JohnMaddocksAxe said:
I don't buy this comparison. Primarily because it uses real, actual relationships as a metaphor. My whole point is that sport and football and being able to say "my team one" is not an important thing in life. Certainly not in any way comparable to real relationships with real people.
That is exactly why, for me, the only reason or justification for getting excited about/so involved with wanting a team to win and investing emotion in it is exactly because that team and it's success is somehow associated with your real relationships, your society and your environment. Otherwise, supporting a team just becomes a case of meaningless boasting to others who have similarly chosen a random team to support. It doesn't affect your society, your interactions with people who mean something to you, your home, etc, etc.
So, to compare feelings about Manchester City to relationships with people you care for really blows my mind. Everyone, and I mean everyone, if they are honest with themselves would give up ever hearing about Manchester City again if it meant saving the life of someone they care for. Such relationships are on a totally other level. But such emotive comparisons are common place stuff in justifications of why manufactured links/'love' for a far away sporting entity (or, if you want to boil it down even further, a limited company) has 'blossomed'.
I can totally understand developing feelings for a person you have never met before and that person becoming, eventually, your wife. But, come on, are we honestly comparing the process of developing a relationship with a spouse to your thought process as to why you wish to cite Manchester City/Manchester United/Liverpool/whoever's victories as something that reflects well on you?
One is a real thing, a relationship with a human being, someone you can touch, love, feel, develop all sorts of facets of understanding with. The other is a football club from miles away who you choose to say represents you purely on the basis that you randomly choose to say it represents you. If your relationship with your wife disappears, it dramatically alters your life. If Manchester City disappears it dramatically alters the landscape of Manchester but, whilst I am sure you wouldn't welcome it, they would be easily, eventually be replaced with another club that would eventually 'represent' you too.
My whole point is that choosing to get emotionally involved with a club and its results is, in reality, a nonsensical thing to do. It only really makes any kind of sense and can be slightly justified by it having a impact on a society, circles, relationships that you are involved with and connected with. Just like your meeting your wife has an impact on all those things. Choosing to say that a random football club represents you is so far away from real relationships with, as you suggest, your wife that I suspect your wife would be royally pissed off if she heard you equating the two. One (your relationship with your wife, is important. The other, choosing to say that City represent you, is most certainly not. And that is why I cannot get my head round these justifications at all.
Actually, oddly, I was having a conversation with my wife about this "conversation" we were having on here (a not-in-my society, circles, or face to face relationships conversation, mind) and she actually smiled and said something to the effect of "You really must like me, eh?"
I mean look, if your greater point is to knock ALL club supporting and sport fandom in general, then fine. It is silly, it's probably a cheap, two-bit replacement for ancient things that modern society lacks, it has no connection or importance when connected to REAL life (ie - I'd ditch it forever to save my wife's life), etc... but if you want to be bashing it thusly, then you have to defend your supposed right to be an "in" fan and my lack of a right to be.
I mean ok, we've established that your friends and fam are all "on the inside" and mine aren't.. You ostensibly live close to the grounds and I don't.. You see the club play live, I don't. Are you really that much closer though? Aren't all your freinds and fam caught up in the same supposed bullshit/manufactured silliness you described for me? I mean unless you call Vinny Kompany up on the phone and go out for dinner together, unless you shop for scarves and trenchcoats with Bobby Manc, unless you are roomies with AJ, unless you are helping Joleon launch his new clothing brand, unless you have a cot at Carrington.... unless you have some kind of super-connection I am not aware of, then with the possible exception of the fact that you see games live with a lot of other folk who do the same... how TRULY connected are you? You can't walk into the tunnel. You need to watch the tunnel cam vids online same as me. Want to see an interview with Gareth Barry? You need to flick on the television or go online same as me. And I'm sure you look up to see replays if shown on screen at the Etihad to get a slow mo second peak at what's happening?
Is the Shiek your uncle? Is Mike Summerbee your yoga instructor?
You are just as separated from things as I am.. not physically, but for all intents and purposes. By your logic, if the people in your society all of a sudden decided to hate City and not show up to games, then you would have no reason to either! Why should a person's surroundings be a prerequisite for joining the "together" movement? (You and I both know that City the organization more than WANTS those of us around the world to feel we are a part of it.) Fandom does not need to be developed on the Kippax steps.
Also, you keep mentioning this bragging/boasting business, and I keep trying to tell you: I don't boast or have any need to! All I am saying is that if you feel the love in your heart, it is real, and I reject the idea that because you can smell the chips and walk through the puddles of spilt beer, because you can have banter with the guys you work with about it, that you are on some "next level". As I said in earlier posts, I do respect the time, effort, and difference in length of years of your support.. But you really can't wrap your head around someone feeling EXACTLY like you? Why? Because they watched something on an HD screen and you watched it from the stands and talked to your mates about it? I would argue that much of what being a fan is is internal. It "affects" your society in that it happens there and many in the area will tend to care.. but what you feel for a club happens on the inside.
Believe me, I understand what it's like when something you love and have a local connection to like an underground band all of a sudden goes big.. It can leave you feeling hurt and abused. It can cause real anger. Especially for the new "commercial" fans.. but at the end of the day if the band gets financially secure and can keep making music for all people, it's usually better for everyone. The music goes on and we all enjoy it together. The shit fans will fall by the wayside when bumps come, the goodhearted ones will hang on.
I'm just so curious about your background now as this goes on.. I mean did your parents not give you any choice? football? music? television? do you only follow local everything? are you moved by nothing that comes out of an electronic box? Are you so tactile/kinesthetic that you abandon the abstract in all things?
When I went on a road trip to the west coast this past summer and looked up a pub where San Francisco Blues supporters gathered and showed up to watch the Swansea match, you know what? It got really social and caring and friendly and real really quick! We were instant friends! Real conversations, real cheering, real joy. When I taught a group of sophomores in high school (I'm a teacher) who don't know Man City from Manure how to do the Poznan and sing "We're Not Really Here" in class, when I made a fake Man-U fan wear my Kompany shirt in school on Tuesday after the Derby? We had real smiles and laughs and FUN. This is supposed to be fun in between all the nail-biting, right?
Things matter if you want them to matter. If you think football is silly, it's silly for you, even if you live on Maine Road. If you think it's great and it moves you on the inside, it doesn't matter if you live on the (blue) moon.
