Nottingham

A history of footballing mardiness

As a kid I would get mardy about football. I would be called mardy. I would be told not to get so mardy. When I was upset or/and crying, invariably I’d be told I was just being mardy or ‘having a mard on’. But being accused of being mardy would only make me more mardy and thus send me into a spiral of mardiness that lasted forever. (For those in the south, and for anyone who has never heard of the Arctic Monkeys, mardy is a Northern/East Midlands word meaning sulky or grumpy). 

noun. Neil was told he was being mardy after he threw his slipper at the wall after Forest conceded a second goal against the run of play.

adjective. Neil was told he could ‘get all mardy about it’ but it wouldn’t change the fact that Forest lost 5-0.

I say ‘as a kid’ I would get mardy. I still am that kid. I never grew out of it. The simple, and obvious, reason is that I have the same brain. But my mardiness is likely a consequence of my neurodivergence. I can’t help being oversensitive and getting overly upset about a game and a football team, plus a myriad of other things in this life.

Two affecting football matches took place within the space of 12 months that I still return to even now after 35 years. In July 1990, England lost the World Cup semi-final to West Germany, with my idol Stuart Pearce having his penalty saved in the shootout. The following May, Forest lose to Spurs in the FA Cup final. Football, and particularly my hometown club Nottingham Forest, had taken its grip before these matches, but the emotional reaction was strong, and some might say over the top, in both.

Stuart Pearce after his penalty is saved in 1990

Firstly, what’s the appeal of football to a neurodivergent brain? Why did I ever get involved, and why, despite my best efforts to abandon it, have I stuck with it? 

People with ADHD have lower overall dopamine levels compared to those with neurotypical brains. It means we have to get our kicks from somewhere else to maintain focus and motivation, and more importantly to feel happy. Watching football, and feeling part of a football club’s community, is great for dopamine due to the excitement that a goal, a win, a modicum of success, can bring. A goal can trigger the release of dopamine, boosting mood and happiness in the brain’s reward system. Winning is a powerful feel-good experience. I’ve never taken a drug like ecstasy, but I imagine it’s a similar feeling – you’re in love with everyone and everything. Nothing can stop you. It’s worth noting here that many ADHDers have addiction problems due to the quest for dopamine. And, perhaps that’s my problem with football.

The connection with others, complete strangers, celebrating success, also floods the brain with dopamine. I’ve built strong relationships and friendships due to Forest (another reason I’ll never escape it) but it’s also soothing being able to share the same experiences, good or bad. Plus, nothing beats the feeling when I’m away from Nottingham, perhaps abroad, and I hear a stranger say, ‘You Reds!’ after spotting a badge somewhere on me. It denotes friendship, a shared love, and validation for the choice of your club.

The opposite of all this during the good times is what happens when your team loses or goes through a bad patch. Negative feelings lead to the release of stress hormones like cortisol. However, the drive for stimulation and dopamine keeps you going and if anything, the stress makes the highs really fucking high. 

Because of the connection I will often say we played well rather than they played well, or, we got spanked, and not they got spanked, which can be problematic for a neurodivergent brain. I take a Forest defeat personally. I shouldn’t, but I do. 

I’ve defended Forest so hard over the years when at times they’ve scarcely deserved it. It’s because it feels like I’m defending myself. Therefore a negative comment from a pundit, a rival, a friend who supports another team, can cut deep. They’re hurting me, not mocking the team’s performance. I know I should keep the two distinct.

ADHDers have a heightened sensitivity to criticism, which is linked to Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD), leading to intense emotional pain at times. This sounds dramatic and while I joke about mardiness, I’ve learned that RSD is the reason I’ve struggled with my emotions throughout my life. 

When the final whistle went in the 1991 cup final, I was devastated, and what followed was an hour of wild unregulated emotion. I was hysterical. I reacted angrily. I tried to hide the tears from my parents, and a friend who had come to watch the game, behind the arm of my chair, and a cushion. After collecting the cup and their medals, the Spurs players walked down from the Royal Box and in turn celebrated into the barrel of the camera, directly at me. (The one who sticks in my memory is Justin Edinburgh, who had been successfully winding Roy Keane up all game).

