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Mmm... my experience is that we indoctrinate young people into hating the otherside without any logical reason and by making that sort of behaviour normal or even desirable they are quite likely to embrace tribalism in other dividing lines they identify: religion, race, nationality, politics. It may well be that some clubs are just about friendly banter, but there are plenty where it is not a substitute for those things but actually a catalyst for them.
I think it depends on how curious and thoughtful someone is. I'm not sure football is some sort of gateway drug to mindless tribalism, more that the sort of people attracted to mindless tribalism would embrace it - and do embrace it - in other forms too. I'm sure sociologists have looked into the whole chicken and egg, predisposition to tribalism v conditioning to tribalism. For me it was actually a useful tool for understanding, in that it's so blatantly obvious that 11 insanely rich young men kicking a ball about is iso obviously intrinsically pointless that any importance you attach to it, is about something else entirely.Â
Also, a lot of life is dull and pointless for many people who don't ride bikes, football gives them a welcome distraction. We should maybe be grateful to it for that.
And then of course there are cockney Man U fans...
Who hate northerners.
If you need any enlightening about why football is the most dramatic, exciting and addictive sport to watch and follow go watch a replay of the last 30 mins of the Man U - Lyon UEFA cup quarter final.
Sorry, but if, after seventy years I haven’t developed the slightest bit of interest in football, do you think thirty minutes of something I have no interest in is going to make me want to now?
I’ve just spent nearly as long as that searching for the rat’s ass I couldn’t give, and couldn’t find that, either.
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And yet here we are...
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I'm a Villa season ticket holder. When I was born we lived in a house where you could hear the cheers when they scored. Getting home from the game, mom and nana already knew what our score was.
This last couple of seasons have been great (until the results on Saturday effectively ended our season) but I keep doubting why it's my club. Foreign billionaire owners, players and managers acquired from anywhere with no prior connection.
We have one player, Jacob Ramsay, for whom we chant "he's one of our own" because he came through our academy.
But it's my club, my pain, my years of suffering. My years of saying, "I'm not a football supporter, I'm a Villa fan".
And now my best friend's daughter is engaged to a Birmingham City player. It can't get any worse.
Ah yes… the rugby club is right over there. I believe there’s an initiation ritual that involves bumming a dog
That'll be "kick and clap" then. There is a better version of rugby.Â
If you are a match going fan I don't think you can change. Armchair fans are maybe more flexible. I was a season ticket holder on The Kippax in the late 80s and early 90s but now rarely get to a game - maybe 2 or 3 a season despite the quality of football being on a different level nowadays. I live three hours away from Manchester and no longer have family there so any trip is solely about football.
I have taken an interest in my local League 2 club and get to half a dozen matches a season but, when they played City in the FA Cup a few years ago, I absolutely wanted them to lose.
Overall my meomories of going to City games in my younger days are too precious to ever change allegiance - even if we are found guilty and relegated to the Vauxhall Conference (if that is still a thing).
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Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic.
Everyone needs to see a game there. Â Hope they survive. Â The combination of football and hill running is quite amusing. Â I go a few times a season (they are just down the road).
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As long as Brighton remember that they survived 1997 on a technicality - staying in the league on an experimental rule change. Any other season they would have gone. Â The pain has never healed. Â I did enjoy seeing the rerun the next season in the cup though and that I can still afford to watch Hereford
West Ham living up to my expectations again.
Man U supporter here (and I don't live in Manchester...).
I think most don't.
If both teams would simply work together, they would score a hell of a lot more goals.
West Ham living up to my expectations again.
My mate Paul is a Hammer. A lovely bloke, now exiled up in the north, so well and truly on his own.
To mark the start of the season today he posted up a photo of his favourite mug.
You have to admire the stoic realism 😂
West Ham living up to my expectations again.
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Do you remember looking forward to MoTD? No, me neither.
Bought a season ticket for Kerry FC who now play in the League of Ireland First Division. In the microcosm of Irish sport they compete against giant in that Kerry (Gaelic) have just won their 39 Sam Maguire - a record in Gaelic sports. Dublin with 100 times our population have won 31. Noone else comes close. But soccerball is tiny in Kerry, so that's some achievement alone.Â
Soccerball challenging Gaelic footie is a real story here.
it's so blatantly obvious that 11 insanely rich young men kicking a ball about is iso obviously intrinsically pointless that any importance you attach to it, is about something else entirely.Â
Couldn’t have expressed it better myself. 👏🏻👍🏼
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We have one player, Jacob Ramsay, for whom we chant "he's one of our own" because he came through our academy
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I don't think you can. I like sport, I like football, but I was not assigned a team at birth because my Dad does not have a team. Subsequently I have tried to follow domestic football but I just don't care who wins anything. I enjoy a match, I'll support any British club in European football and I will of course support my international team(s) but without that club assignment I just don't care.
Therefore, if you were to try to abandon your club assigned at birth, wouldn't you be in the same position? How would you choose a side about which to care?