Meanwhile Over on Red cafe

[squirtyflower]

no disrespect but I just think everyone should support their LOCAL football club.


Unless you've moved away or your Dad /Grandad etc supported us

Controversial I know.

Should I just stop supporting City then despite loving the club for as long as I can remember?
Do you hate me because my dad started supporting City but has lived in Norway all his life? My dad is also jumped on the BANDWAGON! Not this one, but in the 60s/70s when City were "massive".


I'm not allowed to be a City fan then no? I'll have to go back to supporting my local club - Romolslia Sportsklubb in the Norwegian Fifth Division (not a joke btw!)...

LOCAL to me includes through parental heritage too

you're safe lol

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

There was a survey carried out by the PL a couple of years ago and part of it was about what percentage of match-attending fans were actually local. For the rags and Liverpool it was 25% and for us it was about 61%.

So in a swamp crowd, there will be 72,000 home fans, of which 18,000 will be classed as "local". In a CoMS crowd, 44,000 will be home fans, of which about 27,000 will be classed as local. QED.

 

[mancincali]

no disrespect but I just think everyone should support their LOCAL football club.


Unless you've moved away or your Dad /Grandad etc supported us

Controversial I know.

this may sound mad...but LA Galaxy are shit. hahaha, epl is the only league to watch, really.

 

[BTH]

to be perfectly honest, when i'm in manchester aside from when its a match day, i see more people wearing united shirts than i do city. but tbh it doesnt matter

Yes, yes, yes... but how many out on the links?

 

[toffeetom]

We have similar 'banter' in Liverpool. We always sing 'ever seen a scouser on the kop 'fuck off back to Norway' etc but I don't take it too seriously, Liverpool is pretty split as a city, I'd say about 50/50 tbh. The surrounding areas of merseyside are mainly RS though.

We do get quite a bit of support from Ireland and Wales too, and as long as you're dedicated to Everton I couldn't care less.

 

[toffeetom]

Oh and for what it's worth, got a couple of mates who live in Manchester and they're both Man City, only Man Utd mate I know lives out near Bury.

 

[a.woollam]

http://www.premierleague.com/staticFiles/2f/6d/0,,12306~93487,00.pdf

Check this, especially section 4, Fan Characteristics, Scum have the highest avg. distance which fans travel to home game. Also, reasons for attending matches, for scum 53% for 'entertaining football' and 31% for 'locality' etc. have a read its quite interesting even though its 2007

fansurvey.premierleague.com

This is the 09/10 its a bit weird though

 

[mancincali]

http://www.premierleague.com/staticFiles/2f/6d/0,,12306~93487,00.pdf

Check this, especially section 4, Fan Characteristics, Scum have the highest avg. distance which fans travel to home game. Also, reasons for attending matches, for scum 53% for 'entertaining football' and 31% for 'locality' etc. have a read its quite interesting even though its 2007

I'd rather not, the pdf business seems like too much work!

 

[mancityvstoke]

no disrespect but I just think everyone should support their LOCAL football club.


Unless you've moved away or your Dad /Grandad etc supported us

Controversial I know.

Should I just stop supporting City then despite loving the club for as long as I can remember?
Do you hate me because my dad started supporting City but has lived in Norway all his life? My dad is also jumped on the BANDWAGON! Not this one, but in the 60s/70s when City were "massive".


I'm not allowed to be a City fan then no? I'll have to go back to supporting my local club - Romolslia Sportsklubb in the Norwegian Fifth Division (not a joke btw!)...

Ok mate...firstly who said I hated you? NOt me!

Secondly if you don't want to support your local club then don't.

Means fk all to me really....just my opinion like.

You could always call me a nonce like some divvy blue did last week.

Support who you want. I don't blame anyone for wanting to support MCFC. It's JUST my opinion that local clubs need the support of local people. I was born in Rusholme luckily for me and have lived in Manchester for 95% of my life. I became a blue because of my roots.

