When the teams were being handed out, do you ever wish you'd picked Man Utd?

or Bayern, or Melchester Rovers or whoever? I sometimes think it'd be cool to be mad into Marseille or Napoli, but what would I do with that?

Supporting a team that always won would be boring

Fuck no. Theyve been shit for years and everyone rightminded hates them. Where's the craic in that.

No but I do wonder what it's like supporting a successful team. My nearest league ground now is the etihad so maybe I could legit start supporting City but nah.

More fun to support a team that doesn't win much but might do at some point in the future if all goes well, it's the hope that keeps you going.

Can't even conceptualise supporting a team that wins a lot and plays great football all or even some of the time, so integral to my football experience has been watching a bunch of cloggers losing 1-0 at home to Coventry City or whoever.

If anything I'm more jealous of City fans than United, I can relate far more readily to the sort of euphoria that must come of being pretty toss for years before suddenly getting really good.

Worth fuck all imo

there is no degree of forethought or calculation in the team most of us get lumbered with, i think, tho this might be a bit different in the TV saturation era

City like Chelsea are pretty politically reprehensible and unloveable IMO. Pretty happy with my club despite everything, I think I'd prefer to have a national side less rubbish than England.

i'd prefer to have a nationality less politically reprehensible and unloveable but i'm claiming world citizenship tbh

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4022/4282818364_2c369c7669.jpg

the problem with the stupidness of national allegiance is when i think about it it just points up the stupidness of club allegiance and i don't want to question the latter

local communities more tangible than nations

Sometimes I think that unsettled villa/newcastle/stoke etc fans need to check their mid-table epl privilege but actually their experiences are prob not much different from perpetual lower league supporters.

I don't have a problem with ppl who choose to support another national team but you do risk sounding like a bit of an idiot.

local communities more tangible than nations

really? i don't think much more, also just as boneheaded and irrational as nations, also how many clubs represent the flower of their local community's youth, also stop making me think about this come on you Wolves

community values

More fun to support a team that doesn't win much but might do at some point in the future if all goes well, it's the hope that keeps you going.

This, I think. Though it can't've been like that when I liked Liverpool as a kid, they were behemoths at that time. Then again they were only my favourite English team in those days, it used to be possible to care about Scottish football before it broke.

I do wonder sometimes to what extent Liverpool are a way to support a club like the big Glasgow clubs, without having to actually get my hands dirty. Ridiculous projection no doubt. I can't actually imagine what supporting one of them would be like tbh, other than I suppose in Europe.

my favourite English team

See, even this rubs me up the wrong way, that's how far gone I am. :(

lol what am I saying, they're not English they are Scouse

It's the lot of the football fan to be disgruntled and grisly, I just feel like slightly less of an arsehole bellyaching about my team getting potted by Millwall in the FA Cup then I think I would if I was griping about how we couldn't be expected to compete failed to make a couple more £30 million signings over the transfer window. It's all about expectation though I suppose

*after we failed, that should be

you say the teams were handed out but I think to an extent the team chooses you

my choice, being of a geographical bent, was limited to charlton and millwall. well i mean

This is a difficult question to answer as an American, over here it seems like everyone has 2-3 favorite teams or more. MLS, Mexican league, England, etc etc...

More fun to support a team that doesn't win much but might do at some point in the future if all goes well, it's the hope that keeps you going. Can't even conceptualise supporting a team that wins a lot and plays great football all or even some of the time, so integral to my football experience has been watching a bunch of cloggers losing 1-0 at home to Coventry City or whoever.

