Support Your Local Team (or don't, whatever)

To stop the EPL thread getting derailed, tell us all the sorry tale of how you ended up glued to Soccer Saturday cursing the arbitrary collection of footballers you pledged allegiance to in your early days.

EPL thread deserves derailing once in a while btw.

Should've been a poll titled "how did you come to support your team", wanted to see "geographical proximity" get about three votes.

Then I'd have to put "fancied Charlie Nicholas" and you'd all laugh at me.

I mostly want to know how Michael White ended up supporting Leeds Utd.

i thought m white was everton?

Wrong Michael.

i started following spurs when a dutch coach i'd always admired and taken an interest in took them over in the mid 00's.

Liverpool - dated a supporter. I know, this is supposed to be the most embarrassing way to get interested in football. But I'd taken a swing at liking a particular club before and it just didn't stick -- this time I had incentive, plus ILX's own Cabbage talked me into going to the home bar of LFC NY and I liked it there. Plus, Daniel Agger, so....

fancied Willie Carr

Wrong Michael.

meh, your limey typefaces all look the same to me

Shd point out that my real first team is the New York/New Jersey one despite their being almost exclusively life-threateningly horrible for the last 10+ years. But sometimes I need a break from long balls and losing.

Lived in Birmingham; Irish father thought it was probably a better bet to take me to watch Paul McGrath and Steve Staunton than Paul Tait or whoeverthefuck down the road

Did he take you to the Blues if you'd been naughty?

We went to a 1-1 draw with Palace when it was a pound in the Evening Mail. It wasn't worth it.

Both sets of grandparents, both parents, older brother. No choice, la. Cut me, I bleed toffee.

(But, y'know, obviously I haven't lived up there for 16 years and I've only seen Everton in the flesh half a dozen times in the '00s.)

i started following spurs when a dutch coach i'd always admired and taken an interest in took them over in the mid 00's.

lol (or jol, whatever)

My first love was Inverness Thistle, but they are no more, so Celtic (my "big" team) got promoted up in my affections. Actually, I started going to Celtic games when I could afford to go to Celtic games, when Thistle were still in existence, and then I moved to Glasgow and went to see Celtic more, but I still went to see Inverness Thistle whenever I got the chance.

Keen students of Scottish football will realise that my move to Glasgow in the early 90s wasn't the best time to take up going to see Celtic all the time. Still, what doesn't kill you makes you pine for the glory days of Brian O'Neil and Tony Cascarino.

local? I saw the old NASL Sounders indoors at a very young age. i don't know how taken i was with it, but i still remember.

EPL? i just follow americans and watch MOTD. i have thought for a while that it would take a relationship with a supporter to make me one. laurel's story makes sense to me; i could see that happening

Cascarino was playing for Chelsea in the first match I ever went to.

http://community.footballpools.com/blog/2009/08/24/tony-cascarino-liverpool-to-beat-aston-villa-comfortably-tonight/

^^He is as good in his second career as he was in his first.

I came to support Celtic in part because of my father, a South American refugee to this country, who chose to support Celtic when he arrived in Glasgow because they were the only team from Scotland he'd heard of, and because someone told him they were the catholic team. I also support them in part because of the Scottish side of my family who are of mainly Irish-Catholic immigrant stock and have, for the most part lived in Glasgow, particularly the East End (my maternal grandfather was from Parkhead), since they arrived in Scotland. People in my family have supported Celtic since at least the 1920s. A great-uncle died of a heart-attack at an Old Firm game at Parkhead. I grew up 6 miles from Celtic Park in the same town as Jimmy Johnstone, who I would occasionally see jogging in a park near my house, and I went to school with Stephen McManus.

Oh and sometimes i get a bit of a bee in my bonnet about gloryhunters or whatever, this mainly being brought about because seemingly ever English person I have ever met supports one of the big four despite the fact that they come from Bristol or Wigan or Reading or wherever, but I have to accept that if it wasn't for people like the foul-mouthed teuchter or the angry man from Derry that I've sat next to at Celtic Park we'd be an even smaller and shitter club so I should be less judgemental.

foul-mouthed teuchter ... that I've sat next to at Celtic Park

Didn't know your seat was next to mine.

Rangers is a family affair, sadly enough. My brother is even named after Gers semi-legend Colin Stein. But hey, the local teams are Morton and, localer still, the mighty Port Juniors (just had a quick look through the ILX archive for mentions of Port Glasgow - that's a fine selection of comments), so I may be a scumbag but at least I'm a successful one.

Sheffield United. Born and grew up less than a mile from Brammall Lane. Got interested in football around 1990, which was the start of a run of four seasons in the Premiership, so it was a no-brainer. Saw Brian Deane score the first goal in the Premiership (4 minutes against Man U, we beat them 2-1 in the end). Downhill from there.

Ugh... I get the feeling I told this story elsewhere on ILX, probably twice at least, but hey.

