full disclosure: in which we admit our biases

Support: Celtic.
Follower of Sampdoria and Universidad de Chile.
Sympathiser of Barcelona, since Henrik signed.

also we can go further than just listing, e.g.

sampdoria. my genovese great grandfather enrico causa supported sampdoria from their foundation in 1946. i don't know who he supported before that, presumably one of the two teams that formed the club. he died 6 months before they won the scudetto for the first and only time in 1991. they have had some great teams, have an amazing strip and logo, and are not at all hard to love. for these reasons i follow them.

are there any rangers supporters on ilx?

merdeyeux, iirc

continental philosophy loval.

he's actually described, quite apologetically, his reasons.

LOYAL even fucking hell.

FC St Pauli looks like home games would be a blast
actually get to go to FC Dallas games but I'd jump ship in a heartbeat to Portland
Liverpool are kinda owned by the Red Sox
Barca, but they start out with too much money in FIFA 11.

oh yeah i like pauli because of the celtic connection. only real connection celtic has imo (groups and individuals may, and do, have their different connections).

oh aye and in england i've turncoated from newcastle to sunderland.

srsly dislike or despise stoke, rangers, birmingham, red star belgrade, real madrid racing santander, sheffield utd (apols caek), juventus, benfica, chelsea, west ham, millwall, getafe, zenit st petersburg

mildly enthusiastic about football in general

do you actually no follow any cunt, really?

yah i guess i sympathize fairly strongly with barcelona, tho i think it's pretty shameful that anyone would actively support them

Supporter: Spurs

Could have gone either way between Spurs / Arsenal. I grew up in Highbury, went to primary school opposite the stadium and have two Arsenal-supporting parents, including one who started following them when he was still living in Trinidad. Mother's side of the family is straight Spurs, though, and i always sympathised with their philosophy of losing elegantly.

Follower: CSKA Moscow, St Pauli, Shakhtar Donetsk

Started out with mild pro-Spartak leanings but ex-girlfriend was a CSKA fanatic and beat them out of me. St Pauli for the same romantic political reasons as everyone else. Shakhtar because they've been a joy to watch for the last couple of years and various things have led me to be less favourably disposed to Dinamo Kyiv in the post Rebrov / Shevchenko era.

Sympathiser: AC Ajaccio,

Pretty much just because French pop star Alize was there mascot for a while.

*their mascot*

xp. you aesthete ye. would never have followed football if it wasn't for celtic.

alize otm

Rabid unreasonable fan: Wolves
Scottish team: Celtic (loved the kit when i was small then got hardened by my dad's inexplicable but horrible sectarianism)
Irrational unshakeable love: Barcelona but Tiki-taka as a concept beyond that
Exterminate the brutes: Birmingham City, Real Madrid (Everton at one time but married an Evertonian plus endlessly amused by Moyes)
Contrarian delight: the Man City project, not when they was some shit indie no-hopers
Greatest footballer ever in my head: Tino Asprilla, marginally ahead of Steve Bull
Who bombed Old Trafford?: Uwe Rossler's grandad did iirc
First kit owned: that Liverpool Hitachi one, long story but I think the 77 European Cup Final is the first game i have serious coherent memories of
He's fat, he's round, his arse drags on the ground: Sammy Lee. Sammy Lee.

don't have any, tbh. Will happily criticise any team/player.

Thudd?

lol at darragh.

srsly, i'm a clean slate every time

just fucking come out with it ya gobshite ye.

big Rafa Benitez stan iirc

? I'd be all for rafa the first day he wasn't a malicious chancer tbh

i'm actually interested in whether he has a league of ireland fancy (bohs all the way btw).

oh i've got a Cork City shirt a friend gave me but i mainly love it cos lol Cork

what is the least racist team in the league of ireland so we can make them ilx cause célebres

not sure what the least racist english team is tho

ya bohs tbh but not really an ardent follower tbh

least racist french team probably psg cuz the difft ethnic hatreds balance out

yas, ilx bohs supporters, let's do it.

haha, psg is amazing, nationalists vs blacks and arabs = dead racist = absolute mayhem.

iirc there's another hun or two, but I guess not anyone who posts regularly these days. My story there is that it's a family thing, mostly - not just the fact that my brothers would disown me (srsly), but that it's pretty much the sole social connection between us. Not to say it's all for show, I still have remnants of the genuine affection I was indoctrinated with, but it can be hard to remember that when it's put up against everything else that being A Rangers Fan means.

Besides that I generally get behind Arsenal for the reasons I think nakh has suggested make them appealing - good to watch and lots of drama and ups and downs to keep you interested before you can quietly step back and join in the lols come the closing weeks of the season. I think for the most part, though, I have too much sympathy to really cut it as a 1st class partisan football fan. All too easy to find worth in everyone and wishy washily wish them all the best of luck and be inevitably disappointed when only one team wins. As is de rigueur, aestheticism is generally the factor that will sway me in any particular direction, be it footballing (Barcelona obv, anyone-but-Stoke obv), sartorial (Fiorentina, Croatia) or personal (Zanetti, Berbatov).

HUN BASTARD.

rofl

some of my best friends are HUN BASTARDS.

'Support': Liverpool. Goes in inverted commas because claiming to support anyone feels a bit embarrassing when faced with one-eyed, ranting, partisans. Mostly, when faced with these, I withdraw and pose as an effete, bookish type and so get classed as uninterested, but it beats trying to talk about it. I put this down to growing up surrounded by friends like that and never being that sort of kid myself, it was kind of an uncomfortable existence sometimes, especially finding oneself periodically the target of abuse for being a secret X sympathiser when things went wrong. Dunno if this is a universal or not.

