New fans

[n_mcfc]

I liked it.

And I might just like it via Facebook too, just to piss people off.

We have fans in America. Good!

 

[Andouble]

I'll tell you what gets me.

It's the fake emotion of it all. That women going on about how much it means to her. The blokes acting as if they have just seen the FA Cup final when it is a snide friendly (granted, which will be more exciting to someone who has never seen a game before).

It's people 'acting' how they think 'football fans should act'.

Unless those people have some sort of unique and unimaginable deep seated, bizarre, long suffering connection to MCFC then it is just impossible for them to hold the sort of emotions for the club that they seek to act out.

Unless they have the IQs of seven year olds and are able to convince themselves otherwise.

I've attempted to have this conversation with dozens of people, many, many times before. It never gets anywhere as people cannot lift it beyond cliches like "who are you to tell me ......" and "everyone is welcome........" as if expressing some surprise at the contrast between the pure, cold and ruthless logic this type of fan use to 'choose' their team and the extreme 'from the heart' emotion that they seek to portray is an unspeakable thing.

I will put it like this. In politics and almost everything in life I could be portrayed as a lily livered, anti nationalist, pro global liberal or any other associated cliche. But when it comes to my football I am almost xenophobic in my beliefs. Football clubs represent a place and the people from that place. And unless you have some sort of family connection then 'choosing' to declare that you support (and I mean 'support' a club, not 'follow' or 'like') a club that is not local-ish to you is just fucking bizarre.

Picture this, if Real Madrid came on tour to Manchester and you were someone who watches la Liga and Madrid on Sky every week, really liking their attacking ethos and the history of the club, would you deem it anything other than ridiculous to agree to appear in a TV feature where you seek to get all emotional about what Madrid means to you and how you are a 'Massive Madrid fan', like those from Madrid who go every week.

I put it to you that no, you wouldn't, because you would realise how fraudulent it was and how it wasn't true. That you don't possess these rabid feelings for Madrid as they have nothing to do with you, you have no connection and you purely admire the club and/or like watching them play.

You might, if you enjoy a bit of publicity consider appearing ina feature where you express admiration for the club and its history, ethos, (maybe its current team) and way of playing.

So when I see 'far flung' fans acting like they think 'proper fans act, I have no problem with saying I think it is bullshit and I question the mentality of such people. Some won't agree with this, but I say it is impossible for someone who has little connection with the club and hasn't followed them for a significant period of time to feel the emotions that, say, the woman on the video seeks to paint about the FA Cup win. Unless they have a very strange mentality.

Yes, as people say, the club needs gullible idiots around the world to convince themselves that they are 'part of it' - hence the campaign. But make no mistake, the club, and all clubs who seek that market, don't believe their own bullshit. Their attitude, no matter how much lip service they pay to these markets, is as cynical as it gets and all about fleecing these people of their cash.

I would also venture to say that if the topic wasn't football, and in man cases specifically MCFC - the club we support, many people who take the "its great, spread the world, these people make such a commitment and love the club so much" approach would think the same mentality about another walk of life to be fucking bizarre.

Imagine an American appearing on tv telling us all how emotional he is and how passionate he is about Marks and Spencers. He's never been in an M&S shop and has not connection to the business at all but he gets the FT every day and he follows the ups and downs of the share price religiously. M&S means so much to him, as much as it does to any share holder, any employee, any loyal customer. Because one day he choose to portray that as the case. And purely by saying that is the case, that becomes the truth.

OK, so the example isn't a great one, but the acting is bollocks and insulting and indicative of a certain type of mentality. Not a particularly endearing one either.

That clip that went round on YouTube the other day showing the United fan in Thailand surrounded by all the Liverpool fans in his Rooney top.

The big joke, worldwide, was on him apparently. Was it fuck. It was just as much on the 'Liverpool fans' and their pure self delusion, mimicking Scousers, even down to attempting to mimic the accent and emphasis put on certain syllables in certain chants.

Those people are no doubt rational and well balanced human beings in every other walk of life. So why do they choose to act like the very worst type of needy, "I want to be associated with success" seven year olds when it comes to football.

Bollocks to the lot of it. They deserve to be fleeced by cynical football clubs for being so childish about the whole thing and their horrendous attempts to disguise their cold, cynical 'choice' with the language and actions of sporting emotion.

wretched, wretched stuff.

You do not need to be born within a certain postal code to have or not have emotional connections with a sports team, a business, a pie, a band, or anything else you can think of.

Many of us who are thousands of miles away from COMS still put in the same emotional investment as someone who lives right across the street. Maybe more. 5-8 hour time difference? That means re-arranging work schedules, waking up at 4am on a Saturday morning with a banging hangover, or calling in sick just to catch the match on a horrible stream that buffers every 4 seconds in a foreign language.

Are there fairweather City fans? Fucking of course, that goes with every. single. sports team in the entire world, no matter what sport you're talking about. Whether that's "fake" City fans in Vancouver or even in your own neighborhood.

