gordondaviesmoustache said:
jma said:
PS: can you explain to me, in this world where geography apparently means nothing and technology and the internet justifies gloryhunting, why the same people do not support 'the other side' in The Ryder Cup? Or do not all support Argentina or Spain in international football. After all, surely all the same bullshit arguments can apply. They "fell in love which Spain's football", they once visited the USA so support them over Europe, where they live, in the golf, etc, etc.
Of course, people will claim, without any intellectual back up, that club sports are different. But why? The only reason why is that there are a lot of other people who gloryhunt and back each other up with legions of ill thought out justifications, so it becomes more socially acceptable.
Where as if they did the same thing with international sport they would be looked at by most people as some sort of crank, pathetically trying to latch on to something that they are not "part of".
Club sport (and more specifically football) is different (at least at the very top) because it is now comprised of people from all corners of the globe in terms of the management and players. This is a process that has accelerated almost exponentially in the last decade. Moreover it is unlikely, to say the least, that this will ever change back going forward. This makes larger sporting clubs much more accessible in terms of how fans from other parts of the globe perceive them. The nature of national sport, by definition, does not have this eclectic feel. This process of change in terms of the make up of fans will continue and it is possible that there will be some resentment from 'indigenous' fans because of this.
Your use of the Ryder Cup as an illustrative example is interesting. I cannot think of a better example of the fluidity of people's loyalties in sport to meet changing circumstances. A event where people support Europe, with all the gusto they can muster. The Ryder Cup used to be contested between the US and Great Britain and Ireland but the powers that be changed that to meet an ever changing world. What defines a fan is changing and football clubs will need to respond to that if they are to flourish.
You need to throw away the old rule book as to what makes someone attached to our club. Your ideas are wedded to a world that no longer exists. It is clear that you would regret its passing, but there is nothing you can do to stop what's coming.
I don't regret its passing in any significant way at all. This phenomenon has zero effect on me or my life. I do however, as I keep saying, question the motives and the sanity of the people who do it. Unfortunately, you keep trying to paint anyone who does this some sort of luddite or as someone who does not have an understanding of business to the depths that those who love it do.
You say club sport is different to national sport and has changed dramatically. I'll agree that in the minds of a large percentage of society that this is true. However, that is only because this attitude has been fuelled by a) a growing number of people showing gloryhunting traits, backing each other up in their quest to justify it (have you ever heard a single person ever admit "yep, I'm a gloryhunter". It doesn't happen) and b) more importantly, greedy clubs, desperate to exploit these individuals.
That does not mean that the decision making process is any different to how it was forty years ago when such people spouting about their everlasting love for a far away, successful sports club would have been looked at as deranged and society would have seen them as pathetically trying to cling on to success by association.
So, yeah, you are correct in that attitudes have changed. I don't dispute that. What I am questioning is the mental process that allows these people to dupe themselves that they really are this mad, passionate, hugely involved fan of City/United/Barca/Dallas Cowboys and to boast to and ridicule others over the success that 'their' team is having.
As an individual's decision it is bizarre and if someone was doing it, this claiming to be so deeply affected and the boasting about it, in any other field of life it would be questioned and quite possibly ridiculed.
I don't know how you come to the conclusion about the Ryder Cup backing up your argument. Yes, people changed from supporting UK to Europe. However, this was because the UK represented their geographical area. Then it ceased to exist and Europe then represented them. Unless you know loads of Europeans who support the US in it and loads of Ameircans who support Europe then it stands completely against the whole "choose a successful side and say they are yours" stance. Virtually no-one does this because, in this event, they recognise that they have no attachment to this other side and don't try to dupe themselves that they do.
Again, I am not questioning whether clubs need to attract this sort of gullible, attracted to glamour, person. They do and they should. However, I do question the lengths to which people go to defend and advocate this child like need that some people have to support 'glamour'. As an individual's decision it is shallow, child like and can only be explained in terms of need. (Again, don't confuse what I am talking about with 'liking' something. Lot's of people like and admire things, sports, sportsmen, teams hugely. They do not always feel the need to then brand themselves a 'massive fan' and boast to other's about 'their' success).
People seem unable to talk about this subject in terms of the individual's decision and instead see any questioning of that as either a neanderthal threat or as coming from someone who cannot grasp the economics involved.