I do like Liverpool most though & always have, even if it took many years to realise it - I read something by Simon Kuper saying he always thought he was a proper neutral 'til one day it occurred that he always looked for the Ajax result first, spent huge amounts of time reading about them, always wanted their opponents to lose, etc. It's a bit like that. My heartbreak at the human failings of the spice boys can be explained no other way. It goes back much longer though, I remember any number of Dalglish moments, being gutted Juventus won at Heysel (I was only eight), numbed by Michael Thomas, and so on.

I also like the fan culture, though when it gets down to the one-eyed types it's as unattractive as anywhere else, maybe more so because there's more to be unattractive about.

Other sides: disadvantage of being unpartisan is that I have some liking for most teams. Still hate Birmingham, mostly hate Newcastle, did hate Chelsea but they're winning me over.

Scottish football: officially no view, due to embarrassment at the whole affair. I did like Dundee United as a nipper, then Motherwell, and retain an affection there. Secret sympathies for Celtic in a European context mostly, maybe because with them it's easier to pretend the horrible side of it doesn't exist. That is one whiny culture though, makes Liverpool fans look stoic in comparison.

Foreigns: jeez, nearly everybody. My internal world's forever been enriched by Milan, Real, Red Star, how could I pick just one? Apart from Bohs obviously. As with everything else, this is subject to personality & whim, so Real were villains this year ('cept not really).

Secret hate: little foreign teams punching above their weight. Piss off Chievo, Villarreal or Braga, when I could be glorying in a giant instead.

Secret greatest pleasure: the death of a giant. Juve, River Plate, Leeds, doesn't matter; I'll be having the time of my life.

Support: PSV. Probably 95% percent of the young boys and girls in this country are brainwashed via water and chemtrails to support Ajax. I was the one who got away and rid my genes of the arrogance filth, and found refuge with PSV. Of the traditional big three (Ajax, PSV and lol-Feyenoord (who've already been replaced by Twente in the big three tbh) PSV is most friendly, also most shamefully provincial and smdh-inducing in odd board decisions but also the most clever, almost farmer's luck, with Hiddink (who's named as Ajax' next director, smdh) etc.

Support/most sympathy: Heerenveen. Local club that made it big. Will never win the league, will never do great European, but will also never relegate again. Friendliest, most rural club there is.

England: The Ongoing Utopia that is Arsenal. Team that comes closest to being a Mark Rothko or Barnett Newman painting, in it's effort to become one flowing organism of euphoric and zen-like perfection, yet somehow always manage to end up like a Pollock, or worse, Francis Bacon. In theory the best club ever, but it never materializes. There aim of how to play football unrealistically high given their quality, but I without any sarcasm I praise them for dreaming on and keep trying every year.

Scotland: Celtic, always has been. But to be honest, the competition is so very dull that at the end of the season I only end up looking if either Rangers or Celtic won the league and go "hey whaddyaknow only a gap of two points between them this year, and 30 points with the rest, interrrstinggg zzzz"

Aesthetic, uncontrollable love: Barcelona. Ever since I went there on holiday when wee, doing the stadium tour, dad was a fan etc. Best team I've ever seen play in real life too, last couple of years. No contest. If you love football you cannot deny this. End of story.

Secret joy and support: Saint-Etienne. Their end of the 70s game was unearthly (Santini, Platini, Rep etc). Losing to Bayern in the EC final in 1976. Destroying PSV in the EC1 in 1979 with 6-0 with godlike football. Still have that match on my pc somewhere. Fantastic kit then, too. Always pray they do well, even though I don't follow them closely anymore.

Destroy/exterminate/kill: Real Madrid for being Franco fascists even though I know they aren't hardcore like that anymore and I acknowledge how childish this viewpoint is but it brings me lols all the same, so fuiud. AS Roma for existing merely for the glorification of fucking Totti's massive ego. And obv Ajax. Their past is brilliant, great football, will never deny that and enjoy seeing it and acknowledge it's significance. Now though it's just a bunch of arrogant fucking pricks that have been leeching off that success for decades. Ajax is the smug bastard you, after years of being subjected to their ridiculous bullshit and fakery, really want to punch in the face.

Most lol-worthy: ManCity. Parody of a football club. I secretly think the people running this club fire up Football Manager every morning and base all their decisions on this. With overusing the editor for cheating lolz and shopping sprees.

Support: Manchester Utd. Basically everyone in my primary school supported Liverpool apart from my best friend. He informed me that Utd was the way to go, so that was that.
Finn Harps. Nearest League of Ireland team to where i grew up. Still have fond memories of Jonathan Speak's goalscoring exploits.
Ireland (with attendant overrating of Shay Given's abilities)
Cristiano Ronaldo. I can't help it, the magnificent bastard.

Dislike: Don't think i'll ever hate a team as much as i did Arsenal in the late '90s/early '00s. Great days. Mourinho's Chelsea did come close, and John Terry's penalty miss remains my greatest moment of footballing schadenfreude.
Carlos Tevez
England. In a typically cliched and hypocritical Irish manner.
Juventus. Just always hated em.
Celtic/Rangers. Being from Donegal, i grew up hearing a lot of tedious sectarian shit about these two. Put me off Scottish football for life.

Oh yeah, Wayne Rooney. I'm in favour of him.

Support:Liverpool. Am not entirely rational on the subject.

Support/Most Sympathy: This has to do with players rather than clubs tbh. Hence when Laudrup played for them I rooted for Rangers and when Larsson played for them I rooted for Celtic. And so on - Juve when Zizou was there, Madrid when Zizou/McManaman were there etc etc. Guess I'm an unabashed star follower.

