Handing Down Allegiance

[The Fat el Hombre]

I appreciate how cheeky I am even being on the forum as a "Dipper", well I am being even more cheeky now by starting a thread!

So.....you have a son/daughter and are an avid football fan, In this case, we shall say a Liverpool supporter of many years. You look forward to the day of sharing your love for your club with your child. However, your father/mother in law supports, we shall say City and buys then their first full kit and tickets to a City game. Their first "proper" football match. Kids being kids take that first experience and kit and then decide they are then a City fan.

There will no doubt be an obvious answer to this considering where I am but I would welcome the view if you speak as a parent yourself. Irrespective of the teams involved is it wrong of the "in law" to get in the way of you handing down your allegiance?

Well my best mate is an everton fan and his lad (called 'Noel' - named after you know who) has been made to follow suit. I tried to get my mate to 'let his son be the man he wanted to be' and support city but he wasn't having it. His son is 11 now and football isn't massively his thing, which is probably down to everton! I sometimes tell Noel that 'you'd be a City fan and would be coming to Wembley with uncle Hombre if your dad had let me get my way'. Shame.

Morale of the story - if your kid's in a situation where there's a choice of a couple of teams and yours is shit whereas the other isn't, then maybe let him support the decent one if he wants (unless it's united). In your case @LGWIO I think you're pretty safe either way!

 

[johnevans]

My family have been City fans for over a hundred years.

My great grandfather was shot in The Battle Of The Somme in WWI. When he returned home and he recovered he got a job on the railway at Ardwick. He watched City play at Hyde Road and became a fan.

He then took my grandfather to Maine Road in the 30''s who then took my dad and uncles in the 60's and then took me in the early 80's.

I've carried that traditional on by taking my son to his first game 18 months ago.

It was always drummed into us we would be City fans no matter what.

Thank god my grandfather wasn't sent to Old Trafford on the rail!

My Ex who is my sons mum, her dad bought him a Utd t shirt a couple of years ago that after about a week "mysteriously disappeared" from his wardrobe after about a week!

My family have always been and will be forever blues

Your post reads like it could have been my family history with our beloved Blues! I hope my experience can also offer some solace to the OP, our chum in footy from Liverpool..

Like your Great-Grandad, my maternal Grandad was at the battle of the Somme with his brother when the first shot was fired (..mind, he was back in Hulme when the second one went off..! actually he served several years throughout that awful conflict, goodness knows how lucky has was to survive) And like your Great-Grandad, he was Blue through and through.

My Dad, who was at the Stoke game in 1934 with his brother alongside the other 84k+ souls who were there, was part of a family that was totally Blue. Despite the ups-and-downs of being a Blue over the years, we who followed on believe that they made the right decision in taking the 75 or 76 buses down Lloyd Street rather than the 112 or 113 down Stretford Road to get their fix of footy. We took it in with our Mother's milk to be Blues and many of us have been season-ticket holders for donkey's years.

The nearest we came to somebody going over to 'The Dark Side' at OT was in the early 90s when my youngest daughter claimed she was going to be a supporter of The Red Filth. This was down to peer pressure at school (United at the beginning of their successes etc) No amount of threats/persuasion seemed to work, so referring to her 'Spawn of the Devil' and disinheriting her looked inevitable until, fortunately, one of my brothers took her to a match at home versus Ipswich Town, sitting in the Gene Kelly stand in the rain. She was hooked! Blue balance and harmony restored, back into the last will and testament..

The next generation of Blues is already here, although with my three grandchildren there are the complicating factors of Plymouth Argyle and Wycombe Wanderers to negotiate. I remain confident however that, as you conclude, we will always be 'Forever Blues'..!

 

[Stoned Rose]

I appreciate how cheeky I am even being on the forum as a "Dipper", well I am being even more cheeky now by starting a thread!

So.....you have a son/daughter and are an avid football fan, In this case, we shall say a Liverpool supporter of many years. You look forward to the day of sharing your love for your club with your child. However, your father/mother in law supports, we shall say City and buys then their first full kit and tickets to a City game. Their first "proper" football match. Kids being kids take that first experience and kit and then decide they are then a City fan.

There will no doubt be an obvious answer to this considering where I am but I would welcome the view if you speak as a parent yourself. Irrespective of the teams involved is it wrong of the "in law" to get in the way of you handing down your allegiance?

A roundhouse to the nose offence in my book.

 

[Stoned Rose]

The only time I can see it being an issue is if the father is a real fan I.e. goes to matches and is excited himself to buy his kids kits and take the kid to games. If someone has got in first I’d doubt the fathers commitment. My son was born in 95. He was christened in a city kit. He had a trial run at Bridge Celtic in early 98 and 22 nd August 1998 went to his first game Wrexham at home 3rd division typical city let me down fukin boring 0-0 draw, thankfully prem league neighbours drew 0-0 at West Ham I convinced him our result was better cause it was also against European opposition. He’s missed about 10 home games all competitions since.