I started secondary school (all boys, private, central London) in 1994, and I wasn't doing a very good job of making friends or having anything to talk to people about, cos all the other kids were talking about football more or less all the time, so I decided I'd develop an interest in it too. However, I didn't feel like fitting in that much, so given that all of them supported Man U, Spurs, Liverpool, Arsenal or Chelsea, those five were written off from the start. Now, the easiest (and, in retrospect, the correct) option would have been to support Palace. However, this was 1994-95, and Palace were awful, too awful for an 11-year-old boy looking to ingratiate himself with other 11-year-old boys to contemplate attaching himself to. What I needed was a club that was good but sufficiently under the radar that I could claim them as my own.

And, at that precise moment in time, Saints were rollin' deep. Up to 5th in the Premier at one point, and with Matt Le Tissier being the envy of, like, everyone, Ronnie Ekelund providing a touch of continental flair, Jim Magilton's big goofy grin, and, erm, Bruce Grobbelaar, it seemed entirely plausible - at that precise moment in time - that this was a club on the way up. And so, with approximately no knowledge of their history, geography, or, well, anything, I hitched myself to their wagon, we beat Arsenal 1-0 (Magilton!), finished 10th (ahead of Arsenal!), and I sat back and waited for the glory years to happen. Oddly, this past year's the first time I've really properly gone to see them - twice at home, once away, and again this Saturday at Stockport - mostly due to it being the first time I've really been able to afford it, though I suspect there's been a certain lack of inclination on my part too.

my first professional 'soccer' experience was the pittsburgh spirit of the major indoor soccer league, led by the surly pole stan terlecki.

went to several early mls-champion dc united games, didn't really care.

i occasionally watch an epl match but don't particularly have an opinion, apart from a few things:
i root against arsenal because the one time i was in london i scalped two tix for far too much money only to learn that the game had been postponed to the following day (when i was leaving). and i root against wayne rooney because he looks very hateable.

The year I came to support le gooners is the year WBS became a saints fan, so it's not really a case of becoming a glory hunter. I never even paid attention to the cup winners cup final of the previous year, and Nayim was one of my first experiences of my own mortality, so

Liked blue after watching Everton on TV.

Come from SW London.

My uncle was a Chelsea fan.

So was best friend's dad.

Peter Bonetti was a family friend.

So ended up supporting Chelsea in about 83.

Palace/Wimbledon probably closer geographically, but Sutton was always a big Chelsea area (and I also support Sutton United, of course).

And if know your history... my only dalliance with St. Mirren was when they won the Scottish Cup in 1986, I went to a few of the games with my Dad, who'd stopped going to Celtic games years ago... but I didn't inhale, I did not have sex with that Paisley-based football team

... it was '87 they won the cup

First game I watched was the 1987 FA Cup final, decided the mast needed some sort of colours for added excitement, Spurs it was

http://www.purina.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/0ECCD5CA-2B09-40F9-A679-E528A6F3E78B/81050/C191.jpg

Never supported a local team cos we always moved around a lot when I was a kid. My family were all Spurs fans from way back, my grandad used to tell me about being taken to see Tottenham by his father in the 30's. Think it must have broken the poor guy's heart when I broke with tradition and decided to support Man Utd instead. Not sure why I made that choice, but that must have been about 1976/77 when Spurs got relegated and Man Utd got into two cup finals on the trot. Bedroom was awash with pictures of Steve Coppell, Gordon Hill, Lou Macari, Stuart Pearson... At the time we would have been living in North London and all my school friends were Arsenal fans. Had had it drummed into me by that stage though that Arsenal were completely beyond the pale, so there was no way I was going to support those bastards.

I support Man Utd because my Dad does. I don't think there was ever a moment when I 'chose' to support them, I think I just took it for granted that we supported the same team. This is me in 1981:
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r299/crunchydog_2006/19810626b.jpg

Hardly anyone else at my junior school (or comprehensive, for that matter) supported United - there wasn't really any reason to chose them in those days. Harlow was a new town, where most of the population originated (or had parents) from east or north London, so the most-supported teams were Spurs, Arsenal and West Ham. The first four years I was at junior school the FA Cup was won by Arsenal, then West Ham, then Spurs, then Spurs again, so these were good times to support those clubs. Also, while I was at junior school Liverpool won the league 5 times out of 6, plus a few European Cups and Milk Cups, so obviously loads of kids supported them. So I was a bit of an oddity, rather than a glory-hunter. By the time United became the best team in the country I was nearly 20 and had been going to watch for nearly a decade.

(...to watch THEM for...)

Aww, I had that shirt! Never had those socks though, they were awesome.

I did actually support my local (non-league) team as well, but it was a joyless experience of one-man-and-his-dog watching a series of hoof-dominated defeats to nowhere places like Soham and Staines. And I 'supported' York City when I was a university (and was a part of a jubilant pitch invasion when they won the play-off semi-final against Bury).

(xpost): Yeah, the socks are important! I can't stand it when they wear white socks for European matches.

my granddad went to firhill for over 60 years. he would tell me stories about what partick was like when he was a kid, and claimed he could remember the street parties when thistle won the scottish cup in 1921. so even though i haven't lived in glasgow for over 15 years myself (lol local) i still check the results every weekend, have fan sites bookmarked etc

Lots of Man Utd fans in my school in the 80s, but it was Catholic so I think it was an Irish thing. Mostly was Liverpool, then Spurs and Palace. Very few Arsenal and Chelsea.