I have fk all against our global support. If you want to follow my local team then do it. You can hardly be called glory hunters. If you're local team is sh'it....what made MCFC better? I mean we've been shit for years.

 

[Q8-Blue]

Does it matter who supports who and where they live? .

Actually, sort of, which I don't like to admit. Saw this the other day in reply to a US based "new" Gooner who tried to say that new US fans are as passionate as us:

It isn't about globalisation, it's about picking a team out of a hat and then deciding to support them. Why didn't you choose Notts County? Or Stockport? Why did you just so happen to pick on of the biggest clubs in the game?

I know fans from all over the world, and I have zero problem with them. Hell, some of the best fans I know live in Australia. The difference, is that they had some sort of a connection to the club, and were still supporting it when it all came crashing down.
Thinking that people look down on gloryhunters been a scarce minority is absolutely wrong. Have you ever been the Emirates or Highbury? Go and sit in the stands there with the home&awayers and tell them that you've loved Arsenal for the past couple of years from your TV in the US and see how much respect you get.

What do you care about actual issues that the fans would care about, such as ticket prices, parking, quality of matchday food/drink, youth academy, ticketing policies, Cup ticketing queues, etc? They don't effect you. Supporting a club and supporting a team are two distinct things. The idea that you sat there in the States are just as passionate as the fans who pay a small fortune to watch their team, and stand with their fellow fans, singing the name of their heroes every week is somewhat laughable. These people sacrifice their time, their money and much of their lives to follow their club. Supporting an English football club is like a marriage, you are intrinsically tied to them for life. Not because they play pretty football. Not because they happen to win things, but because you feel a connection to the ethos of the club.

Every club has an ethos, that is different to each other. United are a somewhat nomadic club that could be based anywhere now, but they used to have big ties to the Salford area. City's greatest pride is been known as the "people's club of Manchester". Liverpool are known for loyalty and fierce adherence to doing things the 'right way'. Arsenal were until recently known for a stark pragmatism in their play (funny considering their reaction to the 0-0 against City) and "boring, boring Arsenal" was something that was chanted at them for a decade. That turned into "same old Arsenal, always cheating" for obvious reasons when the Bergkamp generation came through. Spurs are known for (sort of) inventing the pass and move concept to English game, and as the "Jewish club". Every single club has a distinct identity that it hangs its hat on, this is what people mean when they talk about the "soul of a club". You should read/watch Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch if you haven't already as it follows an Arsenal fan through the Championship winning season in the 80s.

I can't compare your ideals of baseball and Arsenal, simply because I don't know enough about the community programs and the structure of a baseball club. How much are the Yankees part of your daily life growing up near them?

Also, even the United fans think United's globalisation was bad for the game. City could never have existed in it's current form if it wasn't for United and their global marketing, yet now they complain.

I have two problems with international fans:
1. Many (well, most) are built around success rather than any connection to the club. This means that when a club would actually need the increased revenue that this brings when their turn is up, they won't have it. Where have all the Leeds fans disappeared to, now they actually need them?
2. When people start using a football game as an excuse for a holiday, they have no problem paying £100 for a ticket. This is fine for those who can do this twice a year, however, it prices the normal fan out of the game. Look at the fans who went to Arsenal 10 years ago compared to now and you'll see a stark differences.
Oh, and (2 1/2), TV pictures NEVER provide you with the actual story of the game, going to the game and watching not only gives you a better view, but it also gives you the opportunity to make your own decisions rather than been based around commentary. Know what? Tevez is a greedy fucker, who scores mainly because he shoots 5 billion times a game, who plays for himself rather than for the team. He has been the same since he first came. Nobody seems to mention this on TV though, and apparently he's now a God or something. Hell, I could score a good 15 goals a season in our team, and I'm shit.

