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The Yahoo Sport Question of the Week: When did you fall in love with football?

From the best-selling crime writer Ian Rankin, to the Producer of The Late Late Show with James Corden, friends of Yahoo Sport describe when they first fell in love with football.

Ian Rankin, best-selling crime writer, www.ianrankin.net

There were divided loyalties in my childhood home - one sister supported Dunfermline Athletic while the other was married to a Raith Rovers fan. My dad, meantime, went to Cowdenbeath games now and then. I mostly followed Raith - it was a single bus-ride to Kirkcaldy. Cowdenbeath and Dunfermline meant changing buses in Lochgelly. If the game at Stark’s Park was dragging, you could always watch the trains on the neighbouring railway line. Being too young for alcohol, I used to gorge on Old Jamaica rum-flavoured chocolate instead. It was disgusting. I remember attending a cup game against St Johnstone in Perth. When Raith scored, we discovered we were the only Raith fans in an otherwise silent stadium. We didn’t exactly linger at the final whistle.

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James Longman, Supervising Producer, The Late Late Show with James Corden

I always remember liking football, and being aware of it but there was a moment the first time that I went to West Ham with my Dad when I officially lost my heart to it. Walking up the steps at The Boleyn ground as a kid, and seeing the green of the pitch and thinking how big it looked. I was simultaneously intimidated, wowed, amazed, scared and in awe of this arena. The noise, the smells, the people, the atmosphere, the beautiful green pitch; that was the moment I fell hook, line and sinker for it. I don’t think I have ever loved football as much as I did at the moment, and over the years when I feel jaded by it all, somehow it can drag me back in. The love may not be as pure but it is still there, still strong and still tugging at my heart.

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Howard Nurse, BBC Digital Football Editor, www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football

I fell in love with football when I first went to watch my local team Scarborough Football Club play a Leeds United XI in a pre-season game in 1975. It was my first visit to the Athletic Ground (which later became McCain Stadium before being bulldozed when the club went bankrupt).

I was excited because first teamers goalkeeper David Harvey and defender Gordon McQueen were selected to play for Leeds. I think the match ended 0-0 which wasn’t great, but given how good Leeds were back then, it was a moral victory for the then Northern Premier League Scarborough.

Scarborough going bust in June 2007 was a big blow and I’ve not quite felt the same about football since then even though there is now Scarborough Athletic who play in the Evo Stick Northern Premier League – Division North.

A new community-build stadium is being constructed so football will return to Scarborough for the first time in 10 years next year. Since reforming, the team has been playing at Bridlington Town. Their return home will be a huge boost and I think a lot of people will go to their matches.

I almost forgot to mention that Scarborough FC played at Wembley four times in the FA Trophy final (1973 beat Wigan, 1975 lost to Matlock), 1976 (beat Stafford Rangers) and 1977 (beat Dagenham) which was pretty amazing and I managed to get to the last two.

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Misha Sher, Head of Sport & Entertainment, EMEA, MediaCom, www.mediacom.com

Growing up in Kiev, which was then part of Soviet Union, you couldn’t escape the pull of Dynamo Kiev. Coming from a family of footballers, it was always in my blood and I was playing from a very early age. It helped that in Dynamo Kiev and Valery Lobanovski, we had one of the best teams in Europe and a coach many considered one of the best in the game.

The moment that I got truly swept up by the game was March 1986, when I watched a rampant Dynamo team destroy Rapid Vienna in Olympiysky Stadium in front of 100,000 fans to reach the semi-final of Cup Winner’s Cup against Dukla Prague. So good was that team, with Oleg Blokhin in his prime and Igor Belanov coming through the ranks, they went on to beat Dukla in the semi-finals and then Atletico Madrid 3:0 in the final, with 9 out of 11 starters going on to feature for the USSR National Team at 1986 World Cup in Mexico. They carried on the momentum to Mexico and I was in awe of the team, most of whom played for Kiev. All these years later, having permanently left the country in 1991, I still support Dynamo and remembers those days 30 years ago as if they were last week.

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Kadeem Simmonds, Sports Editor of the Morning Star, www.morningstaronline.co.uk

11th May 1996. I will never forget the day. It was the day I fell in love with football.

My mum had dragged me out shopping. I loosely followed Manchester United up until then, watching my dad watch them play. I wasn’t fully aware of what I was actually watching but I did know that it had the power to make my dad both happy and sad, angry and delighted.

Anyway, we had got back to the house and my mum turned the TV on to the closing stages of the FA Cup final between Liverpool and Manchester United.

I wasn’t aware of the rivalry at the time, just knew I was supposed to cheer for United to win. When Eric Cantona scored that volley with five minutes to go I jumped up and celebrated. It is the first time I remember doing so.

At that point I knew I was hooked. It was that uncontrollable feeling of joy that I had never experienced until that exact moment. That was when I knew my life would never be the same.

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Simon Caney, ex Editor of Sport and MATCH magazines

I think, like all kids, you fall in love with football by playing it. The first match I can properly remember is the 1977 FA Cup Final when I was six, and I distinctly recall desperately wanting Man Utd to beat Liverpool (they did, 2-1). That is when I think I became a football supporter and from then on I was obsessed with United for several years. I cried my eyes out when Alan Sunderland scored the last-gasp winner to beat us in the 1979 Cup Final.

