Do you support your local team? Does it matter?

[Hobo]

The only sport I watch is football. I'm a Liverpool support and have been pretty much all of my life but I've only been to 1 match at Anfield (a 0-0 draw against West Ham during the 08/09 season). I pay some attention to how the Vancouver Whitecaps are doing because they've become "my" MLS team. When it comes to Irish football I'm not even sure what my most local Airtricty League side is.

All the local football teams play in the Leinster Senior League and below (so the third tier down and there is no promotion or relegation between the 2nd and 3rd tiers in Irish football). The closest league team? Outside of any of the Dublin sides (closest probably being Bohemians) it's either Drogheda United or Dundalk (and I was actually born in Drogheda so I have at least been there). However, I have no real affinity towards any League of Ireland team in particular. I check the table during the League season, sometimes I even watch games on TV, but I don't really find myself rooting for anyone. My interest is very much a passing one.

Do you support your local football team? Or the team from the place you were born if you don't live there anymore? Do you care? Do you think it matters? Are you some sort of monster like @Lineker whose wardrobe is nothing but an array of different koala sized football jerseys?

And if you do support your local side, and this particularly goes for anyone whose local team is a big club - what do you think of supporters from other countries who support your hometown club? Do you view them differently? Does the touristy nature of going to a football match for someone from Ireland or America or elsewhere bother you and do you think it ruins the atmosphere in your home stadium?

 

[Gazz]

I'm overweight and impervious to low temperatures, I like to think of myself as spiritually Geordie.

[Your Mom]

Local teams are the only teams!

[Moses Julep]

My favourite team plays in a league that is not in my country where the quality of sport is so much superior to the league in my country. So no. Having said that, I still like the Habs, the Impact and I will always cherish the memories of the Expos.

[Pizza]

I used to, probably up to my mid 20s, my teams were the Leafs, Raptors, and Jays, and I didn't really have a favorite NFL team although I watched a lot of it. Lately I care a lot less about sports, probably due to cord cutting and quitting gambling. I despise the owners of the local teams, and the fans of the Jays and Leafs make it really hard to stay on board with them. Still a Raptors fan, but I rarely watch their games, and going to one seems unlikely in the near future.

I always enjoyed people from other places liking my teams. Leafs fans who are not from Toronto in particular are a lot more tolerable then fans from here. They're weird though, I'm stuck with the Leafs, these people chose to be miserable. No matter how disinterested I am in hockey and the Leafs, there's still a part of me that roots for them. 

[Rich]

39 minutes ago, Fly the W! said:

Local teams are the only teams!

Unless you have a strong family connection to a team, I don't know how anyone can support a team which isn't local to somewhere they have lived for a solid period of time.

[MDK]

Leyton Orient Nil.

Grew up about a mile away from the ground, got a season ticket for 20 quid when I was young and that is about that.

[GA!]

3 minutes ago, Rich said:

Unless you have a strong family connection to a team, I don't know how anyone can support a team which isn't local to somewhere they have lived for a solid period of time.

Exactly my answer. I consider it a birthright. I don't understand people who support a team 110 miles away simply because they're big and they win a lot. How boring.

[Nerf]

14 minutes ago, Rich said:

Unless you have a strong family connection to a team, I don't know how anyone can support a team which isn't local to somewhere they have lived for a solid period of time.

Pretty much this.

I don't think there's anything wrong with choosing a team to support that isn't in your locality, or even country, or whatever, but I do think there's an aspect of fandom you'll never be able to understand without growing up in that kind of environment. Personally, I can't imagine supporting, say, Arsenal. I like watching them play, I like them as a club, I like their manager and style and players, but I don't "get it" because it's all on the other side of the country.

So, you can choose to support whoever you want, but I think you'll never be able to fully understand what it means to be a fan of the club.

The tourism argument for stadium atmosphere is bollocks, though. Foreigners aren't killing the atmosphere at stadiums.

[Colly]

As someone who has to do a 40 minute drive up to Newcastle (I hear our American members laughing at the idea this is a long commute, though I do pass two other league clubs en route...) it's less the locality and more accessibility. I'm a Newcastle fan because my dad was, and his dad was, but I think if we lived any further south I'd probably be going to watch another team play. Football's global these days and obviously everyone can't get to games, but it really isn't the same watching on tv.

