Previous
Chapter 35
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Fever Pitch, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Obsession vs. Fandom
Sports, Identity, and Community
Escapism
Sports and Masculinity
Summary
Analysis
Nick attends the season’s opening game and finds that there is an unusually large crowd. A crowd of people pile up at the stadium’s entrance, and Nick is so crushed by the people packed in around him that he struggles to breathe. He notices people around him struggling for breath, too, but he isn’t worried because he trusts the officers around the stadium to direct foot traffic properly. Even though people died at a game in Scotland when they were crushed by a mob of fans, Nick is confident that this could never happen at an English football game.
This is the first game where Nick starts to get a sense of how football culture is changing. When Nick was growing up, the officers at stadiums could always effectively manage foot traffic, but now, mobs of fans are sometimes out of control. Nick may be growing up in some respects, but his (perhaps misplaced) confidence here suggests he still has a ways to go.
Themes
Now, in the present, Nick thinks back and realizes that he was naïve to trust the officers at the stadium that day. At the time, he thought that they were strictly controlling foot traffic in a way that Nick and the other attendees couldn’t even comprehend, but Nick now realizes that the officers didn’t have a real plan. He considers that he may have been close to death on many occasions that he’s been stuck in mobs of fans.
Nick’s realization about the officers is reminiscent of a young adult realizing for the first time that their parents are not all-knowing and powerful—a classic coming of age experience. When Nick was young, the football community was like a parent to him in that he found guidance and protection in it. Now, he can see that football culture is deeply flawed.
Themes
