The out-of-town plastics’ entire “support” of these two football clubs (and it is generally these two and definitely only these two in huge numbers, there’s the odd fans of other clubs dotted about randomly but often through family ties or where they themselves have moved away from the area) are through a television or online life.
They don’t wake up in the morning and breathe the air or live the culture of the city their football club comes from and represents them as a person. I always think of them as people with pretty sad lives or are embarrassed of their own locality, its local culture and football teams so they latch on to something that makes them think they have some reflected glory in their lives, so they choose United or Liverpool no matter where they’re from. They don’t even choose their closest big club, they just pluck either of the two most successful clubs in the country and think “yeah they’re the ones for me, they’ll make me look great and I can take the piss out of everyone else because this football club I’m choosing is the most successful, they’ve got no comeback!”.
Only for them to crawl under a rock or come out with that brilliant line “yeah, well I’m just not interested in football anymore” when either of these two clubs go on a slump. But then you see them back in full kit with shin pads, the lot, as soon as they start winning again.
They’ve not got a clue about what supporting a football club is about. Their entire emotional input to football is on social media comments sections. I couldn’t do that for life, it’s done my head in over this pandemic. I’ve never felt more disconnected from City in my life and I live and work around the city.
Imagine what the locals in these places who do support their local clubs think about these plastic bellends. They’ll be off to watch their local team at 15:00 on a Saturday afternoon, a club that might have financial difficulties and a half empty stadium every week, only to go back to their local pub afterwards and be faced with a pub chocka-block full of Liverpool or United fans watching their 17:30 game.
I’ve never pulled back the doors of The Wheatsheaf off Tib Street on a Saturday afternoon and had a pub full of Luton fans who are all Mancunians there watching them on the tele. And even if that did happen, they’d be chased out of the pub and sent on their way.
I went to West Ham away once and got chatting to a few Hammers who said “yeah we obviously hate all the other London clubs but we hate Man U as much as you lot do, there’s that many of them round here that they’re probably our biggest local rivals”. And you could see that vitriol steam of out them in that final game at Upton Park against the Rags.
Another one that gets me n’all, is those from other countries who latch onto these clubs... and in their thousands upon thousands! Imagine how good their countries’ leagues would be if all these plastics actually supported clubs in their own country. Instead of going down the pub (some places even have fan parks there’s so many of them) to watch United and Liverpool, they could spend their money on their local clubs making their own leagues miles better. Again, you don’t get them supporting Cheltenham Town do you? And you don’t open the doors to the Wheatsheaf to a pub full of Cork City or Yokohama Marinos or even Canterbury Bulldogs fans do you?
I don’t get it me, never have and never will.
I’m a big rugby league fan and the NRL is the top league of rugby of either code in the world, I watch it every week, but I don’t have a club I’ve chosen to support. And I’ve even got family ties there as I have one cousin that lives in Manly and one that lives in Brisbane. But I don’t “support” either of these clubs.
Apart from on here when I do spout general pisstaking aimed at United and Liverpool, and in the ground when I’m like a rabid dog... I too never bother taking the piss or boasting to any United or Liverpool fans I know over text or owt. It’s like stooping down to their level, and becoming part of that plastics’ way of supporting their football clubs.