Association Football: Your Second Team(s)

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the Euro 2008 thread got me thinking about how Everton became my second team. I say it was because of the 1985 Cup Winners' Cup final - the first game I remember that I wasn't sat in front of or taken to, but actively elected to watch. i have a friend who says it was because 'Shoot' magazine did an April Fool's cover with Ian Rush in an Everton shirt on the front, and whilst I never had any particular affinity with Liverpool, I did used to pretend I was Rushie when we played 3-and-in.
Northampton Town are also my second team. there is much less doubt over how this came about. on the surface, it was because I was disillusioned with the fledgling Premiership and its thirst for cash, so I looked for the nearest lower-division side, finding rock-bottom of the league Northampton 30-odd miles down the motorway. beneath this, of course, the real reason was that I was 18 and all sorts of pretentious, and doubtless it seemed like a magnificently anti-establishment gesture. but to my credit, i did trek down to Sixfields a bunch of times to see some truly terrible football, which made it more or less like going to Highfield Road anyway, but with more mud.

i have a bunch more 'second' teams across Europe, often for the most spurious of reasons. i know people who have ever more than me; i also know pople who think the idea is anything from pointless to unconscionable. so what do you think about it, and who are your second teams, if you have any?

― Roberto Spiralli, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:09 (eighteen years ago)

Don't have one

― Tom D., Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:10 (eighteen years ago)

Scotland!

― Tom D., Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:10 (eighteen years ago)

... and even then i've been known to shout out "Come on Celtic!" by mistake

― Tom D., Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:11 (eighteen years ago)

Celtic are also one of my seconds because:

1. my Dad loved them, although I still have no idea where this love came from - he's still never been to Glasgow, as far as I know. mayve it was a European Cup thing.
2. my Dad bought me a shirt when i was little - before I even had a City shirt
3. I, like every other well-raised Englishman, love the underdog,a nd by extension hated Rangers when i was a teenager.

― Roberto Spiralli, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:15 (eighteen years ago)

probably Wales, as I spend half my time there and would in all honesty if it wasn't for my job, move there.

― Ste, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:22 (eighteen years ago)

Charlton, I'll be sad when they go down. But I have a soft spot for Exeter City as well despite not having seen them play in nine years and never bothering to check the results. Does that count?

― Matt DC, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:43 (eighteen years ago)

I suppose FCUM are my second club and MUFC are my first club, but it's complicated and still in flux.

I used to watch my local non-league team four or five times a season when I was growing up, but it was a dispiriting experience. There were nearly 80,000 people living in the town, but it was a new town London satellite place, so nobody had any roots or history there, and most people were either originally Londoners or their parents were, so virtually everyone supported Spurs, Arsenal and West Ham (and lots of kids supported Liverpool, but that's a different matter), and the club used to get crowds of about 40 or 50. They got nearly 10,000 packed in there to see them knock Leicester out of the FA Cup in 1980, but I was too young then and never saw anything like that, just miserable defeats against Soham Town Rangers in front of one man and his dog. We moved away when I was 16, but I still look out for their results.

I also watched my local league team about ten times or so when I was at university, and even took part in a celebratory pitch invasion when they won the play-off semi to get to Wembley, but I don't really feel any connection with them now.

I've got a bit of a soft spot for Spurs, Crystal Palace and Brighton as well.

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:52 (eighteen years ago)

Torquay United (I started following them when I was with a girl from South Devon)

Charlton Athletic (I've needed a premiership team to follow since 2000, and they sort of slipped into the hole)

Dundee (my Scottish team. No idea why, but when I was a stats-obsessed kid I used to scour all the leagues and had favourite teams in each division)

― Mark C, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:54 (eighteen years ago)

TNS

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 29 March 2007 14:17 (eighteen years ago)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6f/Thenewsaints.jpg/150px-Thenewsaints.jpg

i love the rebranding job they did.

― Roberto Spiralli, Thursday, 29 March 2007 14:30 (eighteen years ago)

I don't really have a second team. I keep an eye out for certain other results because of family/friend connections (Tranmere, Exeter, Tottenham, AFC Wimbledon, etc) and Charlton are probably my favourite London club, but I don't really care that much. My real emotional investment in teams other than Everton are when they're playing Liverpool.

― Michael Jones, Thursday, 29 March 2007 14:46 (eighteen years ago)

Don't have one. Celtic used to be my second team, but when Inverness Thistle ceased to be, they got promoted up in my affections by default.

Scotland are first equal.

― ailsa, Thursday, 29 March 2007 16:51 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, I have to say that Manchester United losing is more important to me than Dundee winning.

International teams: Italy, Scotland, England in that order (which is also the order of my genetic proportions fwiw)

― Mark C, Thursday, 29 March 2007 17:11 (eighteen years ago)

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