Destroy/Exterminate/Kill: Man Utd(obv) but I always kinda loved Cantona tbh and Ferdinand is the only one of the current team I outright loathe, well Nani too I guess. Starting to really dislike Arsenal now as well and I loved them during the Bergkamp era.

supporter: liverpool. older brother is a liverpool fan so i seemed to latch on to liverpool (i think i may have been 9 or so) despite having no real interest in football (besides the WC) until i was 13 (1990), so i missed all the glory years of the 80's. two other brothers are spurs fans. oh yeah republic of ireland team ofc as well.

team i always kinda like for reasons im unsure of: aston villa

hate: man united, chelsea, england

scottish football: Hibs (dont care about scottish football really though)

follower: deportivo toluca (mex)

sympathiser: barcelona, juventus

I'm a Sellick man through and thorugh obv but other sympathies include...
Greenock Morton - local team innit. Most of my family support them. First team I ever went to see. First ever brush with football hooliganism when I was about 7 and my Dad had to take me home and explain my black eye to my mum after I was attacked by a jambo cunt.
Slight soft spot for Hibs as a friend supports them and I have family in Leith and they mostly have an attacking attractive footballing philosophy (that their keepers and centre hoffs fuck up for them on a regular basis)
Charlton Athletic - used to live in SE London and it was them or Millwall. Great times when they won that marathon penalty shoot-out against Sunderland in the 98 play-offs.
Welling United - first and only non-league English game. Fans changed ends at half time.
AC Milan - mostly because they were my team in Sensible Soccer (Papin/Van Basten era) though I once traitorously owned a nice Inter away top.
Hate Rangers, Hearts (see first brush with hooliganism. dirty cunts), Kilmarnock, Dundee, most other SPL teams.
Love to watch Barcelona but my love diminishes with every passing trophy and them unnecessarily being a bunch of cynical gaming cunts.
English premier league...hmmm this is tough - I grew up "supporting" Man U as everyone at school chose them or Liverpool but I loved the great Forest team in the late 70s and couldn't help but admire Liverpool for most of the rest of my childhood/youth. I have lots of Liverpool supporting friends and I ended up favouring them as a result and because I didn't actually have an affection for Utd. These days I mostly like to watch whoever is playing attractive football i.e. Arsenal & Spurs but don't really support anyone - it's mostly about the lolz & stupid money & eternally waiting for the bubble to burst.

Oh and I like Wolves but always want them to be struggling for survival as Noodle Vague cracks me up with his despair.

I think ILF has shaped my views on a lot of teams. I find myself rooting for teams I shouldn't give a shit about so I can see the reactions here.

Mick has promised us a top half finish this season so obviously i will be much more chill.

I think ILF has shaped my views on a lot of teams. I find myself rooting for teams I shouldn't give a shit about so I can see the reactions here.

― a million anons (onimo), Saturday, July 30, 2011 1:55 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

THIS x 1000!

yeah when i have friends who like a side i tend to reevaluate. even know a couple of likeable Leeds fans

Yeah it's true, this place is having an influence. Pete has certainly humanised Chelsea for me, and unhappily he's now working on humanising the players as individuals. I don't know what we're going to do if some charming Real Madrid, Birmingham or Rangers fans show up.

bun dem

think you've just inadvertently called 3 or 4 posters on this thread "not charming" btw

I don't know what we're going to do if some charming Real Madrid, Birmingham or Rangers fans show up.

We don't have 51 ILF users - I think we need mods to lower the threshold for this board.

Hm yes, sorry 'bout that, I got confused by trying to imagine what a group of witty, urbane bluenoses would be like.

Celtic. Before that it was Inverness Thistle, their demise ensuring Inverness Caley Thistle's place at the top of the shitlist alongside Rangers and their evil cousins from Tynecastle. Spent many a Saturday trudging round the parks of the Highland League with my dad, forged my childhood obsession with football in a way that telly never could. Retain small smidge of affection for Ross County as my dad used to play for them (he also played for Caley, Clach, and Nairn County, but I don't give a shit about them, especially not bastarding Caley). Completely capable of forgetting to hate Rangers and Hearts players when they're playing for Scotland, probably most Scotland-stannish of all my mates.

Mostly just like watching English games without giving a shit about the result, but I do quite like seeing bad things happen to Liverpool because my brother supports them with a complete vacuum where his sense of perspective used to be, and seeing him cross and fuming is a great big-sisterly not.

I like St Pauli for the same fuzzy goodwill reason as everyone else, but have never actually ever seen them play. Total Barca stan, could watch Messi and Xavi forever.

Dunno what that 'not' was meant to be, stupid predictive text.

favourite Fifa team is that mid-90s Parma side with Brolin and Tino and Dino Baggio et al

o btw, I'm moving to Hackey/Lower Clapton soon - I don't know anything about London footballing geography, so who should I be supporting?

Where are you all from? Just being nosey.

grew up in the West Midlands/Staffordshire, lived in Hull since 1987

limerick, ireland

Inverness, hence childhood Highland League nonsense and also thus being allowed a 'big team' in the proper league. Thankfully I picked wisely, unlike my mates that ended up supporting Aberdeen.

Glasgow

Thinking about it some more, my likes probably boil down to whatever coverage I could find growing up in the mid-eighties, which means the European competitions, FA cup replays on dark Wednesday nights with the transistor radio under the blankets, and running home at lunchtime to hear the FA Cup draw on Gloria Hunniford's show. Hence various degrees of affection for Brighton, Coventry, IFK Gothenburg and other teams I never see.

On the other hand, sides who've become successful since that moment are hated, no matter how much history they had beforehand - Bolton, Chelsea, Newcastle, Lyon, CSKA Moscow; it's a long list of johnny-come-lateleys.

I should have mentioned Brighton in my supports list, being as they're the team I've actually watched live in the flesh the most. Had a season ticket from the ages of 11-14 and went to quite a few away games as well. Despite this active fandom, their result never meant as much to me as whatever result LFC got the same day. Having said that I'm dead glad they went up and might even go to a few games in their brand spanking new stadium, finances permitting.

o btw, I'm moving to Hackey/Lower Clapton soon - I don't know anything about London footballing geography, so who should I be supporting?

