It would be too great a leap to suggest that midweek football feels like a different sport, but there is still a marked distinction. Midweek football, and by that I really mean evening football, holds a special place in my heart that Saturday 3pm could never fill. It is the beautiful game, but turned up to 11.
I am not infatuated by matches that begin in the light with darkness arriving at some point during proceedings, nor do I enjoy early season midweek matches played in the sunlight. These feel like frauds, glorified pre-season friendlies. It would be like eating a meal in a Michelin-starred restaurant when you have a blocked nose; the product is delicious, but cannot be enjoyed to its full capacity. No, for the real hit of football sensation, darkness must have arrived long before kick-off. These are the nights of real magic.
When I reminisce over my greatest memories of watching football, very few are from daytime matches. That is probably my mind playing tricks, of course, but it feels as if the floodlights project some sort of mystical force onto supporters and players, enhancing the atmosphere and producing memorable moments. I wonder whether Arsenal's miracle against Liverpool in 1989 would have happened in the daytime. Would Eric Cantona have kicked Matthew Simmons on a Saturday afternoon? Would Liverpool have beaten Newcastle 4-3, twice, if the games had been played in bright sunshine? (I'm really not interested in your logical disagreements here, even though they may well be valid).
It isn't just attending matches, either. When I picture some of the iconic stadiums in the world, the Camp Nou, Allianz Arena or Wembley, my vision of them is not on a bright, sunny afternoon (or even a grim, rainy one). These footballing Meccas are at their most glorious when they are creating their own stage rather than becoming merely part of the skyline, illuminating the night sky and drawing supporters in like moths to the flame. Moths in replica shirts.
Part of this added excitement stems from an age when attending night matches was a reason for staying up beyond bedtime. As a child, everything about an evening game felt like an exhilarating ride played out over three hours. By the time we'd reached home after a half-hour car journey, I'd be still fraught with enthusiasm, annoying my mum with things she had long put to the back of her mind. Even now, midweek football holds a tinge of naughtiness, a bonus treat that has been given, rather than earned. If Saturday afternoon is the bread and butter, this is the midnight feast enjoyed under the duvet via torchlight.
The fervour starts from the moment you wake up. Weekend football brings its own routine, age increasing the potential for it to be reduced to an exercise in exorcising the demons of the night before. Saturday may be seen as 'the football day', but as you grow up, the realisation quickly dawns that your loved ones may not appreciate an entire day revolving around 90 minutes of action. It's a game of give and take, and football must take its place in the line.
An evening game, however, brings an entirely different set of rules. The routine of the working day forces your thoughts to be timetabled, but every half-hour a flash will flicker across your brain, and you'll smile as you remember the exception to this 9-5: You're going to the football tonight. Again there is that link to the risqué or recalcitrant, as if you are somehow getting one over on the system by contemplating the joy to come. By the time you reach home, nothing else matters.
Cold, clear nights are naturally the best conditions for midweek matches. Layers of clothing are added until you resemble a cross between the Michelin man and John Candy in Uncle Buck. Jumper? Check. Jacket? Check. Hat, scarf and gloves (always written in that order, oddly)? Check, check, check. Within ten minutes of leaving the house you're uncomfortably warm, cursing your sartorial overestimation. An hour later, you're wishing you'd put on another pair of socks.
The perfect way to arrive at a football ground at night is on foot from some distance away, the lights occasionally appearing into view between houses as you pick your way through the dark streets, breaking into an excited trot despite being in plenty of time. As a kid, I used to get my mum to park two miles away from the ground, because I wanted us to begin our journey alone, crowds slowly but incessantly building around us. Not because I thought we would miss out on anything by joining the throngs halfway through, nor out of some weird tradition or superstition, just that it would be cheating in some weird way. Who said any of this was based in reason?
As you near the ground, each breath visible in the air, the floodlights guide you like an explorer using the stars for direction. The sounds come first, but far more evocative are the smells. Marcel Proust theorised that emotional memories can be generated by smells more than any other sense, and that is certainly right for me.
Whilst Proust's 'In search of lost time' focused on the scent of a tea-soaked madeleine, my flashbacks involve slightly less poetic delicacies. Whenever I smell fried onions and hot chocolate I am transported back to the early 1990s. One was the half-time drink, the other the forbidden fruit. In later life we learn that warnings regarding mobile burger fans are worth heeding, but at the time they seemed the height of gastronomic cool.
And then, eventually, you have to depend on neither sound nor smell, but glorious vision. The ground comes into full view. This is your place of footballing worship, your oasis in the desert of the working week. And it looks more beautiful than it ever has before, the floodlights almost creating a shimmering, celestial light above the stands.
It doesn't matter if it's Nottingham, Northampton or Nantes. And it doesn't matter if you win, lose or draw. Because you've got the tingles...
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