Kate Emery: Jumped on the Matildas bandwagon? Here’s how to fake it as a fanbase freshman before the semifinal

Being a fair-weather sports fan gets a bad rap. You’re not a true fan if you haven’t suffered through years of disappointment, heartbreak and, cruellest of all, false hope. You’re not a true believer if you haven’t done time in the trenches as one of just hundreds of fans in the stands or the only one in the house getting up at 2am in the depths of winter to catch the game. Being a fair-weather sports fan can, however, feel fantastic. Discovering a favourite “new” sport or a favourite “new” team, ideally, one that’s existed for decades if not centuries, is like stumbling onto the joy of, say, Doctor Who and realising you’re now part of a rabid fanbase with access to merch, fan-fic and 13 past seasons of the show. It’s like sitting down to a buffet dinner you had no role in preparing. Sure, a new fan might agonise over the outcome of a sports game but the stakes are lower: no bitterness tied to a match played five years ago in which someone did or did not score, no sense that your personal happiness is irrevocably bound to the trajectory of a ball. Becoming a fan just when “your” team is in ascendency is no inoculation against loss but it helps. I’m talking about the Matildas and tonight’s semi-final match v England. The team’s World Cup campaign has created millions of new fans, some of whom may now be keen to pretend they were on the Tillies bandwagon all along, if only to avoid the judgment of long-time fans (and if they’re a pollie who did bugger all to support women’s soccer, they’re probably hiding from former Socceroo Craig Foster, who’s threatened to name names). As a veteran fair weather fan/bandwagon jumper (in my Tour de France years I went from thinking a “domestique” was a cleaner to being capable of delivering a blow-by-blow of 2010’s “chain-gate” to any person who asked and plenty who didn’t) I can offer advice. The alternative is that you lean into your status as a recent convert and don’t try to fake it. Some hardened fans may look askance at newbies but most will be delighted for the chance to fill your head with all the useless facts and stats they’ve been carrying around for 20 years. They’re definitely dying to explain the offside rule using a bunch of coasters and some salt shakers. Let them.