Leyton Orient might be closest if you're in Lower Clapton. Tottenham and Arsenal are approximately the same sort of distance away.

Hammers too, especially if they move.

supporting a Big Sam team would be one way to drill the passive aesthete out of me, certainly.

You have passive designs on aesthetics and you support Rangers? How passive *is* it?

:-)

Lee McCulloch is a beautiful man.

You've taken that too far.

really I just pretend that Laudrup is still on the field somewhere and bemoan the fact that no one will pass to him.

Support: Rangers. Because I arrived in Scotland at 3 in a row, and the Scotland I arrived in was Helensburgh, where Catholics were shipped out of town for education, so I didn't meet an actual Celtic fan until 1996. Don't post on the spl thread because it's v much a Sellick shop and I've given up fighting on the internet.

Also support: Liverpool. Because Ian Rush.

Soft spot for: Fiorentina, primarily for Batistuta and the short and glorious tenure of Edmundo.

Hate: Dennis Irwin.

Love forever: Albertz, Gattuso, Bergkamp, Le Tiss.

That's the best 'hate' you've got?

didn't know IK was glaswegian

~revelations~

SPL thread only a Celtic shop because no-one else posts on it. Except for the Hibs fan and the Raith fan and the Rangers fan, obv.

yeah I keep it quiet, it's not nice to boast

How the hell can anyone hate Denis Irwin?

Motherfucker scored a hat trick agst my Liverpool side in a champ man FA cup final.

didn't know IK was glaswegian
~revelations~

That really *is* a revelation. IK - you haven't mentioned Scottish football?

denis irwin was one of my favourite players when i was a kid

I mention the national side from time to time. Mostly I avoid the subject though, with anyone who actually cares about it we'll just be talking at cross-purposes. Societally it's caused the place to get frozen at about the worst possible moment imo (not alone, but it's a horribly visible manifestation).

Also, it's terrible.

Support: Chicago Fire, was part of the reason I moved to this city.
Hate: All other MLS clubs, especially New England, Columbus, and Seattle.
Sympathizer: My Mexican club was UNAM Pumas before my first brush with hooliganism involved their fans, I've since decamped to Pachuca. Also clubs with USA internationals. I know it's not vogue but I like keeping up with who is where and being successful. Fulham has been a favorite due to Deuce, McBride, Bocanegra, & Keller. I like that Stu Holden is making a name for himself w/ Bolton. Watched basically every game for Everton while Donovan was with them.
Can't stand: American Liverpool fans, and in general pretty much all American fans of EPL/Spanish clubs to the exclusion of MLS clubs.
Wish I could watch more: Bundesliga. Seems like the best big league on balance. Right mix of quality, fan support, parity, etc.

Pumas are like the Man Yoo of Mexico, every second mexican person supports them. nice jerseys though.

except that chivas and america are both more popular than them

yeah I know way way way more america and chivas fans than any other team, although there is a sizable monarcas morelia following in chicago

forgot to put Gattuso in my "i will always love you" column

Support: Arsenal. Flitted through a number of clubs as a child until landing on the arse after Tony Adams broke Steve Morrow's arm in '93. Found myself committed after going to my first game - which was my first ever football match - in 1995 (Liverpool 0-1).

Fondness for: Any side I've ever lived near, seen on more than one occasion in person or been close friends with an active supporter of*. This includes Bristol Rovers and City, Yeovil Town, QPR, Brighton, Hibs and DC United. Of these the only one whose results I have consistently looked out for are the R's. Oh and any side that Ian Holloway happens to be the manager of probably qualifies here as well.

Venomous loathing for: Teddy Sheringham, Harry Redknapp, Ashley Cole, John Terry, Nic Anelka, Rio Ferdinand, Adebayour. Until recently I would have said Chelsea as a whole, but this was tempered somewhat by their mid-season collapse. Now prepared to occasionally play as them on FIFA.

Strong dislike for: England and pretty much anyone that's turned out for them in the last six years; all Italian sides; Cardiff; Sir Alex and co; obliged to include Spurs here as well; Fat Sam and any side he happens to be managing.

Lol when they do badly: Liverpool, Newcastle. (standard).

I hope he does well: Modric, Woy, Everton.

Can't think of anything else atm but I'm sure I will later.

thread delivers tbh.

I will prob write a proper entry sometime, but basically it's always in flux depending on regime, current manager, style of play, players, disconnect from reality of supporters i react with and whether or not they have one of those centre halves that perpetually escape justice.

The latter two are disproportionately important to me, for some reason.

My heart isn't locked down with Liverpool, tbh, Arsenal is enticing. London, Arsene Wenger seems cool, seem to be the least English of the English clubs...

the most annoying American soccer fan I know (grew up with me in Texas, sounded like a member of the Cockney Rejects throughout high-school, is now a left-wing evangelica Christian skinhead in NYC) constantly posts about being a Gooner, so that's a big negative mark.

Ok

Support Arsenal

Worship Arsene

Clubs that I 'follow' and I like: Fiorentina, Dortmund, Reading, Villareal, Croatia...

Players I like to the point of wanting to see their team do well: Ozil, most of the Bayern team, Pastore, Thiago Silva, a few at Wigan, Suarez, the Porto team, Modric, Silva and Yaya, Gattuso and Ambrosini. I can see Bojan being a player I really root for in the future. Eboue, Zlatan.

Teams I despise: Fergie's Utd, 'more than a club' Barcelona even if Messi is God, Lazio, Birmingham, Juve, Brazil, Everton

Teams that I feel I should hate but kind of don't: Spurs, Real, AC Milan, Stoke

I feel like the more I hear about individuals involved in clubs, usually as owners, the more I despise them and the game but enjoy the game too much to want to find out that every club is owned by some horrible character I can't abide. Venkys bring the lols though.

