Teams You've Liked and Detested at Different Times

[Satchmo Distel]

Brazil is the obvious one - loved them to bits in 1982 and when they beat England in 2002 but in other tournaments I have swung from indifference to wanting them to lose badly, most notably in 2014 and 2018. It's hard not to detest a team fronted by Neymar's diving and favoured by spineless referees.

Man U - I definitely wanted them to win under Tommy Doc and in the first season they won the title under Ferguson. After that they became as obnoxious as Liverpool in the 80s.

Man City - I liked them until they lost the players I liked, especially Yaya Toure. Now I think Pep is ruining them as a likeable team.

Argentina - 1990 after 1986 was a huge dive in likeability. Since then it's felt like they've been sabotaging themselves in tournaments they could/should have won.

[diggedy derek]

I liked Leeds, during the Harry Kewell/Lee Bowyer/Alan Smith/Mark Viduka era. They were a just a thrilling team when they got to semis of the Champions' League in 2001.

[elguapo4]

Hated Everton in primary school because one of the bullies supported them, liked them in the 80s and they're alright now under Ancelotti.

[ad hoc]

(West) Germany in 1982. Dirty, horrible, appalling scummy team vs. Germany in 2014 - the opposite

Sheffield Wednesday, pretty much all my life, both simultaneously

[EIM]

Manchester United.

[Satchmo Distel]

Is that due to Mourinho?

[Duncan Gardner]

England, up to 1973'then since

[EIM]

Is that due to Mourinho?

The Glazers, I suppose. Various managers, including Alex Ferguson. Love veering to hate and back often within a match. Or a half of a match. Players. Other fans. Particularly other fans. Sometimes they're just a totem for my dissatisfaction at other stuff. But sometimes I just fucking hate them.

[Sporting]

Real Madrid when Hugo Sanchez played for them. I suppose I had a man crush on him. Afterwards nobody was more delighted than me when Tenerife twice scuttled their title hopes.

Loved Chelsea around 1970. Since then for various reasons they've just seemed unlikable.

[Foot of Astaire's]

Man U - Apologies to the reds on here but they were easy to despise weren't they? With their glory hunters, referees freezing at OT, Fergies rants and paranoia and of course, their long run of success through the 90s and 00s.

Tranmere - It was pretty innocuous at the start. A snide article in their match day programme about our town, team and ground and with both sides on a par a rivalry developed. Granada TV for whatever reason took a liking to them over other local sides for a few years, then there was the play offs and then death threats to a couple of our players. Then they appointed John Aldridge, a man well known for his healing and reconciliation skills. I dont mind them so much these days but we have started to play each other again quite recently so...

Italy - Catenaccio? Anti bloody football more like. They've had some successful sides but too often opted for the safety first, keep a clean sheet approach. It can be dire to watch and one cant help thinking, with a bit more positivity they'd have blown both Korea's away in 66 and 02 before succumbing to killer goals.

[Sporting]

Man U - Apologies to the reds on here but they were easy to despise weren't they? With their glory hunters, referees freezing at OT, Fergies rants and paranoia and of course, their long run of success through the 90s and 00s.

So when did you like them?

[Foot of Astaire's]

So when did you like them?

In 1976. I was born in Salford and surrounded by reds. I was rooting for them in the cup final as a local team. That was before bitterness kicked in.

[beak]

Personally, my prior utter dislike of Man U (from a time when NUFC were kind of almost on their level, and I was trapped in high school in Salford) mellowed massively when I moved away and suddenly found myself engaging a lot more with my local identity. Or the identity of my previous locality. Whatever. I have no truck with the idea of having a "second club", but they've taken up a position as my hometown club in a way they never did when I lived just down the road from 'em.

[beak]

Frankly, it helps that they're a bit shit these days.

[KGR]

Aged 20, I was dumped from my first long-term relationship (three years). She went out with a Sheffield Wednesday fan. So, I hated them.

Aged 35, I started my current relationship with a Sheff Wed fan and we now have three kids who all support them. So now they are my third team.

[Simon G]

I have a like-hate relationship with Birmingham and Villa.

Of the two, I used to like Birmingham because I remember their 94/95 Division 2 championship win was shown a lot on Central Soccer on Sundays (or in my memory it appeared to) and then began to dislike them due to a lad in my 6th Form who suddenly started supporting them and was a monumental bellend. Then I worked with a Blues fan who was one of the nicest guys I've ever met and I lived their Carling Cup win in 2011 and subsequent European tour which he did in a friend's camper van.

I always hated Villa, they would always beat Spurs and then Mark Bosnich nearly decapitated Jurgen Klinsmann, who was my hero at the time, and the hatred grew. Then I went to Villa Park with a Villa supporting mate in 2010 and loved it (it was when Gareth Barry returned having signed for Man City that past summer). Since then I've always had a mini-soft spot for them.

Then there's Forest Green Rovers. I used to love the club on the hill, even used to go quite regularly when Cheltenham were away and I couldn't make the game. However, within months of Vince taking over it was obvious that they were going to be financially doped to the eyeballs and completely unsustainable going forward. Yes, they eventually did get promoted, but at what cost? Yes, their ecological methods are great, but they're effectively an advertisement. They've deserted a lot of their core fan base and their new glory hunting fans are completely unbearable.

[nmrfox]

Leeds United. Liked them in the Revie years with their up yours attitude to all and sundry and the numbers on their socks. Got a broken nose and lost 3 teeth thanks to Leeds fans in the 90's and have disliked the team every since.