They were deriding me, their behavior demonstrated that I was a loser. They, and the result, confirmed all the negative self-beliefs I had about myself, and I reacted by swearing at the TV, sticking my fingers up at them, telling them to ‘fuck off’, in a tearful rage. In that moment, due to the RSD, the inability to not react to the perceived criticism and failings was impossible. I’ve beaten myself up for years for reacting like I did, but now I know I couldn’t help it. 

Gazza’s ‘tackle’ on Gary Charles

There’s also the small matter of injustice about the match, something else which led to my initial reaction and had me ruminating in the weeks and months that followed. 

Paul Gascoigne committed two wild brutal fouls on Gary Charles and Garry Parker, which in any other game, and if he was any other player, would have resulted in Spurs going down to 10 men. Gazza eventually left the pitch but on a stretcher – an injury sustained during one of the fouls. He was treated like a gallant hero, when he should have been the villain. Before he ‘bravely’ left the game, the resulting freekick, from one of his fouls, was dispatched into the top corner by Stuart Pearce. Justice served. A goal that deserved to win any cup final. Forest led 1-0 at half-time. Our goalkeeper Mark Crossley also saved a penalty from Gary Lineker. Everything was going right. However, the player who came on Gazza, Paul Stewart, had the best 45 minutes of his life, scoring the equaliser. The game went to extra-time and Forest defender Des Walker scored an own goal (further perceived humiliation) to hand Spurs the cup. It shouldn’t have been this way.

Roy Keane reacts to Justin Edinburgh

ADHDers suffer from ‘justice sensitivity’. We react quite intensely to unfairness while experiencing strong emotions like anger. We also have difficulty letting things go. There’s a strong need to restore justice. This manifests itself in all walks of life from politics to people not picking up their dog’s shit. Justice sensitivity explains my reaction to the 1991 cup final and why it still bothers me from time to time.

I’m now in my late forties. I still get upset, but I regulate my emotions better through a variety of methods – journaling, mindfulness, and good old fashioned talking (something I wouldn’t have done at 13). I can let things go during a match, but sometimes there’s a perfect storm that sends me into a spiral of negativity – thus flaring up my ADHD symptoms.

It’s Forest vs Bournemouth, 23 December 2023. The referee is Rob Jones, who with breathtaking incompetence sends off our defender Willy Boly after 23 minutes. Even at the distance I was sat, 70 metres away, I could see that Boly had won the ball. I even remember excitedly exclaiming ‘great tackle!’, only to see the inept Jones give Boly his second yellow. Replays will show not only did Boly win the ball, he was also fouled in the process – a possible red for the other player. Forest also had a penalty controversially turned down when the ball struck an outstretched arm. Despite the injustice we went a goal up. But then they scored twice in seven minutes. We equalised, only to lose the game late on.

I was so close to the Bournemouth fans I could see their gleeful, smug faces. The derision was all aimed at me. Like in ‘91, I was the loser. I was the one being mocked. Even the neurotypical Forest fans that day would have struggled following what happened. I don’t think I uttered a word to anyone until late in the evening. The justice sensitivity, the RSD, the struggle to control my emotions, the inability to snap out of it, all combined to make me feel terrible. I kept all these feelings inside when perhaps crying and raging would have been more therapeutic. However, displays of emotion as an adult are deemed inappropriate and unacceptable. Man the fuck up, etc etc…

Rob Jones displays his ineptitude yet again

How can I, or someone else with ADHD, or not, have a better experience? 

  • Create distance and separate the football team from who you are. While supporters play their part we don’t make the decisions on the pitch. Not even the best teams win all the time. That would be boring. You need the bad times to feel the good times.
  • When people are taking the piss, they’re aiming it at the team, not you personally. You are not being criticised or attacked. Feel free to laugh it off. If they are attacking you personally then they’re not friends, and if you wouldn’t let them into your house, don’t let them into your head.
  • Be more objective than tribal. You can question players, coaches and the hierarchy. You’re not being paid to defend them.
  • Acceptance. No matter what happens you’ll always support the club and find some joy in that. Joy doesn’t always come from winning. It comes from the connections you make through supporting the club. Do not rely on the football team for your happiness. 
  • We don’t control what happens when things go wrong. No amount of anxiety will change what happens. We can only control how we think about something.
  • Acknowledge that human beings, especially Rob Jones make mistakes (time and time again). He can’t help being incompetent. It’s something he has to live with. Feel good in the fact that when you wake up in the morning you’re not Rob Jones.
  • Finally, as ever, if the plight of a football club or the result of a match, is the only thing causing you anxiety then you don’t have anything serious to worry about in the present.
A seemingly petulant child.