Players I dont like not necessarily because of how they play: Cashley, Xavi, Xabi Alonso (god knows why), Diarra, Kaka, Robbie Keane, Lescott, Drogba, Gomes
Players I hate because of how they play: Anyone at Stoke not called Etherington or Kitson, Rooney

Type of tactic I love the most: that strong, quick counter attacking that goes through a smart, on the ground playmaker type, as if Riquelme or Modric was in the Madrid team instead of Xabi Alonso playing his Hollywood cross field passes.

Type of tactic I love the most: that strong, quick counter attacking that goes through a smart, on the ground playmaker type

Sounds like Fergie's Utd for a sizeable chunk of the last 20 years.

have to say, they can't do fuck all against a team sitting back but if you try to play them even rooney looks the business on that type of counter

Aye I know MOTD made it something of a cliche but they really are (were, depending on transfers) a dangerous team to win a corner against.

There can't really be much difference between "Fergie's Utd" and "Utd" for most on here i'd imagine

Heh, yes. I came to consciousness just early enough to have known them when they were what Liverpool are now, which is probably why I don't hate them.

I'm very interested in the eventual Mourinho's Utd tbh

Well I don't think I would have had as much an issue with the Utd of the 60s and 70s but Ferguson and oh so many of his signings are repellent characters.

If Veron was able to settle better and then gel with an upcoming Ronaldo, I think I'd prefer watching them to tiki taka

What if they'd gotten Ronaldinho the same summer they passed Veron off on newly rich Chelsea?

Wouldn't have signed Ronaldo then. Swings and roundabouts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUksQSAicrc

Support: Manchester United (as explained on at least one other thread, because my Dad has supported them since the 1950s)

Also support: FC United (see also umpteen threads, especially from six years ago)

This support is now entirely armchair-based since I became a dad three years ago, partly because of a lack of money, partly because of a lack of free time, partly because I've taken up cycling as my main hobby and this uses up what little free time I have got, and partly because both these teams are inconveniently located nearly two hundred miles away so any trip to see a match requires substantial planning and sacrifices. In theory I would still go to watch an away game in London if I could get a ticket, but for MUFC this is incredibly difficult to sort out (unless you have money to burn) and for FCUM this is incredibly unlikely to happen. Last season both things nearly came off in quick succession: I got hold of a ticket for the away game at Upton Park in the League Cup, but ended up driving through the snow to take my daughter to A&E instead (missing a hapless 4-0 defeat); and FC United improbably made it through to the FA Cup 2nd round down in Brighton, only for Brighton to severely limit the FC allocation and go to extraordinary lengths to stop people getting tickets in any other part of the ground (based on misguided fears of hooliganism).

Have also supported (or 'supported'):

Harlow Town - my local non-league team until we moved house when I was 16. I went to maybe 20 matches in the 80s, nearly all depressingly poorly attended ('crowds' of about 30-40 people) and low quality football against nowheresville teams. There is nothing romantic about this - I used to wish my town had a more popular team. I went back there a couple of times a few years ago (after a gap of about 17 years): the crowds were bigger (about 200), but the football was still dire.

York City - my local team when I was at university. They got promoted in the play-offs in 1993 and I was part of an end of season pitch invasion (not at Wembley, at Bootham Crescent for the semi victory).

There are also various clubs that I generally like, or rather want to do well, for no real particular reason. Spurs, Sheffield United, Brighton, Crystal Palace, maybe some others I've forgotten. Possibly Ipswich and Norwich. This has nothing to do with the personnel at the clubs and in most cases only extends to being slightly pleased when seeing that they've won a match.

Then there are clubs that I like because they've fallen on hard times (Luton at the moment). This tends to be a more temporary thing. I had a lot of sympathy for Charlton when they were away from The Valley, but found them a bit boring once they'd become a steady Prem club under Curbishley. I felt sorry for Wolves when they sank down from the first to the fourth division in the space of about five years, and watched out for their stalled rise back up again, but they don't mean anything much to me now.

yeah i think a lot of us drift into and out of love with the narratives at different clubs

yeah, i could see myself getting behind liverpool this year tbh, if the footy's alright

^ Unthinkable

not at all.

the #1 factor in my interest in secondary clubs is style of play, closely followed by personnel. i like dalglish, and i'm very interested in how a wing-based formation is gonna work out there next year.

tbh, if utd can turn out like the second half of the charity shield, i'll cheer them to the title and all

yeah, i could see myself getting behind liverpool this year tbh, if the footy's alright

― 10/11 of a dead jesus (darraghmac), Wednesday, August 10, 2011 8:15 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark

Don't worry Darragh, it won't be.

What are you expecting, exactly? I've not got a clue.

I'm expecting Carragher to be hitting long diagonals to Andy Carroll in the 12 games he actually plays this season in between being injured. Expecting Downing to be good and Suarez to be Suarez. Hopefully it's all Fulham away last year but fear it'll be closer to Braga at home.

i'm expecting it to go through the middle until it's spread out to downing or w/e to zing one in, which is my kind of footy tbh

Hoping for a mix of 3rd goal at Wolves and 1st half of Fulham away. Pre-season's told us nothing. Thought Valencia would give us more of an idea but we seemed to play for 10 mins and then defend the penalty area for the rest.

Anyway, while I'm here, er, support Liverpool due to some fascination with Steve McManaman during Euro 96. That's about it really.

But this is probably me trying to suck all hope and expectation out of myself in preparation for the new season tbh. Was thinking that smthg like this cd be interesting

Reina

Kelly Carra Agger Johnson

Lucas

Gerrard

Kuyt/Suarez Aquilani Downing

Carroll/Suarez

I thought you were an urchin roaming the alleys round Anfield?

