It was Valentine’s Day last Thursday, and love was certainly in the air.

The previous night, Everton surpassed everyone’s expectations once again with a record sixth straight win, albeit in the UEFA Cup but we are doing well. Hopefully this week’s home leg will see us progress towards a much harder test against Fiorentina or Rosenberg, whilst continuing to challenge for a Champions League qualifying place… you can but dream.

I actually missed Wednesday’s match, and went for a romantic meal instead. It felt strange, detached almost, but it was nice to not get stressed and drunk in front of a screen… I did it in front of my girlfriend instead. Only joking, we had a lovely time and it got even better when my dad contacted me with the final score. And, her dad had sky plussed it so I managed to watch it the following evening. But I liked the fact that such a small gesture meant a lot and it’s something that I’m sure will happen more and more in the future. Priorities should change over time. What’s scary is how missing a match for someone you love somehow feels like a betrayal or two-timing, and that such an act might somehow have had an effect on a match taking place thousands of miles away.

Many relationships are said to flounder as a result of football. Nick Hornby expressed this much better than I ever could, in Fever Pitch, and the adaptation to baseball for the movie ‘The Perfect Catch’ encapsulates even better the conflicts that can come when two worlds collide. There’s even a scene when the main character avoids a big match to accompany his girl to a party, which my own pre-Valentine’s evening echoed. He admits he had the time of his life, though then holds it against her when he finds out he missed a pivotal comeback.

Love, however, is the key. Many fans insist their attraction to and support of a club is down to love, and being a fan does evoke many similar emotions. Disappointment, sheer happiness, excitement, expense, betrayal… The Great Dome Howard Kendall once explained his return to Everton as a marriage, whilst Manchester City was a love affair, and in real terms, not a week seems to go by without a player involved in some love cheat story or on field celebration scandal. My recent favourites do not involve Ashley Cole, instead, the aptly named Brazilian Vagner Love’s leaked film, and a wholly unromantic incident involving a glove wearing right back and a friend of a friend.

We regularly have players kissing the badge, supporters’ chants declaring their love for their club, demands for heart and soul, anger at ‘betrayal’ and some fans’ support even bordering on an obsession. The passion and intensity of certain occasions or even an exciting glorious climax, often inspire the interview question ‘what’s better, scoring a goal or having sex?’ to which I suppose you’d have to have done both in front of forty thousand people to know.

Another good example is probably all the fans who invade pitches to hug their heroes and try to grab their shirts. Phil Neville tried his best to stop this happening in Bergen, but is it understandable given the fans’ devotion and pleasure? This reminded me of a recent Morrissey concert, said girlfriend was shocked at the lengths fans were going to, to grab their hero’s hand or even better, hug him on stage. Over-eager/aggressive security guards meant that this homo-erotic occasion was soured somewhat by seeing grown men thrown off stage like rag dolls, or fighting each other over a sweaty shirt thrown into a crowd.

But if we are talking of beauty, hope, feel good stories of fairytale proportions, every round it seems the FA Cup will provide. Think of the competition as a E-On sponsored Cilla Black (why she features in more than one of my articles is indeed a surprise), matching up prospective couples in the hope she will have to buy a hat.

It would be ignorant and churlish of me not to mention Oldham, but we are used to such aberrations at Goodison particularly under Moyes. I for one still love him, in a different way of course. This year though, the exploits of Bristol Rovers, Huddersfield, Havant & Waterlooville and of course you guessed it Barnsley have all conjured up notions of roses and hearts, dreams and tears, and above all else the romance of the cup.

Fans’ demonstrations and banners hint at a more religious devotion, which will not be discussed here. Rather than focus on the Reds’ bad luck (?) against Toby Tyke et al, I will instead return to another recent disappointment the Blues suffered. The defeats against Chelsea were inevitable once the normally impeccable Joleon Lescott let SWP out-jump him, but even during the home leg we dared to dream that this could just be the evening that football returned to its roots and the original blue millionaires won through. Many in the ground that night had seen us at Wembley but a whole generation of fans across the country have never seen anyone other than the old Big Four win the FA Cup and even the Milk/Littlewoods/Rumbelows/Coca-Cola/Carling Cup during their own individual love affairs with football clubs.

I felt terrible that night because I’d forgotten to wear the pin badge my ‘true’ love gave to me for Christmas. Somehow I attributed the absent-mindedness to losing a semi-final, when in reality we all realised that they were just the better team. Successful, positive relationships are all about responding to situations and learning from them, moving onwards and upwards, which perhaps also explains why so many people are keen to go back and try to rekindle a light that has already gone out.

Perhaps this is another analogy for love and football – many fans, and partners, often look on enviously at other teams or players and wish longingly that they had that success, style, or pride, or in some cases that former objects of affection were still theirs, or will be again one day, before grudgingly accepting what they actually have.

Believe me, it’s much better in fact to celebrate your own love, whatever problems one has to be mindful of, and put everything possible into it, because then the rewards are much greater. Whether that means in football or in life, make sure you choose the right one.