I feel a bit of a fraud writing this. Despite it being my national sport, I have never, ever been to a professional football match.

There are however, football fans in my family. My husband and father are both long-suffering supporters of under-performing English clubs, and both of my sons have seen me standing shivering in the Sunday morning drizzle, cheering their nifty passes and muddy tackles. I wonder why then, I haven’t been attracted to the professional game?

I have to confess, I realise I have no problem with the sport itself – but I have been influenced by how the sport is presented in the media. The perception of football in Britain is of a sport rife with corruption, loose WAGs, fast cars, flash cash and scandals – and despite myself I have let this determine my interest (or lack of it) in the sport. Desperately seeking justification for my inherent dislike of football, I turned to my husband last night and said – “but what about football hooliganism? Surely here is the dark underbelly of this over-rated sport?” I wondered out loud why anyone would want to be associated with a sport that in Britain had followers who turned to violence and had a history of racism.

Both my father and husband turned on me. Hooligans are not football fans. They are hooligans and nothing more. They are individuals seeking an ideology to attach their violence to. Decent honest football fans reject hooligans – they give genuine fans a bad name.

I think you can guess where I am going with this. Last week some of my readers queried my flippant references to the recovery of war-torn Germany in an attempt to persuade people not to write Pakistan off as a failed state. This week I expect I may rattle a few more cages, as I draw parallels between ideologies of faith and football.

But it’s football I choose to write about. I decided to speak to an expert. Shahid Ameez has a moving relationship with football, that I only discovered today. When he arrived in Britain in 1969 from Pakistan, he spoke no English at all. At school in the home-counties of England, Shahid and his sister were the only Asians in town. Although they were given special English classes – Shahid soon found the very best way of communicating with his new classmates was in the school playground – by kicking a ball around. His passion for the sport never waned. An injury eventually lead him to stop playing, but football is clearly in the heart of this award winning businessman and now Director of Aldershot Town Football Club.

Shahid regrets that more British Asians aren’t involved both as players and managers of football, and in his role as special advisor to the UK based charity, Sporting Equals he hopes to address this. There is some cause for celebration this week as a British Pakistani, Nas Bashir, became the first British Asian ever to earn a UEFA A Pro Licence, as the new manager of Hayes and Yeading.

But Shahid agreed that the media perception of the game was less likely to inspire traditional Asian parents to encourage their sons (and daughters) into the sport, no matter how much talent they displayed - perhaps for the same reasons it didn’t attract me.

Shahid has first-hand knowledge of how sport can be a fantastic leveller. Another organisation, closer to home has also witnessed the power of football to bring about positive change. Cambridge based arts organization Momentum Arts recently worked on the Deloitte Street Child World Cup, connecting arts and sport in a unique way. David Beckham said of the project: “I know from personal experience just what power football can have to inspire and change young people’s lives whatever their background or nationality”.

Although I profess as degree of ignorance about the English game, I do know who David Beckham is, and I am no stranger to understanding how this sport has the power to demonstrate resilience.

Two summers ago I was in Baghdad when a series of truck bombs blew up check points in the green zone. The night it happened, when a thousand others were sending dispatches back home about the dreadful security situation, I chose to write a piece in part inspired by Iraq’s passion for football. Sport’s ability to overcome adversity is clear. I had a message yesterday which pointed out that despite the threat of terrorism that has kept many sports away, Pakistan still hosts at least some international football matches.  I can already feel myself becoming a bit of a fan.

So perhaps I will take my own advice, ignore the trashy soap opera politics of a sport presented to me in the media and find myself a professional football match to attend. If I can swing a visit to Karachi football club I would be delighted (and I believe they have been to the UK recently), although I fear an autumnal visit in the drizzle to watch either Bristol Rovers and Sheffield Wednesday is on the cards.