Ha the formatting was fucked there. Meant to be a 4-2-3-1 with one of the 2 mids being slightly deeper than the other.

Chris, that is

really quite concerned that Dalglish is gonna inexplicably waste then ruin Suarez this season

i don't think so? he wasn't last season at any rate

more concerned about meireles in that regard

xpost

he hadn't got 35 midfield options or a functioning Carroll for most of last season

I thought you were an urchin roaming the alleys round Anfield?

Did I say that?

Anyway back to full disclosure. Teams I follow (support is too strong a word) in other leagues.
Germany - Borussia Monchengladbach
Italy - Juventus (for del piero and zizou)
France - Sochaux
Holland - Ajax

I doubt it Chris, I'd just pictured you that way, offering to watch people's motors an that.

Support: Leeds (I started watching EPL in '98, gimme a break), USA

Loathe: Real, Lazio, Cardiff, Chelsea, Galatasaray, Portsmouth

Much of my interest in a game is situational and much of it is simply who I more want to lose than to win.

I genuinely like Man U's style of play but I can't think of many times I didn't want them to lose. I have a fondness for Liverpool but I'll always root for Everton if they're playing each other. Like many Americans, I've been watching and rooting for Fulham because of the Americans playing there (and I do like their spirit). I find Arsenal to be a mixture of amazing and frustrating but whether I want them to lose depends on who they're playing and in what competition. I have a soft spot for Tottenham (several Spurs friends). By default I guess I'm a Chivas fan (several Guadalajaran friends), a Fiorentina fan, and a Hearts fan. I don't really care much about the Bundesliga but I will almost always root against Bayern Munich - I guess I'm perhaps partial to Schalke. I don't really follow the MLS but I suppose I'd have to say I'm a Quakes fan. I've seen them play at least. I don't have a French team, oddly enough but I can tell you it will never be PSG or OM and I like it when Lens or some dinky provincial team from bumfuck France does well. For a long while, I liked England but I've given up on them for some time now. I can't root against France but I was pretty amused when they lost to Senegal in '02 and the nat'l team I probably loathe most is Italy even though I rather like the country; their style is often maddeningly dull to watch.

pandemic no start for Meireles?

Italian football's not dull, it's just strictly for the connoisseur

easy claim to make about dull shit imo

lol - xposts IK

Oh, I also look out for Tranmere's scores, I like watching Arsenal, and I love Roberto Martinez and want Wigan to do well.

And Germany are lovely.

xxp

everyone shd cultivate a pure enjoyment of stillness and emptiness and the spirit of the Tao imo.

also 6th century defensive brutality

i try, god help me i try, but sex keeps getting in the way

ah well wait til y're married then

The whole spirit of the Azzurri is too defensive w/quick breaks (I remember one game where I had started and subsequently stopped counting all the off-sides given as Italy tried to sneak a ball past the defenders). I just find it hard to watch. I'm not saying I haven't seen some good games (epic one against Germany in '06) but I think the '02 WC when some team fired their Korean player for helping put Italy out was just the last straw where Calcio is concerned for me.

'02 WC when some team fired their Korean player for helping put Italy out

Perugia, IIRC.

ah well wait til y're married then

― i'm sorry for whatever (Noodle Vague),

easy claim to make about dull shit imo

― 10/11 of a dead jesus (darraghmac)

dude you've been suited up at that many wedding the past 12 months this must only be a question of time

btw your display name is from Fist of Fun yes?

I've said this before, but I'm not a big fan of cagey, defensive, probing, slow-slow-slow-slow-slow-slow-slow-slow-QUICK, 'intelligent' football, I prefer crazed end-to-end attacking. There's a cliche that the Italian idea of the perfect game of football is a 0-0 draw, for me it's a 4-3 win. I find Italian football difficult to enjoy. That said, the first year I live there (the 98/99 season, just outside Milan) I went to three matches and saw three goalfests: Lazio scored 5 at Inter who got 1 or 2 themselves, then Inter scored five against...er...Cagliari (?) (who also got at least one, I think), then Milan beat Sampdoria 3-2 (I think) on their way to the title.

1-0 is the perfect score and everything else is bad football tbh

dude you've been suited up at that many wedding the past 12 months this must only be a question of time

get back loretta.

my dn is just a ref to my recently changed age status tbh, don't think i picked it up from anywhere

pandemic no start for Meireles?

― publier les (suggest) bans de (Michael White), Wednesday, August 10, 2011 9:42 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark

Now that you mention it could have Gerrard off the main striker instead of Aquilani, and Meireles in centre mid with Lucas. I'd be happy with that. We have so many central midfielders I forgot about Raul M which is shameful considering he was our best player for large periods of the season.

                       Reina
Kelly         Skrtel           Agger       Johnson
                     Lucas, I guess, though he's now overpraised
                     
Gerrard             Meireles                Downing
 
               Suarez
                             Carroll

could watch that team, and could see it doing very well

I'd be happy with that.

Looks like Enrique might be in soon, so stick him at LB and move Johnson to RB.

yeah true

Everton. DNA is a double helix of toffee and, er, them chewy mints.

All other clubs seem vaguely laughable, except Liverpool, who I fear and hate. Buy - hey! - some of my best friends are Liverpool fans. Which I find confusing.

Keep an eye out for Tranmere and Exeter results but only really in a "oh good, Baghdatis made the quarters in Gstaad" kind of way.

Keep an eye out for Tranmere and Exeter results but only really in a "oh good, Baghdatis made the quarters in Gstaad" kind of way.

― Michael Jones, Wednesday, August 10, 2011 11:06 PM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark

Lol. Yeah I have a number of teams I watch out for in much the same way.

