Do you support your local team? Does it matter?

[Colly]

They're my first team. :/

[blueblood]

My favorite football team is the San Diego Chargers. I was born in San Diego but have been living in IL since I was four so if you were to ask me I'd say I'm from IL. The reason I'm a charger fan is because family connection I guess. I was taught to like the Chargers since before I could remember.

[DMN in the House]

13 hours ago, blueblood said:

My favorite football team is the San Diego Chargers. I was born in San Diego but have been living in IL since I was four so if you were to ask me I'd say I'm from IL. The reason I'm a charger fan is because family connection I guess. I was taught to like the Chargers since before I could remember.

Unfortunate.

[CobraKaiEnTai]

I don't really watch much pro sports honestly. Most of the teams I like are because of the mascots. I like the Cardinals because I imagine actual cardinals playing baseball or football and that seems amusing.

As for local teams, I support the minor league baseball team, though I don't like that they got renamed as the South Bend Cubs when they had their own name for 20 years. (the Silver Hawks, something that actually fit with South Bend being home to Studebaker). They were the South Bend White Sox before that too, come up with your own mascots instead of being offshoots of pro teams.

And I hate Notre Dame with a passion because that's all I ever hear about is how great and wonderful they are. I know plenty of Notre Dame fans who are blue-collar, down to earth people, but a lot of people who go to/work at Notre Dame just seem like pompous, holier than thou, overly religious assholes who are too good to associate with people who don't fit their standards and who are embarrassed to be associated with South Bend. My dad being a Purdue alum may have something to do with it too.

[Just Joe]

Sunderland, born and raised. They don't half make it hard for me to love them most of the time but I wouldn't have it any other way.

[Lint]

How local is "local"?  I was born and raised an hour north of Philadelphia, and to this day cheer for all the professional Philadelphia teams, aside from the 76ers, because I just don't like basketball.  Other then that, the town I grew up in has a MiLB team that plays at the Triple-A level for the Phillies.  I support them, been to a few games when I lived in the area

[Colly]

14 minutes ago, Just Joe said:

Sunderland, born and raised.

On the playground was where you spent most of your days. That's a remake I want to see.

[DavidMarrio]

9 minutes ago, Colly said:

On the playground was where you spent most of your days. That's a remake I want to see.

He got into one little fight and his mum got scared she said "you're moving with your auntie and uncle in Durham" ?

[The Buscher]

Living in Connecticut, there are no true "local" teams from the four major team sports.  Generally people here either root for the New York teams or the Boston teams - or some mix of the two, often passed on from generations.  Hartford is the unofficial midway point where you'll see a change from predominantly New York fans to predominantly Boston, but there's normally a mix throughout.

Even with the New York area teams there are noticeable splits as each sport has two teams (three in hockey if you count the Devils).  The old guard New York teams are the Giants/Yankees/Knicks/Rangers and the "newer" ones are Jets/Mets/Nets/Islanders.  Most people seem to root for one group or the other but I ended up as a mix:  Giants/Mets/Knicks/Islanders.  I adopted all of the teams I support from my dad - and since he grew up in New York he went with the Islanders.  Had he lived in Connecticut as a kid I'm thinking he'd have gone with the Hartford Whalers as his NHL team and we'd have carried on supporting them when they became the Carolina Hurricanes.

The good thing is I do have the ability to go to games for any of the teams I support, but it gets expensive and except for Mets games it's kind of a chore to get there.  The Islanders games weren't bad to get to either, getting to Brooklyn on the other hand is a slog from where I live now.

[blueblood]

21 hours ago, DMN said:

Unfortunate.

I feel the same away about Raider fans.

[MDK]

I just remembered something. Orient were, a long time ago, my very local club. I mean in the early days it was on Glyn Road which was a five minute walk from my house, then they moved to Millfields which was literally just down the road right next to Hackney Marshes (the Mecca of grass roots football) and is pretty much my spiritual home. Then they chipped off a bit further down just off Lea Bridge Road. Then they fucked off to a different borough altogether. Still only a half hour walk tho. Point is that everything I love leaves me  

[Meacon Keaton]

I grew up in a very, very rural town that was almost three hours away from any major city. Philly, Baltimore, and D.C. were all the closest, and my hometown has a strong fan base for all three cities. But I hated the idea of just going with those teams, because even though they were the closest, they weren't really close at all. 

Baseball and basketball wise, I followed my roots. My great-grandfather was an Irish-Catholic from New York who loved his Yankees and Knickerbockers. I followed along with that.

But for football I wanted to be at least a little bit different than my great-grandfather, grandfather, and father. I didn't know who to root for until my much older, cooler cousin told me to root for his favorite team: The Denver Broncos. So I did. 

It's been over twenty-five years and those are still my three favorite teams for the three "major" sports in America. I don't have a "second" team, because as far as I'm concerned, I want my teams to win the championship every year. I never understood that, unless you have leagues set up like foreign football, where there are tiers. I can't get on board with rooting for two teams in the same league though. That just feels cheap.

[MDK]

20 minutes ago, Meacon said:

I can't get on board with rooting for two teams in the same league though. That just feels cheap.

Feel Linekers pain

[Colly]

A fraction of it maybe.

[MDK]

Newcastle were my other team until they beat us in the league cup in 05 or something. Since then they can go do one.

[Colly]

I've no memory of that whatsoever, when was it? Only Orient game I can think of is the preseason game before our last Championship run where you put 6 past us. It's supposedly the game where Nolan et al told the players if they couldn't be arsed they should fuck off.

[MDK]

32 minutes ago, Colly said:

I've no memory of that whatsoever, when was it? Only Orient game I can think of is the preseason game before our last Championship run where you put 6 past us. It's supposedly the game where Nolan et al told the players if they couldn't be arsed they should fuck off.

I'm getting my dates mixed up. It was in 1909. Or 2000.

[VerbalPuke]

All Detroit all the way for me, to include Michigan college teams. My dad was originally from New Jersey but adopted the Detroit teams, and I followed. Much as the Lions have been awful, I can't fathom changing sides. 

I agree with DMN that the local team will sometimes take on the culture of the city. The Pistons championship teams were won by gritty teams, hard nosed types that our city could identify with. No flash, just grit, like us.

[MDK]

Old Argentine saying: Two things you can't change, your mum and your team.