Danny Rat and Rock City

Danny and I had a difficult friendship. I’m not sure most of the time we even were friends. We were in the same form and the same sets. We spent a lot of time together. He was one of those kids who was always there, and he probably thought the same about me.

Danny never combed his hair, or it would appear washed it, and his protruding teeth were not always clean. He was gloomy at times. He talked about the end of the world. Oddly, he kept a spider in a matchbox. He was small and scuttled about, his head down. His physiognomy and manner earned him the gangster-style moniker of Danny Rat. Kids can be cruel.

Danny and I had a fight in the changing rooms before PE. It was over something stupid, and we suddenly found ourselves going full Lord of the Flies, punching each other wildly, while the other boys savagely bayed for blood. There was a moment when the human side of my brain said, ‘What are you doing? This isn’t you!’ The ape side cackled  – ‘Make him bleeeeed.’

The mob got their blood. Danny, who did taekwondo, had the perfect guard and, from nowhere, punched me twice in the nose. Like a boxer with high cheekbones, it was my weakness. Not that it was ever that hard to cause my nose to bleed. Blowing it and even sniffing in dry weather has the same effect. The fight was stopped, and I was taken away to be patched up. Danny was deemed the winner. He drew blood. It was not something I ever wanted to do again.

Things changed in the sixth form, and we started getting on better. Danny was taking more care of his personal appearance. He grew his hair and kept it washed. He looked like he was modelling himself on Dave Grohl, who had just released Foo Fighters’ debut album.

Danny did two important things for me, which I’m grateful for. Firstly, he introduced me to alternative music. He lent me a compilation CD that included Radiohead. It was the first time I heard Creep, and like many other teenage boys at the time, I instantly related to it. I imagine Danny felt that way, too.

Secondly, most importantly, he invited me to go to Rock City with him, with a few others. A bidding that changed my life.

Life before Rock City involved going out in Hucknall every Friday night. My whole sixth form did. We were mostly underage, and this wasn’t something the pubs and bars seemed to care about. They were raking it in. Unless the cops felt arsed to do a patrol, the bar staff hardly ever requested to see our NUS ID cards, with, of course, doctored date of birth details.

Hucknall had no nightclubs. What it did have was The Byron. The pub had an upstairs room half the size of a tennis court, where a DJ played the latest Euro cheese dance music and remixed chart hits. For some reason, it was the place everyone wanted to be. You would have to queue for ages to get in, and there was no guarantee you would. The bouncers were strict. You weren’t always told why they weren’t letting you in. If you did, it was deemed an achievement. I remember celebrating at the top of the stairs whenever I did. That was the good bit, being chosen. Getting what you want is another story. Too loud. Too packed. Too many pricks. The lager, expensive and pissy. You couldn’t talk to anyone because you’d just be shouting and spitting in their ear. I spent some of the time in my own head, the words to Creep and How Soon is Now, on repeat, while watching my school friends having a great time, laughing, dancing, flirting, kissing… maybe something else later.

What the hell am I doing here?

I tried nightclubs in Nottingham. The music wasn’t right. I hated the dress code – shirt, trousers, shoes. Anything reminding you of school surely should be avoided. You had to pay for the pleasure back then too. I enjoyed being with friends, getting drunk and farting around, but I spent most of the time hypervigilant. I worried about spilling someone’s pint and getting glassed in return. I witnessed violence inside and out. Bouncers pressing heads against the pavement until the police arrived.

They were often sleazy places. I would watch from the side, or balcony, as men prowled, creeping up to women on the dance floor. Grabbing and then gyrating themselves, uninvited, against an unsuspecting victim. Was this something that was ever encouraged? I’d seen women get off with men just so they left them alone.

I don’t belong here.

‘Come with us to Rock City,’ said Danny.

Mum had warned me about Rock City. It was full of Hell’s Angels, apparently. She made it sound rough and unsafe. I wasn’t sure it was right for me. I imagined long haired oily rockers with big beards who would delight in humiliating me by putting me in a headlock. I don’t know why. I think I’d watched too many old Clint Eastwood films, the ones with the orangutan who liked sticking his middle finger up at people.

‘It’s nothing like that,’ said Danny, laughing. ‘It’s student night.’

‘And, no dress code?’

‘Wear what you want.’