Italian football's not dull, it's just strictly for the connoisseur

― i'm sorry for whatever (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 10 August 2011 22:44 (Yesterday)

BOMBS OF TRUTH

no, that's the mythical golden challipce tbh

parents met on the cop so, you know, cut me and i bleed red blood. not too bothered about anyone else though obv hate man u and everton.

cop = kop obv. blimey, what happened there?

o_O

iphone autocorek?

not a true skouser

Liverpool too. Growing up in north-east Wales (Ian Rush's hometown) in the 80s you seemingly had to choose between Liverpool and Everton, not really sure why I chose Liverpool - my family weren't emigrant scousers or anything, my dad hates football, and in recent years my mum has become an awful LFC/Stevie G apologist - but I think it was cemented in '86.

Was quite interested in Tranmere in the mid-90s (being on Granada and City FM regularly and having a few good cup runs and almost making the play-offs), and I try to keep an eye on Wrexham, and went to see them a couple of times before they left the league.

My parents met on the Royal Iris. Which is apparently moored somewhere near Woolwich now. I need to make a pilgrimage before they scrap it altogether.

All Blues, all down the line. Some Red cousins now though, which is sad, but you just have to accept them the way they are. The power of a late David Fairclough goal can cloud a young boy's mind.

your parents met on a SQUATTERS' DRUG DEN!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Royal_Iris

On Saturday, 6 February 2010, it was reported that Police and the RNLI had been called out to her berth on the River Thames, near Woolwich, after a passing vessel noticed she had taken on water up to her passenger deck. At the present time, it is unclear how long she has been in this state. There was evidence found to suggest that squatters had been living on board. Also found on board were various items of drug paraphernalia.[17][18]

have only been following football with regularity since 05/06 so most of my biases are still half-formed.
support spurs, it was between them and fulham, and i really liked edgar davids and then the keane-berbatov strike partnership sealed it.
hate all the big teams basically: united, chelsea, real, barca, inter, milan, bayern. also liverpool. arsenal never seemed as worthy of hate as the others, but i would still be estatic if spurs finished above them. everton are kind of my second team now, not sure why.
hoping to watch a lot more bundesliga this year, where my team is hamburg, due to spending time in northern germany. dortmund are really awesome, though, and i will be rooting for them in the CL.
other team with my full support is USA, other national teams come and go (korea, croatia, netherlands, like the current german team a lot), argentina 2006 was one of my favorite teams ever, always hate the italians.

all seems fair and reasonable imo

I keep meaning to get around to writing up my hates.

Born in Whiston into a long line of Huytonian Reds, so had no choice but to follow Liverpool.

Grew up in Stevenage but never cared for the football team until they signed my nephew to their youth squad. Though they've now let him go and he's on QPR's books.

support spurs, it was between them and fulham, and i really liked edgar davids and then the keane-berbatov strike partnership sealed it.
hate all the big teams basically

when, if ever...

My uncle reckons your favourites fade with time into just-for-laughs, but your hatreds (in his case, Alex Ferguson) diminish not one iota. I kind of like that.

I dunno about retention of hatred, because I love that Rangers just have a conveyor belt of twattery, so that when one hate figure goes, another rocks up in his place. I've almost forgotten how much I used to detest Nacho Novo since Kyle Lafferty and Steven Naismith arrived to take over the mantle of evil.

And before that lovenkrands,gazza,Andy 'uvf shrine' Goram etc.

I know there's some kind of obscure rivalry at work there, but Gazza as a hate figure is all wrong.

rong

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/11/10/article-1084563-026CB546000005DC-421_468x512.jpg

A loveable rogue, earlier today

despise man u, ferguson obviously one of the most dour classless people ever to have become famous, rooney just a brainless ogre, really hate evra too. can tolerate the non-descript man u players, fletcher or carrick don't really annoy me, rio is probably a good person really, don't like vidic, giant visigoth. nani kind of

dislike arsenal but more out of exasperation at wenger and his stubborn nonsense, i guess this tide has swelled over last year or two, many people i know have lost good will towards him. my particular wenger-hate is when he does those awful "WE WILL WIN AT OLD TRAFFORD" press conferences or "WE WILL STILL WIN LEAGUE" etc and you're just like "do you even believe this yourself", he's like an overzealous parent or something. i don't mind arsenal per se other than this whole changed goalposts stuff of recent years.

don't really like man city but only in recent mancini incarnation, i find him boring and totally lacking in charisma.

sort of dislike sunderland after years of irish/man u dumping ground status.

Right. Hate Liverpool. Have always hated Liverpool. To an irrational extent. I hate the shade of red they use for the kits (too orangey!). I hate 'You'll Never Walk Alone'. I hated them finishing above United every single fucking season for year after year after year after year and winning the league most of the time. I hated ugly Ian Rush banging in goal after goal, miserable Dalglish as a manager (NB - he seems more cheerful nowadays), Souness and then McMahon kicking everything that moved, identikit perms and moustaches all round, the grinding inevitability of victory. And when finally, finally, after God knows how many years, we finished above them in 1992 we still contrived to lose the league to Leeds with three defeats in a week, the last of which was at Anfield. That said, for some reason I liked the Anfield Rap. And I'll acknowledge the 1987/88 team was good to watch. And I was genuinely pleased when they won the European Cup in 2005.

In the same way that my 'likes' (as opposed to teams I actively support) have nothing to do with current personnel, they're just a vague feeling towards the kit / the geography / the history / some personal connection, my hate of Liverpool has nothing whatsoever to do with the people there now, and everything to do with the 1980s. Although, to be honest, I don't think there was anything for the neutral to find endearing about the majority of either the Houllier or Benitez eras - largely dull, negative affairs.