Maybe I am old fashioned and the game has passed me by, I don't know. Football used to be about the fans and their fanaticism, whereas today it is about "being seen". Every time I go to the match and see some twat in front of me looking at his phone and texting somebody I want to scream. He spent £40 to come here and watch the lads play, and he spends it texting his mates. We're lucky enough to have a section in the ground where seating isn't strictly enforced, and this is where the atmosphere comes from. Only the other week, a lad was kicked out for swearing. Kicked out for swearing, at a football match?! Know why this was? It's because some phone fan behind him was "offended" and asked for him to be removed. Then you have the daytrippers. The guys who come a few times a year, don't know any songs and expect a "fan experience". They generate zero atmosphere, tell people to sit down and take 20 minutes to order a drink at half time.

So yes, you can say that I'm uppity about certain types of fans, because in my experience, they ruin the atmosphere of the stadiums that we go to, thus impact on my enjoyment of going to the match. Same problems with them too, no connection to the club, don't care if we aren't winning. The fans who have grown up with this passion their entire lives are the fans who are still there and left to pick up the pieces when it all goes South and the phone fans have fucked off. So, do I resent it when those phone fans give it the big "I am" and tell everyone that they are the most massivist of the massive fans in the whole massive world? Yeah, I suppose I do.

Lastly, I'm as far away from anti-immigration/right wing as you can possibly get. I do believe though that football clubs have a huge presence in their community and they mean an awful lot to the people who live near them. As a NYer, you MUST understand the social identity that been part of a city gives you? One of the reasons why United have been so successful historically is due to their Irish and London support generating additional revenues. Now, what would happen if that London support gave that revenue to, let's say, Crystal Palace instead?

Perhaps the MLS would be a better league if the US fans got behind their local team like they do foreign teams? How many US fans watch/attend their club as much as their foreign clubs? How many come on here talking about them? Why don't you have a Red Bulls (which is a horrific name for a team) logo next to your name to promote the club?

This is what I'm getting at. In the MLS, teams are corporate branded experiences. In Europe, they are the centre of a community, stretching back over a hundred years in many cases. I'm a City fan, who grew up going to watch Lake, Brightwell, Morley, and later Rosler, Walsh and Beagrie. My Dad is a City fan who grew up going to watch Young, Lee,Bell and Summerbee. My Grandad is a City fan who grew up going to watch Trautmann, Barnes and Revie. My son will be a City fan, who will grow up watching Toure, Balotelli and Tevez. There will be stories of such experiences with a huge number of Arsenal fans. Your Dad/big brother taking you wide-eyed down to the ground is a right of passage for many people. I still remember my first ever game, and how excited I was when 32,000 people started cheering and singing songs when a goal flew in. This club has been the centre of my family for 80 years and will be for 80 more. All my friend's stories are the same, we go to the match together, we drink together, we support together, with the club been the first thing on our mind every day. Hell, I wouldn't really like most of my friends if I didn't grow up watching City with them.

City is as engrained into my soul and the soul of my family and community as the Civil War is to some Americans. To have people on the opposite side of the world who watch the team once a week through their TV tell me that they care about City, and have the same connection as I do, is a little insulting, yes. It's like me saying that I watched 9/11 on TV, therefore it effects me just as much as you. It's a ridiculous notion. I remember that it was only about a decade ago that City were relegated to the third tier of English football and the club was in near bankruptcy. This family tradition, this pillar of the community that brought about new people into my life that were as close as family was about to be erased from history in the stroke of a pen, because when we went down, we (like many other clubs) thought that we'd lose the revenue of the 'phone fans' thus not be able to be in business. Luckily, and mainly because we didn't have any phone fans because we were shit, we still got 30,000 fans every week and broke attendance records at every single ground we visited that year. We did it because if we didn't then the club could not be in business any more.

This club is important to all of us. It's the central pillar in all of our lives, and will always continue to be, whether we're winning Champions Leagues or playing Gillingham in the third tier of football. Even those who have now moved away and put their families on to the real passion of supporting, that's fine, that's a connection to the club and you'll be there all your life.