"impossible for someone who has little connection with the club and hasn't followed them for a significant period of time to feel the emotions....." A simply dreadful quote. Yeah, you might have seen City get hammered at Oldham away in 1943, but you think you had more pain running through you when Rooney's overhead kick went in than say, me, a 24 year old American who spends nearly every waking moment reading, discussing, or thinking about "your" club?

Grow the fuck up.

 

[Ticket For Schalke]

And on an other note, i wonder how many people have Lakers shirts and Pats shirts on this thread. Im guessing a few.

 

[JohnMaddocksAxe]

you think you had more pain running through you when Rooney's overhead kick went in than say, me, a 24 year old American who spends nearly every waking moment reading, discussing, or thinking about "your" club?

You won't like my simple answer, but unless you have strangely unique circumstances, simply yes.

This thread is going exactly the way it usually does, with ridiculously emotional rhetoric and cliche seeking to masquerade as intelligent, rational debate. I'll do my best to avoid replying further as the above sentence will be, to many, the ultimate insult (an attitude that is, centrally to my point of view, ridiculous).

Goodnight.

 

[solley attwell]

It really dose'nt matter a fuck where you from once you have a genuine love of our club. After all is a man who lives 5000 miles away , goes to one game every 2 years and feels like he has a broken heart for a few days after a bad defeat any less a fan than the seasoncard holder who lives within close proximity to the ground and leaves with 5mins to go?

 

[Andouble]

you think you had more pain running through you when Rooney's overhead kick went in than say, me, a 24 year old American who spends nearly every waking moment reading, discussing, or thinking about "your" club?

You won't like my simple answer, but unless you have strangely unique circumstances, simply yes.

This thread is going exactly the way it usually does, with ridiculously emotional rhetoric and cliche seeking to masquerade as intelligent, rational debate. I'll do my best to avoid replying further as the above sentence will be, to many, the ultimate insult (an attitude that is, centrally to my point of view, ridiculous).

Goodnight.

the Sheikh takeover was really the worst thing that could happen to a small-minded man like yourself.

 

[JohnMaddocksAxe]

And on an other note, i wonder how many people have Lakers shirts and Pats shirts on this thread. Im guessing a few.

And compare those people to people from LA and Boston who have grown up with those clubs and have those clubs as a central part of their lives (and I don't mean their internet lives) for as long as they can remember. Are you equating the two?<br /><br />-- Tue Jul 19, 2011 1:13 am --<br /><br />

You won't like my simple answer, but unless you have strangely unique circumstances, simply yes.

This thread is going exactly the way it usually does, with ridiculously emotional rhetoric and cliche seeking to masquerade as intelligent, rational debate. I'll do my best to avoid replying further as the above sentence will be, to many, the ultimate insult (an attitude that is, centrally to my point of view, ridiculous).

Goodnight.

the Sheikh takeover was really the worst thing that could happen to a small-minded man like yourself.

You couldn't be more wrong. However, nice insults.

 

[baylorblue]

JMA enjoy the match tonight at 1 am. Unfortunately it seems it will be broadcast in the UK or else you could have to pleasure of looking through multiple dodgy streams hoping that one of the won't skip or better yet will even be in English at all. Enjoy having to go out of your way to watch City play for once. It's a reality that all us foreign "fans" have had to live through for a while now. Enjoy getting little sleep and being miserable at work tomorrow. It won't make a difference to you because you've already decided that we are mere plebs compared to your fandom. I hope you stop to think even for a second about what kind of work it takes to follow a club from abroad.

 

[Andouble]

And on an other note, i wonder how many people have Lakers shirts and Pats shirts on this thread. Im guessing a few.

And compare those people to people from LA and Boston who have grown up with those clubs and have those clubs as a central part of their lives (and I don't mean their internet lives) for as long as they can remember. Are you equating the two?

don't know about in your house but in the U.S. but if you're a Patriots fan in Boston or a Patriots fan in Florida...you're just a Patriots fan. Not a "fake" fan. You might be called a frontrunner if you start liking them after a Championship, but those fans hardly stick anyway.

By your logic, if a football fan in the States grows up outside of Los Angeles, they must be a Galaxy fan and nothing else? They can't support Manchester City, or Real Madrid, or AC Milan? Because they were born in a country where the league isn't upper echelon, are they not allowed to have a horse in the big race? Or must they cross their fingers that the next Messi is born out in the suburbs and they can somehow keep him for a couple years and participate in the Club World Cup?

It's really only a step or two away from not even wanting foreign players to play in the Premiership.

 

[BigTony]

I'd say it depends really.

We've always had out of town fans, I've got a guy from Yorkshire on one side of me and Scottish guy on the other. Last year it was 2 guys from South Wales.

If they been supporting the blues for years that's okay but I'd find it a bit strange anyone just starting supporting as of now or the last 12 months or something like that.