I heart Claude Makelele

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I heart Claude Makelele

They barbecued the worst sausages ever made

[Wyatt Earp]

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Oh, I've had wors.

[Gangster Octopus]

I heart Claude Makelele

twohundredpercent wrote:

those dismal trips to Earlsmead

Heh, why do you think I chose Wealdstone after a couple of trips to Borough...

twohundredpercent wrote:

I like being able to get to the ground at ten to three and being able to wolf down a pint before kick-off. I don't expect anyone else to, and I know that I'm in a minority.

But you are by no means unique...

[G-Man]

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English football was strongly followed long even before television was introduced to South Africa in 1976.

Bloody hell, what did people do for cultural pursuits before 1976?

And then they got all the TV chefs, and the sausage got better.

[Wyatt Earp]

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Oh, please your bloody selves.

[mafu]

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i laughed

[Moonlight Shadow]

I heart Claude Makelele

Good point by Bomba, contempt is far too strong a word, in my case it's more like a sense of "moral superiority" but taken with a pinch of salt, it's bloody football we are talking about, not anything remotely important after all...

Pan Tau, thanks for the background info about SA. It does not change in the slightest bit my opinion that people who attach themselves to sides thousands of miles away, whatever their reason (I'll put a caveat when it cames to parental pressure) are gloryhunters. For the umpteenth time, what's the big deal with being one...? Some arsey football puritans will sneer at you, so what? You haven't wasted thousands of hours of your life stuck in train stations or motorways, spent thousand of pounds to follow a bunch of overpaid losers and you probably did not screw up relationships and friendships in the pursuit of football's holy grail of perfect fandom...Take my word for it, it's more of a pathology than something to be proud of at times.

[Hofzinser]

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what's the big deal with being one...?

Well you've just said you think you are morally superior to them so maybe that's what sticks in the craw...

[Brandenburger Toro]

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I don't think contempt is the right word. I like reading what the bar-stoolers post about the actual matches, tactics, relative merits of players and so on. It's just that, in terms of having any significant voice about how football in general and individual clubs are run, I'd like them to have absolutely no influence whatsoever, and match-going fans to have a shitload more.

Yeah, as a card-carrying bar-stooler I'd have no problem with that.

[apologies in advance if this makes the thread go even more crazy]

So, most people on the board accept that people can enjoy football differently, in different contexts and in different ways. But two have (non-jokingly) expressed "contempt" for anybody who enjoys it differently to them.

Perhaps they would like to explain why this is different in principle from expressing contempt for people who, say, enjoy sex differently from them?

[E10 Rifle]

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On a cautionary note to Toro, I find any and every discussion, in any context, that seeks to compare football with sex to be a profound mistake.

[Brandenburger Toro]

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Ha! So noted.

[G-Man]

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For the umpteenth time, what's the big deal with being one...? Some arsey football puritans will sneer at you, so what? You haven't wasted thousands of hours of your life stuck in train stations or motorways, spent thousand of pounds to follow a bunch of overpaid losers and you probably did not screw up relationships and friendships in the pursuit of football's holy grail of perfect fandom...Take my word for it, it's more of a pathology than something to be proud of at times.

I object to being called a gloryhunter because I am not a gloryhunter. Just because I do not meet your überhornby extremes does not justify you sneering at me or other people. You sound like those right-wing Catholics who say that less reactionary Catholics aren't really Catholic.

Besides, your pathology sounds more of a gloryhunting exercise -- the glory of being the ultraest -- than my tenuous allegiance to Manchester United, which I most certainly maintain not because the club lifts trophies from time to time.

You have not answered a question I posed earlier in this thread though. Was it acceptable to continue to support Man Utd after I left London in 1987? Or does expatriation mean that you must break entirely with the club you supported while living in that club's country, and become indifferent to its fortunes?

[G-Man]

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Oh, and as for your point that I apparently do not know what it's like to stand in the pissing rain supporting a club etc... what makes you think I haven't?

[Moonlight Shadow]

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Hof, thanks for ignoring the quotation marks around "moral superiority" and the rest of the sentence which I thought made it clear enough that, you know, I don't really take all that seriously.

I'm not an "uberhornby extreme" Pan Tau, just a pretty normal football fan who dabbled in ultradom for a while, if you want to meet some purists, get ready for much more abuse than you'll ever get from me...

You had no business supporting ManUtd when living in London, to start with unless as well as not knowing that their were one of the biggest club in England and a glamourous, gloryhunter magnet since the Busby Babes era you did not know that they're were football clubs in the Smoke...? Had you been a regular at QPR during your stay,say, you might have a pretty good argument but as it stands, you started your supporting life in a city 300 miles from Manchester and you carried it 3000 miles away, via a TV screen. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

Oh, have you stood in the rain supporting your club then...?

[Belhaven]

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"You have not answered a question I posed earlier in this thread though. Was it acceptable to continue to support Man Utd after I left London in 1987?"

I think it's weird you bothered. I stopped supporting an English team when I reached a certain age because I found all that long-distance support a bit silly and forced.

[David Agnew]

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1890 wrote:

Good point by Bomba, contempt is far too strong a word, in my case it's more like a sense of "moral superiority" but taken with a pinch of salt, it's bloody football we are talking about, not anything remotely important after all...

Pan Tau, thanks for the background info about SA. It does not change in the slightest bit my opinion that people who attach themselves to sides thousands of miles away, whatever their reason (I'll put a caveat when it cames to parental pressure) are gloryhunters.