I missed the last bit, tourism hasn't hurt atmosphere at all at Newcastle. Most of the people round me are long-time season ticket holders but there's an odd few matchday seats taken up by 'ruddy foreigners' and I love how much some of the old boys near me welcome them in. It's a good crowd.

[Hobo]

As I think about it I've no real family connections to Liverpool either. My Dad "supports" Manchester United because my grandfather did. Although he isn't particularly invested in football. He prefers Gaelic games and Rugby. My brother was a Liverpool supporter during the 80s and 90s (and had quite the collection of early 90s Liverpool jerseys) but these days he's far more interested in rugby.

That's actually something that comes into it in Ireland, I think, as those are the sports with the biggest followings on a local level certainly where I live. You're more likely to see someone in their county football shirt (or even local GAA club shirt) or provincial rugby jersey than a League of Ireland jersey at least around here. When it comes to football you're more likely to see Liverpool, Man United, Arsenal, Celtic and maybe Spurs supporters I think.  

[Cymbols]

Aston Villa were my closest Premier League team back when I started watching football. I got into football through the sticker books, so had no knowledge of Cardiff/Swansea who were both irrelevant, and not that local to me back then. 

[Baddar]

My local team is Cardiff, but even when I used to go and watch them as a 5 year old, I'd be listening out for how United were getting on, when they announced the Premiership scores at half time. It was something like £8 for my dad and £4 for me back then, and although I was mad on United (mostly down to an older cousin I spent time with), I was realistically only going to get to see Cardiff play at that age because money wasn't exactly flowing in. But when I was 8 my uncle was able to take me to my first United match, up on the train when he worked for British Rail. It was all them from then on really.

Mates would constantly say how I'd soon support Cardiff if they made it to the PL but I knew that wouldn't be the case. United was always something that was instilled in me, even though I had a cousin and uncle (the one who took me) who were big Liverpool fans.

Being so far away, and because tickets aren't always easy to come by means I don't go to see them every single season, but I've been up twice so far this season, both this month, and plan to go at least a few more times if I can.

I just love United and would live right outside OT if I could. I wonder how much the houses opppsite are. 

On the football shirt thing - I used to buy loads of European shirts. Any I liked the look of really, but that was back when I was playing football 2 to 3 times a week instead of staying in and getting fat. Now, I buy all the current United shirts and stop at that.

[Maxx]

I'm such a fan that I relocated to where my favorite teams were so they could be my local teams.

[Gazz]

That's actually something I've always been interested in, what do you do if your local team moves halfway across the continent? Do you still follow them? Then what about if a different team moves into your home area? For example, the Hornets have gone from Charlotte to New Orleans to Oklahoma and back to New Orleans. Then the Supersonics moved to Oklahoma.

[FestiveJack]

Number of players in Premier League starting line-ups at the weekend who were born in the 20 mile area around their clubs: 10

Spoiler

Sam McQueen of Southampton, United's Jesse Lingard and Marcus Rashford, Theo Walcott from Arsenal, Ben Gibson of Middlesbrough, Everton's Ross Barkley, Palace's Andros Townsend, Jordan Pickford of Sunderland and Michael Antonio and Mark Noble, both from West Ham.

I don't get the obsession with where a fan comes from being so important. I'm a United fan because they were the first game I ever saw on TV and I liked how they played and who played for them. That's why it annoys me so much to see characters like Jose and Ibra at the club now, because whilst they have similarities with some United players at the time, the likes of Cantona (kicking out at a fan aside) and Kanchelskis didn't attack or assault teammates or opponents. It just feels increasingly like its not my club anymore.