Liverpool, because:
born near Liverpool;
idolised Ian Rush as a boy;
Dad supported them.

Rangers, beacause:
moved, age 9 to near Glasgow;
like blue;
didn't attend an, eh, denominational school;
Dad supported them;
Wattie lived down the road from us.

This combination has given me the opportunity to fend off a whole load of specious "which foot" crap from pig-ignorant bigoted Glaswegian fucks. Lucky me.

pig-ignorant bigoted Glaswegian fucks

"Hello, hello..."

Actually, it was a pretty much 50/50 split, tbf (working nearly 5 years in a Maryhill pub with mixed-shop bar and very sellick lounge).

Lots of Man Utd fans in my school in the 80s, but it was Catholic so I think it was an Irish thing. Mostly was Liverpool, then Spurs and Palace. Very few Arsenal and Chelsea.

When I was 16 we moved from Essex to Sussex and there seemed to be a lot more United fans there, despite it being even further from Manchester (maybe because the London influence was less strong). There were also fans of Palace, Brighton and Chelsea, none of which I'd ever come across before.

I'm kinda fascinated by these arbitrary decisions in yr school years that you just stick with; I just didn't have a choice. Well, I did - the choice was not to be interested in football at all and, until I was 10 or so, I really wasn't (I was hopeless at playing the game, still am, and I found it exasperating that my schoolmates expended so much energy on it when, y'know, we could've been talking about pop music or space travel). The 1978 World Cup changed everything and my Dad took me to Goodison early the following season.

I actually thought I might've grown out of it as an undergrad - I started to lose interest in the Harvey years, didn't go at all in 1989-90, was so consumed with student life when I moved away to do a Masters I barely even followed the scores. Then came that 4-4 Cup replay in Feb 1991 and I found myself pacing the colour out of the carpet in my poky little campus room, listening to the radio, barely able to breathe. So it doesn't really leave you.

(School was mostly Red; of the active match-going contingent, it was a bit more even. We had a very small handful of Man U and one Forest "fan" (i.e. they were European champions and his Mum bought him the kit)).

It never felt like a choice, more like a birthright or inheritance or something. I was born in Manchester, my dad's side were City and Protestant, my mum's United and Catholic, both working class. The latter were Irish immigrants and passionate and often drunk, the former very reserved. It was just a given, a prerequisite that us kids would be raised as Catholic and, therefore, Reds. We moved when I was young and I went to school surrounded by Derby, Forest and Leicester fans who taunted me fairly mercilessly for being a United fan. Relegation in '74 still haunts me. I went back and lived in Manchester for a while in the early 80s and was a regular on the Stretty. Good times.

Oh, and yes, those socks are essential. Weren't they introduced after Munich, the black symbolising mourning? To me, United have always been red, white and black, not just red and white.

Chicago Fire because I live in Chicago. USMNT because I live in the USA. I have a passing fascination with UNAM in the Mexican league. No Euro teams because I don't live there, though I do like keeping track of the exploits of Jozy, Dempsey, Howard, etc.

Detroit Red Wings because I wasn't allowed to like any other team while growing up.

(nb if/when I leave Chicago I will still support the Fire, though if the area I end up has an MLS or other squad I will likely attend some games)

First game I can remember seeing on the telly was 1977 F.A Cup Final. Man Utd vs Liverpool. Found myself wanting Liverpool to win, they didn't.

Stuck with them ever since. Like to think that their subsequent success had nothing to do with my childhood loyalty, but to be honest it probably did. Grew up in Sussex, no other males in family or extended family, no-one else in family remotely interested in football so no chance of going to live games as a 6yr old.

Didn't go to actual games until 11 yr old me persuaded mum I could make it the 25 miles to Brighton and back to see the Seagulls. Went to every home match for about 6 years but their result never meant as much to me as the Liverpool result despite the fact that I've only ever seen LFC a dozen or so times in my life!

Given how I've never been to Anfield or Liverpool itself in fact, have no ties to the community or club, no family tradition etc it is patently ridiculous just how much their result each week matters to me. It's pathetic and stupid but come kick off I still find myself not checking the score until full time just to stave off the despair of them being in a losing situation some time in the proceeding 90 mins.

Still at least with attaching myself to a successful club at such a young age I've been able to enjoy many a good night.

I support Raith Rovers. I was born 1.5 miles from Stark's Park and I currently live about 5 minutes walk from the ground. My family are supporters too.

big cousin who I was closest to when I was young supported celtic so I do too; never supported anyone else, probably 22 years now I guess. got my first season ticket the year of the temporary west stand. never forget
http://img.skitch.com/20090826-e9arwbgy743kqtr8ygar3h49kk.jpg

Spurs were really good in 1986, Clive Allen scored loads of goals, so I supported them. Most people were Liverpool fans back then, so Spurs was a bold choice.

mum and dad met on the kop at anfield. ws never a conscious decision; just was and is.

i am a shameless glory supporter