Word. Back before the glitz and glamour of the Premier League, and even in the early mid 80s when there was little or even no football on TV, gloryhunting kids in the UK still supported Liverpool or Manchester United because "they were the best".

toro toro toro boro wrote:

So, most people on the board accept that people can enjoy football differently, in different contexts and in different ways. But two have (non-jokingly) expressed "contempt" for anybody who enjoys it differently to them.

'Enjoy it differently'. That's quite a way to twist it. I feel contempt for gloryhunters like yourself because the fact that you follow A Big Club from miles away, means that as well as filling that void that needs filling by being a winner by association, it also helps widen the chasm between those clubs that have wealth and big global fanbases and the rest, and the only way that clubs can break that chain is to have an owner who has a lot of cash. Back in the days before the Big Five existed as an entity (in terms of a TV monopoly and power group, who managed to stop the distribution of wealth in the game because it wasn't in their favour), the playing field wasn't level, but it was a hell of a lot more level than it is now. Irish Reds, and faraway fans from other countries and continents have made a great contribution in that respect.

Perhaps they would like to explain why this is different in principle from expressing contempt for people who, say, enjoy sex differently from them?

Fuck me, have you borrowed Pan Tau's 'Big book of appalling analogies'? Even by your standards, comparing the cerebral and the biological is bizarre.

[G-Man]

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Except I didn't choose Man Utd when I arrived in London. Having chosen Man Utd as my English club when I was 9 (as I explained, thinking they were underdogs), and having formed an allegiance in the intervening years, was I supposed to abandon them in favour of Arsenal or Tottenham (the closest clubs to where I lived)? Is abandoning one's loyalties not worse?

And, yes, I've spent many hours in the rain watching clubs I supported, on amateur level and Bundesliga. I've also had police beat me for being a Schalke fan, so, you know, I've been there.

And, before you ask, I don't claim to have dome so for Man Utd, because I had limited opportunities of going to matches when I lived in England on account of having to work on Saturdays and Wednesday nights. But then, I never made claims about hornbydom in that respect.

[Ball Comrade]

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Pan Tau wrote:

I've also had police beat me for being a Schalke fan, so, you know, I've been there.

I have too, but you have to admire them for acting on their impulses. (winky smiley thing)

[EIM]

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Stop justifying it, PT. There's no need.

[G-Man]

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True, EIM.

One thing that strikes me about that parochial, exclusivist, fandom-by-postcode attitude is how close it is to the objectionable kind of nationalism. I find that puzzling and sad.

[Alderman Barnes]

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I used to get annoyed by the type of arse in my town who supported a big club and looked down on the local team because they were "shit", but I've more or less got over it now. People should be able to pick whatever team they like. It's only a game, after all. It's the same as liking Phil Collins records or something: a minor character flaw.

The difference now, though, is that the clubs have learnt how to exploit the far-flung armchair fan. Popularity is no longer a distorting factor, but the decisive one. The hierarchy of football has become ever more ossified, and it's only going to get worse, and that's taken most of the fun out of it for me.

[EIM]

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I've just decided, right now, right here, this minute, that next time someone questions my support (they don't tend to in London, they hear my accent and think NORTHERN) I'm just going to tell them to suck my red, white and black cock.

(I should get a cream for that, eh?)

[Purves Grundy]

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But two have (non-jokingly) expressed "contempt" for anybody who enjoys it differently to them.

For fuck's sake your ability to pluck wildly inaccurate meanings out of thin air is beyond fucking parody. I have not expressed contempt "for anybody who enjoys it differently to [me]". I have expressed contempt for a few in particular who display certain behaviour traits. People like you, to be blunt.

And for what it's worth, even at the time I acknowledged that the post was very rough & ready and in need of "finessing". Now I'd probably rephrase it as "angry disdain". Except in your case. I'll always have a little parcel of contempt with your name on it.

[Ray de Galles]

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Pan Tau wrote:

True, EIM.

One thing that strikes me about that parochial, exclusivist, fandom-by-postcode attitude is how close it is to the objectionable kind of nationalism. I find that puzzling and sad.

Perhaps football would be better for you if clubs were stripped of this objectionable link to a locality but instead we just had "The Red Team", "The Blue team", "The Black & White Striped team" and " The White Team" etc?

I was wondering if I could say I felt the "contempt" mentioned for the fans of big clubs who had no genuine link with them and I can't say I do, just bafflement really.

[Gerontophile]

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actually, you may be beyond cream.

I support Celtic. Since 4 years old. I like Arsenal because they were the closest team when I moved to London (and they had just been tonked 6-0 by Everton, fact fans). I like Sparta Rotterdam, because I used to live with an ex player. And their ethos used to be pretty good (5 years since I have seen either, so cant comment, although I was pleased they didnt get relegated)

And thats it.

I love Celtic, but give them no money (other than occasional mug or shirt), as I live at the other end of the country, and soonish to be further than that. That doesnt stop. I dont have to say, I did my time home and away, when getting bricked by Aberdeen casuals, or getting knocked over by horses in the graveyard. That wasnt me, anyway.

When my teams are on the TV, or NOT on the TV, I like them. When Celtic are anywhere near a match, I think about it. I dont really care about the others.

However, if/when I move to somewhere else, I reserve the right to support the team of choice, BECAUSE I am 41 years old, and a sensible adult.