But I'm sure that this passion is shared by the many new City fans who have hopped on the bandwagon since the money came in? Think they'll be there when it (as usual with City) eventually goes tits up?

Yes, I resent the huge commercialisation that the game has moved towards when it starts effecting the matchday experience. I don't pretend to know what the cure is, but the 6+5 rule isn't it. There's a real pride that nobody can ever take away from me, in that I've watched City rise from the bottom of Division Two to the (near) top of the Premier League in the past decade. The days such as York away were some of my funnest as a fan. Of course, I want the club to be successful, we've waited long enough, we've done our time in the backarse grounds in English football and we've shed far too many tears. I accept that the gloryhunters will come, and will provide us with the revenue that we need so that people like me who have been waiting all their lives to win something, will get to visit the Milans, Barcelonas and Madrids of this world. I'm just a little bitter that it affects my matchday experience so much.

See our Neil Young tribute yesterday? That's an example of how much this club means to every single one of us, and how we try to be one big family.
Not sure if you saw the England World Cup bid recently, but Eddie was asked to be the front man for it. Eddie sums up everything I'm talking about; born 5 minutes from the ground, heading down a bad road, got involved in the Community Outreach portion of the club, eventually rising through it to a position where he rubs shoulders with world leaders.

Maybe you don't understand because the US teams are franchised, and at any point can just decide to pack up and leave town. This has happened here once, and it caused such an uproar that the FA put rules in place so that it may never happen again. The football club is owned by the community. Financial backers come and go, the community that supports it never does.

In reality, I'm probably talking to a brick wall here, as our understanding of what a football club is, is so radically different that nothing that I can say will show you what I mean. I can guarantee you though, that most match going fans understand that a club is much more than 90 minutes every few days. This is why there's a divide in fans, and why the term "gloryhunter" is used as an insult; because you fail to understand how the long term fans look at their club hence there's a huge resentment over it. In our eyes, tripping up when Arsenal are storming through the league and playing fancy football doesn't make you a fan, it makes you someone who watches Arsenal. When Wenger goes and the youth policy wears off, if Arsenal are struggling through the leagues, playing long ball/shit/boring football and you are still on here declaring how obsessed you are with everything Arsenal, then you'll earn some measure of respect. However, your whole idea of what football support is, if you believe that you can generate the same passion as the guys who have lived and breathed Arsenal for 100 years, is just mistaken. I'm sorry if that offends you, or makes you feel like less of a fan, but it's the truth.

The post make some points but generalizes foreign fans, I for example do not have the luxury of being born in a country which has a good football league like in England. The Kuwaiti league is kind of like the Scottish League only two good teams and they're only good by Asian standard. I do have a local team Qadsia FC they’re 5 minutes from where I grew up and they have a huge fanbase in Kuwait and local rivals, during our matches with our rivals it gets so bad that we have to get the national guard out, but the quality of football isn’t like Europe which is why we mostly follow local and European football.
All of my countrymen support European teams, some are gloryhunters skipping from team to team whoever won the league or whoever has a charismatic star that attracts their fancy. But some are genuine fans growing up loving their team taking time to travel during the late stages of the season (early summer) to catch a few games and have a good time. These fans even attract their kids to love their team as if it was their local team; I know a guy who used to study in London and became a Tottenham fan, now all his family are Tottenham fans.
It's like if i was a basketball fan I'd probably watch the NBA as its the best basketball league in the world. Football is a sport enjoyed by the entire world and the Premier League is the best league in the world, with the best players in the world.
Of course it’s not the same as being a local and supporting your local team and that’s something genuine foreign fans struggle with and I believe it makes them stronger as a result, it takes a lot of commitment as a genuine fan to support a team that’s thousands of mile away and even more commitment to take time from your life to travel thousands of miles to see and cheer for your favorite team. With the internet we use valuable tools like this forum for example to connect with each other as a worldwide community supporting our team and to keep up with the news of the team. Anyways that’s just a foreign fans point of view :)