[1974ddr]

Manchester City. 'Liked' may be stretching it a bit, 'had a vague soft spot for' is probably closer to the mark. Bell, Young and Coleman. Great kit. Barnes, Tueart and Hartford. Malcolm Allison spending extravagant sums on average players. White, Lake, Brightwell and Hinchcliffe. Keith Curle 'accidentally' catching the ball to give us a penalty (when we were neck and neck with United for the title). Ugo Ehiogu diving full length to punch the ball in for a vital relegation-avoiding win. John Burridge going berserk when the officials proved to be the only people in the stadium who didn't see it. The wilderness years. Kinkladze. Like Villa, a big club from a big city bumbling along without achieving much.
Then along come the Arabs from Abu Dhabi, suddenly Manchester City have all the money in the world and a shiny new all-seater stadium pretty much given to them at the taxpayers' expense. The end of the romance.
Now if you'd asked for a list of teams that I've always detested...

[DCI Harry Batt]

I didn't mind Man City as a youngster yeah. Absolutely detest them now.

[Third rate Leszno]

I used to hate Liverpool with a passion because of the glory hunting fans I went to school with in the 70s-80s and because I have a natural tendency to favour the underdog. I still hated Liverpool when I got posted here in my first civil service job in 1990 (to the great amusement of my mates) and nearly screamed the roof off my flat in Bootle when Palace did them in that 1990 4-3 cup semi.

Then I met the future Mrs TrL and after a while, took up the offer of joining her at Anfield for the occasional game. Took me a few years to actually warm to them, but by 2001 I'm there in Dortmund at the UEFA cup final living every moment and cheering myself daft.

Moving in the opposite direction in my affections would be Man City, who I used to be quite fond of when they were shit. I had a mate who supported them and used to go over to Maine Road and stand on the Kippax with him sometimes. New money City I became indifferent to, and Guardiola era City have become a team I actively dislike (for all their brilliance). He just acts like a knob far too often.

Other clubs that have yo-yoed in my affections have been the likes of Burnley, Blackpool, Bradford - from being strongly disliked (even hated) rivals of Carlisle in the bottom division, I ended up wanting them to do well in the Premier league because of my love of the underdog.

[Bored Of Education]

Leeds United - supported them as a kid and had a residual affection for them for quite a while after. However, then came the match against Cardiff in the FA cup 2002 that I have talked about in the Desert Island Discs thread and the surrounding bullshit (not least the Bowyer/Woodgate stuff) and any residual liking had gone. To be fair, as classless as the club and supporters were then, Cardiff only seemed more moral in comparison to them. As it happens, I have enough Leeds supporting mates now that I was quite pleased to see them promoted but am not completely convinced by their current popularity.

Cardiff City - obviously a very particular case and not one, I think, that needs explaining.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Like Satchmo in the OP I wanted Man U to win the Tommy Doc cup finals but hate them with a passion now. Macari, Holton, Buchan, McQueen, Jordan, Albiston... made it easy to like them from a Scottish perspective too.

I guess there's a pattern as both Chelsea and Man C got some sympathy from me when they were yo-yo clubs and had some stylish players (Nevin, McAllister...) but now I probably hate Chelsea most of all.

I went to Catholic primary schools in Scotland so was brought up 'Celtic-minded' (and my Dad was a tv Celtic fan) but it didn't take much attendance at matches to start hating them almost as much as the blue ones. I always want them to lose -even wanted Hearts to do it to them on sunday, despite what they tried to do to us last summer.

Never liked Villa, Bayern, Juve, Liverpool, England...

[kokamoa]

Liverpool

when I started following football in the mid-80s, I very quickly grew tired of both their ubiquity and the way in which the whole magic/mystique of the Kop, This is Anfield, the Boot Room and all the rest of it was talked up as though your own team’s footballing experience was completely worthless and meaningless when set against this legendary Scouse setting of what football meant. When Everton were duking it out with them, the word, “Merseyside” was pretty much designed to get my 10 year old slapping hand twitching. It reached unbearable levels when the BBC’s Goal of the Season competition in 1987/88 comprised nothing but Liverpool goals. Hillsborough was almost an inevitable end point for all of this. As horrific, illegal, and disgraceful as it was, I couldn’t help feeling back then, “Oh of course it had to happen to THEM, didn’t it!” - It shouldn’t have happened to anybody, obviously- but Arsenal denying them the title in ‘89, along with Wimbledon’s cup win the previous year, was one of the most cherished results I’ve ever celebrated which had nothing to do with my own team (Ipswich, so you can see why I was jealous in the mid/late 80s).

Then they became crap, Man Utd dominated (though I never felt quite so irritated by them because the Old Trafford experience was never held up as something “other” in the way that the Anfield experience had been) and now I have time for them because Klopp seems like a human being rather than a machine.

[Jah Womble]

Yep, agree with the ‘Chelsea’ suggestion. When you felt that they had to fight to achieve, there were players there to admire - those proffered above by Felicity, plus some of the team from the early seventies.

However, it’s hard to have much time for a club whose owner has had such a corrosive effect on the game - and even harder to respect the same club’s public ‘rewarding’ of a player’s abhorrent racist behaviour.

[Sporting]

I got tired very soon of the whole "friendly scouser" line. They are no more or less friendly than people in other parts of the country and to be honest the atmosphere in Stanley Park and elsewhere before and after Liverpool home games could be very nasty, helped not in the least by some scum policing.