Yeah but did he go to York away though?

 

[Greggery Peccary]

My old in laws wanted to get my little girl an Everton kit many years back & I fucked them right off. Told them if they did, I’d buy a puppy so we had something to clean all the dogshit up with. They’re Blues of the bitterest variety so it was fumeageddon all over the show. Not that I had to worry, there’s no dispute where her allegiance lies these days. In laws should be getting jibbed off all fucking day long though.

 

[Vienna_70]

In our case, it’s not just a hypothetical.

Mrs Vienna’s son-in-law is a Littlewoods fan; he has been since he was about eight, I think.

However, there was never a chance that his son and daughter would be following in his footsteps. They both went to their first City match at nine months old.

The grandson was at the Agüeroooooooooo game and they were both at the West Ham match two years later. We took them to Wembley for the League Cup final when Big Willy performed his heroics and just as we arrived back at the car, our granddaughter declared, it was the best day of her life - at 4 1/2 years old!

Her interest in football has diminished somewhat since, but her brother is as avid a City supporter as any of us.

 

[Ribchester]

Yeah but did he go to York away though?

His Dad did. His first away was 1st aug 2007 Shrewsbury friendly Svens first game. Spent the journey home convincing him Sven won’t be plying ishmir miller again Lol

 

[Mancity1980]

Thanks for all the replies...It is interesting to read them.
As said it started when a lad I work with told me his father in law had bought a kit and tickets for a game for his son...and it not being the team that he himself supported. I was aghast, as I thought that no matter who you support that to get in the way of a father son/daughter relationship, to deny a parent the chance to do that "first" with their child was really really out of order.
I wondered if it was just me with that view?

From my own experience, my old man took me to Anfield at 7yrs old as he had been taken by his dad and I in turn took my son when he was old enough. Although him having been born over here I did actually tell him that he did have the choice to support Derry City but that he was not allowed anything to do with all the Rangers /Celtic crap that goes on over here.

I must say this is a great thread you have started, probably the best from a non-city fan I have read and definitely the only one from a a Dipper I have read! I particularly like the great grandad links to WW1.

 

[LGWIO]

I must say this is a great thread you have started, probably the best from a non-city fan I have read and definitely the only one from a a Dipper I have read! I particularly like the great grandad links to WW1.

Cheers for that. I started the thread simply wondering if I was maybe being overly sensitive about others effectively stealing a "special moment" from a parent. I would, for any real football fan, liken passing on your allegiance or taking your child to their first game to being on a par with their first step, riding a bike, first day at school etc. So for someone to take that away!!!!!

I do get the comments from Asgoodasitgets & Manclad where the parent is an "armchair fan" and therefore maybe cannot be bothered taking their child to a game, but would like to think they may take a step back if they met any resistance.

I think whilst football can divide, as I often see in the Liverpool thread (and I fully understand the animosity) It can can also bring us together. I can still recall my dad taking me into the Salisbury pub prior to my first game at Anfield and being dwarfed by everyone in there. Going to Central League games with him and then later in life it becoming a tradition for us to go to a game on Boxing day somewhere in the North West (partly in my quest to do the 92). In fact it was on one of those that I paid my first visit to Maine Road and sat in the North stand. Think it was against Sheff Utd.

I appreciate you can maybe get those memories with any club, but it being a father son/daughter thing is what makes it special in a way that it couldn't be with someone else.

And I agree getting the backgrounds from people as to why they support their club, no matter what club it is (cough cough) is great.

Much respect all.

 

[Mancity1980]

Cheers for that. I started the thread simply wondering if I was maybe being overly sensitive about others effectively stealing a "special moment" from a parent. I would, for any real football fan, liken passing on your allegiance or taking your child to their first game to being on a par with their first step, riding a bike, first day at school etc. So for someone to take that away!!!!!

I do get the comments from Asgoodasitgets & Manclad where the parent is an "armchair fan" and therefore maybe cannot be bothered taking their child to a game, but would like to think they may take a step back if they met any resistance.

I think whilst football can divide, as I often see in the Liverpool thread (and I fully understand the animosity) It can can also bring us together. I can still recall my dad taking me into the Salisbury pub prior to my first game at Anfield and being dwarfed by everyone in there. Going to Central League games with him and then later in life it becoming a tradition for us to go to a game on Boxing day somewhere in the North West (partly in my quest to do the 92). In fact it was on one of those that I paid my first visit to Maine Road and sat in the North stand. Think it was against Sheff Utd.

I appreciate you can maybe get those memories with any club, but it being a father son/daughter thing is what makes it special in a way that it couldn't be with someone else.

And I agree getting the backgrounds from people as to why they support their club, no matter what club it is (cough cough) is great.

Much respect all.

Interesting that you fully understand the animosity in the Liverpool Thread and I won’t embarrass you by asking you to expand on that but it could be argued that the blind allegiance passed down the generations is a major cause of that. That is certainly the case in other spheres of society like nationalism and religion.