making me tired, literally. Watching this team is either exciting or boring. When it's games like chelsea 0-0 or Arsenal 0-1, watching them puts me to sleep. It's actually probably good to watch if you have sleeping problems.

Eli Zee said:

depressed? No.

they are making me tired, literally. Watching this team is either exciting or boring. When it's games like chelsea 0-0 or Arsenal 0-1, watching them puts me to sleep. It's actually probably good to watch if you have sleeping problems.

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Yeah so only exciting when teams give us the freedom of the pitch

groovyalbert said:

Genuine question, is following this club now negatively impacting your day-to-day life?

Because if I'm honest, knowing how we're being run and having our reputation destroyed, I'm left feeling crap.

I can deal with losing, I don't expect to be winning trophies all the time. But knowing how - and to what end we're operating - I just don't recognize us right now.

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it was more miserable before Ole for me. The football was terrible week in week out. It lacked luster. Now it’s not great. But consistency is the issue. Some game are just a joy to watch...

united for life said:

it was more miserable before Ole for me. The football was terrible week in week out. It lacked luster. Now it’s not great. But consistency is the issue. Some game are just a joy to watch...

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My gripe is that we utterly lost when teams ask us to take the initiative in a game rather than sit back and just counter attack.

Depressed? no. Frustrated? - yes, but I've posted several times that I expect inconsistency for a while, so only to be expected.

Shouted at the radio on Sunday out of pure frustration. Depressed? Never. Far more important things in life to worry about.

Meh... Considering the mess we've been in since Ferguson left I knew it would be a bumpy ride back to winning, made even bumpier because we fired Van Gaal prematurely and hired Mourinho, but currently we're bumping along in the right direction slowly but surely so to be honest, not only am I not depressed but I'm actually quite immersed in this team again and that's the first time in a long while. Besides that, it's just football, and it's not even me playing but someone else. I'm watching other people I've never even met boot a ball about, and I do it to be entertained. There's no other point to it, zero reason beyond that for me to stay invested, so if it made me depressed then why even bother?

Like life in general, there are ups and downs in football as well, with plenty of lessons to be learned and also kicks to be had enduring both these opposites.