The student night was named Jeudi and was on every week from 8.30pm to 2.30am.

I laid out my jeans, random band t-shirt, and cheesecloth shirt (to be tied around the waist due to inevitable temperature increase as the night wore on). My blue Adidas Gazelles waited by the door.


It’s hard to explain the first time, but you know when it’s significant. You know you’ll remember the moment forever – like your first day at school, or seeing your football team for the first time. At Rock City it was when I walked the stairs from the lobby, and opened the double doors to hear music I loved, sounding better than ever.

There was black everywhere. The walls, the ceiling, the furniture, the bars, the lino, apart from the wooden sticky dance floor. (I made the mistake once of wearing white jeans and I woke up the next day to see them covered in black streaks like a miniature car had driven over them).

A Rock City mural on the back wall of the stage, made with different tones of glow-in-the-dark-paint, had a thousand different names scratched into it.

As innocent as I was, and after what Mum told me about Rock City, I couldn’t help thinking it was all a bit illicit. Something shouldn’t be this much fun. Should I even be here? This was highlighted when someone offered me a sip of their can of Two Dogs. Not an E, or anything illegal like that, but alcoholic lemonade. I hesitated. I thought he’d smuggled It in. Alcoholic pop? Alcopop. Oh, you can buy it here? Wow.


‘You’ll never pull a girl at Rock City,’ Danny told me as we sipped from cans of Red Stripe. We were chatting, enjoying the music, watching people dance, and building up the courage to join them.

Some girls had the Mod look, others modelled themselves on Louise Wener from Sleeper. Some had an androgyny similar to Justine Frischmann, the lead singer of Elastica. They mostly wore tees, jeans and trainers. No-one was bothering them which was great to see. I never saw any trouble. ‘Safe space’ wasn’t a thing in the 1990s, but if it was, Rock City was for us all.

Danny wasn’t being mean. It was just his experience. This wasn’t the main reason for going, and it wasn’t like he or the others had much luck anywhere else. I was, however, desperate to meet girls, like those on the dancefloor – girls who didn’t know me. Who didn’t know my character or the reputation I had. Nice, funny, smart, but just a friend… I could start afresh. It never felt like I could be with any girl in my sixth form. Many of them were already in relationships, but also, why would I? I couldn’t think of anything more awkward. The biggest reason of all, perhaps, was that none of them appeared to be into what I liked, and that mattered.

At Rock City, I felt I could be myself. I felt safe. I felt I was among people who cared about what I loved. Feeling that I wouldn’t be mocked for wanting to dance like a twat to Blur’s Sunday Sunday, or Black Grape’s In the Name of the Father, was liberating.


The knock-on effect of feeling free and having fun, was that it was actually quite attractive. I suddenly found I was getting attention and despite what Danny said, it turned out you could pull a girl at Rock City. In my case, every week (until I got a girlfriend). Maybe they pulled me. This sounds like a massive brag. Hear me out. When you’re in a safe environment, when you love the place, when you feel free to dance, sing and twat about, with a big smile on your face… Well, funnily enough you’re much more fanciable than if you’re standing at the side looking like the world is on your shoulders and wondering why no-one wants to snog you (I refer you to the bit about The Byron).

I recall catching the eye of a pretty redhead, as we sang along to Pulp on the dancefloor. We met at the bar and I bought her a JD and coke. We sat down. We talked. We kissed. She finished her drink, said thanks and walked off. I’d been used, but hey ho. I chuckled to myself.

The Thursday night Rock City routine, along with the gigs I went to, continued until I went to university in summer 1997. I didn’t visit again until the following year, and sadly, it had all changed. I went during Freshers week before I was due to return to my uni. It was all wrong. There was an Ali G impersonator on stage. I was never a big fan of the character, but an impersonator? Nah. The DJ played hits by the boy band Five and Robbie Williams. It was crushing. I left early.

I’m a late GenXer, born in 1978, so perhaps this new crowd were the first Millennials to experience Rock City. A fresh crowd, new tastes, music and fashion. It had changed in a short space of time. I felt sad, but nothing lasts forever. Who’s to say what I experienced in those two years wasn’t to the expectations of others previous to me?

I have plenty of contentment in my middle age, but whenever I go back to Rock City I feel homesick for those times in my teens – a version of myself that’s long gone. Gleeful, carefree and happy.

Thanks for the invite, Danny. Wherever you are.