Steve Coppell was my first hero then, but I think my favourite United period was the mid-80s when we didn’t win much but had Bryan Robson, Paul McGrath and Norman Whiteside playing for us. Robson was unbelievably good; United fans still talk of the night he almost single-handedly beat Barcelona (including Maradona) 3-0 at Old Trafford - overturning a 2-0 defeat from the first leg. That night he was untouchable - even Maradona had no answer.

Do I feel the same now? Nah, not really. Being a United fan over the last 40 years has been a complex arrangement. Those years in the 80s - no league titles but some good Cup runs, and a feeling of being the underdog to Liverpool - gave way to unrivalled success in the ‘90s and 2000s. Don’t get me wrong, I still cheer every United goal and win, but the expectation of success is a terrible thing, and I actually think these last few barren seasons are the best thing that could have happened. I still love football but it’s not with the same innocence that once I had.

And instead, I find myself kicking a ball in the garden with my little boy, who is coincidentally aged six. That’s when you realise football really is the best sport in the world because all you need is a ball; he loves it just as I once did. He is mad about Everton, as it happens, which is probably no bad thing…

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Mark Metcalf, football author and historian, www.spiksley.com

I can’t answer that question in specific terms. Football was ‘just there’ as I grew up. My grandfathers and father had played the game at a good standard and my dad had mates such as ‘keeper Terry Kirkbride who played under the likes of Lawrie McMenemy at Bishop Auckland, which was apparently where I saw my first game at around five years of age. In 1966 I saw England win the World Cup and like other lads of my age I got a replica red top that was my pride and joy for a while. Sunderland was my local team and I became a big fan and I still am. I also ended up playing a lot of football and did quite well.

I managed to do ‘the 92’ when I was in my mid 20s and I still enjoy watching football as many times a season as I can. Often the football is less important than the craic before and after the game with mates, old and new. What I really like about English football is its depth and the day they allow reserve teams from the big clubs to be part of the Football League will be the day I will stop going to watch professional Football.

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Omar Saleem, Editor, These Football Times, www.thesefootballtimes.co

This is weird, but Dave Beasant. I was a kid at Selhurst Park, watching Wimbledon against Sheffield Wednesday. I was right behind Beasant’s goal, and he was clowning around all game. Then the ball was played back to him but Efan Ekoku was behind him and coming back onto the pitch. Unaware of Ekoku’s presence, he started to do kick-ups with the back pass, only for Ekoku to nip in, steal the ball and score into an empty net. I realised that day that football is great because of the characters, even the lunacy of Beasant in that moment. They’re not robots like in other sports (even though we’re heading that way). The moment made me laugh - not to mention Beasant’s face - and I proceeded to keep shouting to him that I can do more kick-ups than he can.

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Charlie Rose, Content Producer, www.prodirectsoccer.com

I remember the moment I feel in love with football because it was my first game. I still remember it like it was yesterday, despite being in 2007 – Plymouth Argyle vs Norwich City. I went to the game as an extremely part-time Norwich fan, left as a die-hard Argyle fan. I knew as soon as the full-time whistle blew, I wanted to see it all over again. I was part of something. I belonged to a community. I was part of a group of people, who every fortnight, would take the primetime of their week to meet up, pay 20 odd quid for the privilege, watch some geezers knock a ball around a field, call the referee all the names under the sun, call the traveling supporters a series of expletives for supporting their team and then questioning them on is that all they brought down, finished off with the smell of 11,000 gassy men combined with pasties and lager. Sounds horrific, but until you experience it, you don’t know what you’re missing, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

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Ash Davidson and Jonny Shepherd, Co-Founders of Bread And Butter Football, www.breadandbutterfootball.com

Ash: Visually my first memory of football was seeing Robbie Fowler score that famous three-minute hattrick against Arsenal. My dad is a massive Liverpool fan so I followed that path. I remember going to my first game when I was seven, seeing Michael Owen at the age of seventeen run like lightening, who at the time was my hero (that has changed).

Ever since then football has been my mistress, it’s a distraction from life.

Jonny: I fell in love with football when I saw Patrick Vieira for the first time when I was nine. The way his long legs ate up the yards on the turf with all the grace and sophistication of a wild gazelle in the Serengeti. That is when I fell in love with *football.

*Patrick Vieira.

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Dean Jones, Football Insider for Bleacher Report, www.bleacherreport.com/uk

I was seven years old and dad took me to Old Trafford to watch United v Arsenal. Tony Adams scored at the correct end… but then equalised for United late on! Everyone left chanting, ‘Adams is a donkey’. I’ve been hooked on the game ever since.

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Alex Kostin, Founder of Daily Accas, www.dailyaccas.com

I first fell in love with football during the 92/93 season as I watched my countryman Andrei Kanchelskis fire United to the title before going on to become the greatest Russian to play in the Premier League.

Naturally growing up abroad I was fixated on English football and like many foreign fans I didn’t need much of an excuse to fall head over heels with that resurgent United side, so seeing Kanchelskis maraud down the right wing in that classic kit as a then-unknown Russian import was enough to knock me off my feet.

I continued to have a soft spot for him after he left Old Trafford and the fact that he thrived long after being Fergie’s best ever signing proves I was right in making him my first footballing love.

I feel sorry for the younger generation who might have fallen for a shorter winger of the same name after his four goal haul at Anfield in ‘09.