From my perspective, this is kind of half true but also kind of wrong. In my early years of following United (early to mid 80s) we were good, but not quite good enough. It meant that the 83 and 85 cup wins were *really* appreciated, far more than a cup win would be nowadays. It also meant that the 84 cup winners cup spree with the 3-0 over Barcelona was *a big deal*. But ultimately it was very frustrating that the team always fell short in the league (and more so because it was usually Liverpool that won it), particularly in 83/84 and 85/86 when they hit the top of the table only to draw and lose their way to the end of the season and sink to 4th. Then followed four or five years of mediocrity which was dispiriting and boring. Then suddenly, at the start of the 90s, the team just started getting better and better and better and this was unambiguously *a good thing*. The rush that came with finally winning the league in 93 was just amazing (not just the fact of winning, but the style of football that achieved it), the only thing up there with it was the 99 Euro campaign. I certainly never thought in 94 "oh, I wish I could go back in time ten years and watch us predictably fritter everything away." Having said that, there are obviously diminishing returns. It's still nice to win the league, but it will never mean as much again.

the team i was given has a 100% league record this year, why would i want to support man utd

The winningest team in the world. At least there's some form of progression there, that's a novelty.

xp If you're lucky you might get to reexperience that buzz in 2038. I'm certainly looking forward to our quarter-centrury deliverance next year.

Even if there was another 26-year drought (which, though not impossible, is much less likely than it used to be, given how ridiculously concentrated power is nowadays in English football) it wouldn't be the same at the end of it, because until 1993 I'd *never* seen them win the league and it was forever associated with black-and-white images of Best, Law and Charlton from before I was born. Whereas the last 20 years or so have seen an insane amount of success - far more than in the previous 120-odd years. I feel like I've already had far more than my fair share.

That almost makes it sound romantic, rather than tawdry. Liverpool's last was at least on colour telly, though it was pre-epltblitw. I'd much rather the old trophy made its way round Anfield for the 19th time - they still use it for the championship, right?

I remember a Liverpool supporter at university on the grim day of that defeat at Anfield in 92 that confirmed Leeds as champions gleefully rubbing salt into the wounds with "you've fucked it up again and now YOU'LL NEVER WIN IT because it won't be the football league any more" and at the time I felt cheated that we'd never have the chance the get the trophy we'd coveted for so long. I can't say it's ever troubled me since then though and I imagine it no longer gives him much comfort.

You take it where you can get it I reckon

Sentiment expressed upthread re: it being as much fun to not be winning but hoping and waiting for it all to come good, as to be playing nice football and winning games is obviously tosh btw. The delusion of choice to make the best of a rubbish / boringly respectable situation (depends on yr perspective). Obviously I'd be happy as a sandboy if we suddenly got sick at football

Kind of feel that, if anyone wants to support Man Utd, they can easily do so? If supporting an unsuccessful team brings you down that much, you can make that change, aint nobody a) can do shit, or b) really gives a fuck.

im a Celtic supporter who grew up during rangers nine in a row and Celtic's near bankruptcy; then in the last ten years they've became the preeminent team in scotland - definitively now - and will win the league for the foreseeable future; as Celtic have risen domestically the gulf between scottish football and europe's elite has grown and it is clear they can never hope to contend with europe's best.

Situation is fairly stagnant. Best that can be hoped for in europe is a group stage giant slaying,anything other than a league and cup double domestically is a disappointment. nonetheless it's preferable to losing the league every year.

Also crucially,though it's no longer relevant to me as I live far away,supporting Celtic you know that if you go to a home game there's not much chance of them losing,which makes a huge difference to your enjoyment as a supporter.

In a good way or a bad way?

Kind of feel that, if anyone wants to support Man Utd, they can easily do so? If supporting an unsuccessful team brings you down that much, you can make that change, aint nobody a) can do shit, or b) really gives a fuck.

― In times of osterity, these Eton-educated poshboys (Bananaman Begins), Tuesday, 19 November 2013 12:13 (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is fairly delicious trolling (of me) and I shan't rise to it

It's nice and warm over here, LJ

http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/files/2013/08/Hell.jpg

In a good way or a bad way?
― Bridge of Size (Nasty, Brutish & Short)

Good way. Mediocre game but the team wins and I feel pretty good. Decent game but the team loses and the walk to the pub is a dreary one.