The word geek used to mean something. Then it didn't. A few years ago, newspapers commissioned think pieces declaring geeks cool, comic-book fans morphed into box-office muscle, and trainspotters became models. But on a Friday afternoon in Vauxhall, under the arches of a London train station, I find myself in the company of proud geeks of the old school. True geeks. And they couldn’t be happier.
It’s the opening day of the Premier League season, and inside Vauxhall’s Beer and Food Garden, several hundred fanatics have gathered for Fantasy Football Fest. Between arcade punching machines and the artificial turf of the garden, phones glow in clusters as strangers lean over one another, debating whether to gamble on a £4.5m defender spotted by an X account named after a Breaking Bad character.
In the real world, the Premier League season is still hours from kick-off, but here, the campaign is already in full swing — triumphs plotted, disasters feared, and friendships briefly suspended over whether Erling Haaland is worth the captain’s armband.
“Benchboosting in Gameweek One?” a man in a Watford shirt asks me at the bar. I hesitate — “not really sure to be honest” — and watch the spark die in his eyes. It’s not the in-depth answer he was after.
The group in Vauxhall is a mostly expected mix: twenty-something data analysts and dads in replica shirts mingle and enjoy the anticipation. This is the positive side of geek culture, a collective obsession turned into a community. “It’s like Comic Con for football fans,” one attendee in a ’03/’04 Norwich shirt tells me. “Nobody cares who you support — it's all about the game.”
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