Is football enjoyable? As a club owner it was surprisingly difficult to answer | Jason Stockwood

Grimsby’s owner says running a club presents many challenges, much depends on luck and moments of joy are rare but intense

Ten months into football club ownership and the question that comes up with most frequency is: “Are you enjoying it?” Normally this would be a straightforward question to answer and yet it struck me as surprisingly difficult until I had the time to think properly about it.

Football is both of and for our communities, holds up a mirror to our society and gives us a unique window into human behaviour and psychology. On occasion it offers a powerful metaphor for the things in life worth striving for and an opportunity to be part of what Jon Yates, in his book Fractured, calls the “common life”: moments of shared experience that are not dependent on class, education, race or any other variable but become the moments that allow us to see beyond the boundaries and prejudices that our politics are often reinforcing. Football has the ability to remind us of our collective power and the sense of community.