This season is my first without a season ticket since 2000/01. That season, I was eight years old, Stoke were in their third campaign on the spin in the third tier of English football and regularly played in front of crowds of 12,000. Port Vale beat us on our own turf. Icelandic manager Gudjon Thordarsson and his fellow countrymen in the directors’ box were under increasing scrutiny. We lost on telly to Nuneaton Borough in the FA Cup. We lost a play-off semi-final 4-2 at Walsall.

In 2024, maybe those days of going to Walsall and Port Vale are back upon us. Maybe the crowds will dwindle to the pre-Pulis days. Maybe when Stoke go down, we all go down and lurk in ‘League One’ for four years or more. It’ll sting a bit. Memories of cup finals, Europe and the best players we’ll ever see play for Stoke are still sunlight-clear in my head. Jonny Walters hitting the Wembley net exists more forcefully in my mind than any game I went too last season. Nostalgia isn’t just an addictive drug, it’s a strong one. It’s an hallucinogen. We chase the high (depending on age) of Arnie cutting the champions open, of Steino scoring every week, of John Ritchie, of Sir Stan. The drug also numbs us to certain truths. The main one being that for all the sunlit uplands there was still the sniping, griping, grumbling and dissatisfaction that is part and parcel of being a football fan of any team. Every great Stoke player I can remember seeing in person got their fair share of stick at some point. There was always the belief we could do better. There were always people whose loyalty, application and talent were being questioned.

So, back to 2000. A miserable season. While we may look fondly at fifth place, cup runs and the play-offs – it was still a failure for Gudjon and his team. Not that it mattered to me too much. At that age I loved Stoke and loved the players and it wouldn’t have entered my mind to berate them too harshly – even if they did lose eight actual nil to Liverpool and broke my heart. We drove from Blackpool every home matchday and it didn’t matter that we were in ‘Division Two’ or that nobody in my class had even heard of my team. Going to Stoke was just the best thing. In the years since, I’ve exploded with joy on away terraces, vented frustration to anyone who’d listen, laughed, cried and experienced the authentic, sober reality of football fandom.

Now though, living far away and not getting to the games (my last home game was Rotherham on the opening day) – football is a dissociative experience. The games (if I watch them at all) go by on a laptop screen, while I do work or look at my phone or think about other things. Players exist not as people but as pixels. My experience of my club is reduced to the statistics. I listen to Praise and Grumble, I read tweets and talk about my team with dad but it still doesn’t feel like it’s happening to me. It’s like I’m watching a documentary about someone trying to kick their football habit. Do I care because I actually care or because I’m supposed to? It’s been a thirty year relationship that’s gradually gone stale. I don’t think it’s tied to results either. I can find joy on the gallows and imperfections in palaces. It’s just so fucking boring. It’s been boring for a really long time. There’s also the broader question of if, now I’m out of my 20s, I’m dissociating from football as well as Stoke. Time will tell.

This does not mean though, that my feelings invalidate those of others. I want the kids who watch us today to feel the same way about Bae Jun-ho that I felt about Peter Thorne. I believe too that for hundreds of you, that trip to the game sparks joy and fulfills a deep need of the soul – win, lose or draw. The prospect of a return to the third tier may get those Macari-nostalgia bong hits coarsing through you. Good. It’s just not me, not now.

This isn’t a column about why we’re rubbish now or who’s to blame or to tell you to look on the bright side or the dark side. Even when I complain now, I feel like I’m going through the motions. What I suppose I’m trying to do is explain that these last few years have emotionally separated me from my club, in a way I naively never thought possible.

“Dissociation refers to a psychological process involving a temporary disruption in the normal integration of thoughts, feelings, memories, or identity. Disassociation, however, refers to a broader concept that involves a deliberate detachment or distancing from a particular thought, emotion, or behavior.” Am I dissociating or disassociating? I’ll leave that to my therapist.

I’ll always be a Stoke supporter, I would love to be a fan again. Pass me the bong.