My other hates tend to be reactions to people who hate United. Growing up where I did, when I did, I didn't really encounter people who hated United because nobody could be arsed - they weren't good enough and there plenty more relevant local rivalries. So at the time I had no negative feelings towards, say, Man City or Leeds. I didn't encounter anyone who supported either club until I was 18 and for a large part of the 80s neither club was in the same division as United. But the more I witnessed first-hand the vitriol towards United of both sets of supporters from the early 90s onwards, the more I grew to dislike both.

By the same token, but to a lesser extent, there are one-sided 'rivalries' with clubs like Bolton and Blackburn (one-sided in the sense that while the loathing between United and Liverpool or City or Leeds is mutual, Blackburn and Bolton are never going to find themselves public enemy number one at Old Trafford but both seem to consider United their most-hated rivals). Again, I never encountered anyone who supported either club until I was 18, and neither club was in the same division as United until then, but the encounters I've had since then have left me unfavourably disposed to these two.

I know there's some kind of obscure rivalry at work there, but Gazza as a hate figure is all wrong.

gazza is a wifebeater, is educationally subnormal, wasted his talent, gave himself a terrible injury trying to injure another player, did the flute celebration, scored a winnning goal against scotland in euro 96 (when i was a kid i still cared about the scotland team). the only thing that slightly tempers my hatred is his suffering from mental illness and substance abuse issues, which make him somewhat pitiable. although otoh i think i would laugh if he died and/or join in in offensive chanting after his death.

scored a winnning goal against scotland in euro 96

That was pretty good, though

great goal, undoubtedly.

your parents met on a SQUATTERS' DRUG DEN!

I find the HDR photo of the vessel on the Wiki page more offensive than its decline from 1950s venue for Mersey romance to squalid Thames estuary filth palace.

gazza... is educationally subnormal

seems a bit harsh to hate the dude for it

will even grant that myself, tbh.

His twenty year habit of revelling in his own boorishness is a far bigger reason to hate him.

martin jol seems like a lovely fellow and i wish him all the best in his future endeavours.

any footballer that squanders undoubted talent without even bothering to be a tragic cautionary tale like gazza or best, there's a cunt i'll hate. Bentley front and centre.

R Keane, to a large extent, though he had a great if nomadic career until recently, could have been another level better were he not an appallingly lazy and arrogant player.

Rafa benitez's public persona as manager of liverpool was almost perfectly dislikeable. No more on that.

I never had the benefit of seeing bryan robson play but he's taken food out of the mouths of the children of more deserving managers for so long and in such a dour yet clownish manner that it's easy to despise him.

idk deems

robbie keane more or less got the best out of his talents, david bentley was always slow, weak, technically limited and a fucking cunt

dunno i've seen bentley outpace plenty

Keane? Nah, not maximised, tho he's done well for his technical ability, granted. But i'll tell anyone who'll listen that he'd have another hundred career goals if he didn't stop play at every opportunity in order to dive, argue with the ref or berate a team-mate since prob 2001 for ireland and oh say 2008 for spurs.

well ok but definitely 50

two fanatical utd supporting brothers mean that i have a soft spot for them from 93-2003 odd. Since then they're a poor shadow of that team to watch, ferguson gets worse, the likes of the execrable rooney are celebrated, refs cover their inadequacies more blatantly and necessarily frequently than i seem to recall and they still grind their way to titles despite being shit by any reasonable measure

I dunno tho some of that may be me.

Shakhtar because they've been a joy to watch for the last couple of years and various things have led me to be less favourably disposed to Dinamo Kyiv in the post Rebrov / Shevchenko era.

Can add this to list of reasons:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9dynDCN1AE

Reviving this FWIW.

I support St Johnstone. Grew up in Perth, still work there. Suits the more Eeyore-ish elements of my personality. Didn't grow up in a football household, but my Grandpa took me and my cousins to my first ever game - official opening of McDiarmid Park, against Man Utd.

In terms of other Scottish clubs, I have a fondness for Arbroath, mainly for the number of ex-Saints players there in recent years and the fact that Gayfield is a cracking wee ground. As I now live in Dundee I'm developing reduced animosity toward the two Dundee clubs, Dundee are mostly comedy though. Don't mind seeing either do well as long as we're doing better.

Can't be bothered with Rangers or Celtic domestically, but was pleased to see Celtic do so well in Europe this season and would like to think that I'd show the same magnanimity to Rangers one day. I have an irrational strong dislike of Kilmarnock and sometimes a little rivalry with ICT.

In terms of English teams, I have no fixed loyalties, I mostly flit between the underdogs, the unfashionable and the fallen. Due to friends and family holidays I have a general Yorkshire bias. That said, I do follow the exploits of Isthmian League South high-flyers Dulwich Hamlet as a friend picked them up as his local team when he moved to London. Plenty of Arsenal supporting friends, so that's seeped in a little.

Worship/live for: Charlton Athletic - even moved to Charlton to be nearer to them

Dislike: Having a second team

Loathe: Birmingham City, Real Madrid

Root for: Tom Huddlestone :(

I've developed a soft spot for St Mirren since I last posted on here. Local team, mates support them, play nice football, manager's not a dick.

Then they do things like beating Celtic and conceding goals that put our title party on hold and I forget I quite like them.

can there be any dispute that all things considered real madrid are the worst football club in the world

by a fucking light year

can't even begin to imagine the sort of pathological hatred of life's mystery and joy that would lead one to support those opulent, bloodthirsty cunts

Kick a man while he's down. Have only seen the stats, but this looks like it must've been fun?

find it hard to ever get worked up about rm tbh

it's better when they're down

francoista scum

This is my favourite thread, you're going to have to do better than that.

look closer to home sonny, blue is the colour fascism is the game

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lf554y3wEN1qzliefo1_400.jpg

yeah rm may be "francoista scum" but they dont have john terry

Would sooner be a Real Madrid fan than a Liverpool fan

rapidly becoming IK's least-favourite thread

real >>>> lazio