And I disagree with the assertion that because I don't live in the locale I don't get the fandom. On Sunday my team lost 4-0 to Chelsea. Watching that loss hurt. I don't think it'd have hurt any more if I lived in Manchester or had been brought up as a United fan because my Dad was one (he wasn't, he's an Argyle fan and played briefly for them in the mid 50s). The YouTube channel Copa90 sometimes covers big Premier League games. The below is a video they did on the Arsenal - Chelsea game from earlier this season and there's footage of Arsenal and Chelsea fans from as varied places as Singapore and Kuala Lumpur to New York and Rio de Janeiro, from London to Lagos and Montevideo to Mumbai. I wouldn't say the fans in London are any bigger or smaller fans than those in India, in Brazil, in America or anywhere else. You buy the shirt, you watch the games, you support your team. I don't see how geography factors into it.

Spoiler

 

 

[Rich]

1 minute ago, Mad Jack said:

Number of players in Premier League starting line-ups at the weekend who were born in the 20 mile area around their clubs: 10

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Sam McQueen of Southampton, United's Jesse Lingard and Marcus Rashford, Theo Walcott from Arsenal, Ben Gibson of Middlesbrough, Everton's Ross Barkley, Palace's Andros Townsend, Jordan Pickford of Sunderland and Michael Antonio and Mark Noble, both from West Ham.

I don't get the obsession with where a fan comes from being so important. I'm a United fan because they were the first game I ever saw on TV and I liked how they played and who played for them. That's why it annoys me so much to see characters like Jose and Ibra at the club now, because whilst they have similarities with some United players at the time, the likes of Cantona (kicking out at a fan aside) and Kanchelskis didn't attack or assault teammates or opponents. It just feels increasingly like its not my club anymore.

And I disagree with the assertion that because I don't live in the locale I don't get the fandom. On Sunday my team lost 4-0 to Chelsea. Watching that loss hurt. I don't think it'd have hurt any more if I lived in Manchester or had been brought up as a United fan because my Dad was one (he wasn't, he's an Argyle fan and played briefly for them in the mid 50s). The YouTube channel Copa90 sometimes covers big Premier League games. The below is a video they did on the Arsenal - Chelsea game from earlier this season and there's footage of Arsenal and Chelsea fans from as varied places as Singapore and Kuala Lumpur to New York and Rio de Janeiro, from London to Lagos and Montevideo to Mumbai. I wouldn't say the fans in London are any bigger or smaller fans than those in India, in Brazil, in America or anywhere else. You buy the shirt, you watch the games, you support your team. I don't see how geography factors into it.

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You don't see it because you don't understand it.

I am not saying you don't feel sad or elated or what not, but when that team also represents the town you were born and grew up in, then it means that much more.  I will never say you aren't a fan or a supporter of Man U, but you do not have the connection to the club, it's links to the community and the history behind it.

Your statistic of people being born close to the ground is meaningless, as players come and go, but supporters and fans stay loyal to the club, not because of the players but because of the history, and I think people who do not support their local club honestly do not understand and can't feel it, sorry, just my opinion.

[Gazz]

Mad Jack has never stood in a crowd of drunken, shirtless men who did nothing but sing the same song about Padraig Amond for four straight hours.

[Rich]

2 minutes ago, Gazz said:

Mad Jack has never stood in a crowd of drunken, shirtless men who did nothing but sing the same song about Padraig Amond for four straight hours.

And cried.

[Gazz]

Exactly. And that's what football fandom is about, especially when it's your local club. On that day, it didn't matter that Grimsby has been in decline for decades, that everyone think's it smells of fish and that the M180 is like some weird resonance strip from the Twilight Zone. All that mattered was that the team was back in the football league, to battle it out with twenty three other teams with fuck all money and no facilities. It's also tribalism, even moreso when your talking about clubs from areas that have a strong social identity, like Scousers, Mancunians, Geordies, Brummies etc.

I'm a Newcastle fan and their ups and downs effect me far more than any stupid, fairly meaningless game should but my fandom will never be on the level of someone who was born and grew up in Newcastle, surrounded by the Geordie culture and who sees the club as a part of what their local cultural identity is. Where I'm from, we don't have that, I live in Staffordshire but I'm absolutely miles away and have nothing in common with Stoke, I'm too far away from Birmingham to be a Brummie, too far from Wolverhampton to be a Yam Yam and Walsall is too small to be anything other than Jeremy Kyle guests and Robert Plant, so I'm sort of stuck in the wilderness, coaching ten kids of a weekend, seven of which support Barcelona.