Football Fandom

[Fox Talbot]

I still like it when we win.

But winning is (was!) one of few good things left about football nowadays.

I get to meet me mates for a beer and, er, that's about it. I hate the car park, the programme, the PA, the Boyz, "the Royals", Queensley, half-time, needless exclamation marks on emails from the club (Nigel Adkins first game!) ...

[Extended-Phenotype]

Don't think you understood my post, m8. I mean, I'm sure you understood many of the actual words - I just don't think you quite understood what they all mean when put together.

Cheers though.

Thought you'd struggle. Expected a bit better than this though.

[Pandoras Box]

Rumpole - good post - get the same feeling sometimes.
I go to watch a game of football to be hopefully entertained by my team playing. I might moan, I might clap, I might shout and I will support - but when I want to, not when someone tells me to.... I don't give two sh1ts what anyone else in that fvcking crowd thinks. I don't sing the (let's be honest) half wit songs because I don't want to and I don't care if someone says I don't support the team because I don't sing (eh?) ,.... I just don't need that community acceptance , and in any community there is always someone trying to be better than the others, and in this case it's ' I'm a better supporter than you because on a Tuesday night in 1953 I stood in the rain watching a load of sh1t play another load of sh1t'- Well, so fvcking what - it's when you think that those things are necessary to enjoy football the disappointment kicks in.

[JimmytheJim]

who gives a oxf*rd?

if it bothers you that much what some bored or lonely white men write on the internet about people leaving early from games then you probably do need a safer hobby.

whenever i've had to leave early i've just done it. is there a fire drill? no. does anybody who knows anything about me care that i didn't stay to the bitter end? of course they don't.

football fandom isn't about being part of a darwinian hierachy where only the thickest skinned survive. it's about having a hobby that you obsess over and which occasionally rewards you with an immense sense of achievement and well-being when all you've done is sit on a seat and shouted a bit.

rugby's probably the sport for you. no passion in the stands, self-righteousness aplenty, and classist bollocks about a thugs game played by gentlemen.

[Uke]

lets be fair though, if what you need from football is the feeling you once got when watching england play well in a tournament played in england during the rennaissance of british football......
then id just give up now. you wont recapture that, and comparing all football to that is going to leave you continually disapointed.

You cannot have a renaissance without a dark age first

I blame the Aussie and the Arab, Thai and Russian oligarchs

sorry- but the horrible days of the 80s, with english teams banned from europe etc was clearly the dark age

No it wasn't, it was late 70s early 80s

The World Cup in 86 was a great time!

[Uke]

Dunno about anybody else, but I think this post is pretty sad.

Poor analogy, really. Films over when the credits roll, f/ck all new is going to happen

You've not seen Despicable Me have you?

[Hampshire Royal]

An interesting thread!
Just a few points - the feeling of being a fan of a particular team hasn't changed very much. I wasn't around at the time (honest) but we've probably all seen film of the first Wembley Cup Final when something like 123,000 people turned up to a 100,000 capacity stadium to watch a match. I can remember joining thousands of other Reading fans to travel up to Maine Road in special trains to see us in a 3rd round FA Cuo match, and then queuing for hour after school for a ticket for the replay (which we lost 7-0).
I don't get to many games these days, but wherever I am in the World I will listen to Reading World for commentaries on games - I've stayed up very late and woken up very early in the morning to hear games in Australia. I don't think of myself as being weak, I'm an educated Middle-Class man and believe I do it because of the irrational passion I feel for Reading FC. The people that I just don't understand are thiose who say they are 'football' fans, rather than fans of a particular club. There is no way that I would choose to watch (say) Man U against Barcelona if I had a chance to watch Reading against Macclesfield. On Saturday I went with my 20-year-old son to see the Saints game. I could have watched it on TV, but took the opportunity to be with my son at the ground. Maybe that's part of the ritual, I don't know, but in spite of the result and the poor performance after about thirty minutes it was an occasion we both thoroughly enjoyed.
As far as the earniongs of players goes, they've always been higher than 'normal' wages - that's just the way it is. I can remember when Johnny Haynes became the first £100 pw footballer which was a wage that most people just couldn't imagine at the time.
The lows are as important to supporting a team like Reading as the highs. I don't really care about the politics of football, who owns the club or even who plays for the team - it is my team which is an irrational feeling, but one that I never want to lose.

[thirtyyarder]

What with the explosion of popularity of football over the last fifteen years (fully down to the very clever way that football has marketed itself) its obvious that older fans are not going to be as satisfied with the new product. I live in S. America and the fans still have this idea that the football clubs are a pillar of society, set up for the benefit of the community and so on, the reality is obviously quite different. I have accepted this and changed my 'fanning' as a result and now have a much more sporadic relationship with football in general. I don't get the sense of a group achievement that I used to when we win, but I don't get angry and beat my girlfriend anymore when we lose, except when she deserves it.

I guess my point is that you can expect anything from a football club as the relationship between club and supporter nowadays is basically that of service provider and client, anyone who expects any better level of service than from say, your local Tescos, is quite frankly deluding themselves.

[Croydon Royal]

Really interesting thread and (despite for the usual bit of HNA arguing) some well-reasoned posts. What it seems to me is that following a football club is completely irrational - myself and my other half will spend the best part of £150 going to watch a useless almost-certainly relegated team probably lose to Norwich week Saturday. It'll take up our entire day and the journey back will probably be a bit crap after a loss. For £150 less, we could watch this game online from the comfort of our own home or - shock - do something else entirely and check the score when we get back. Us not being there won't affect the score (although it will if everybody started thinking the same and no away fans turned up to cheer the team on) and we'll get to see exactly the same action if we watch it online or on Match of the Day later. So why do we do this irrational thing? Why does anyone do something irrational? Why did I hesitate yesterday spending £4 on a magazine but will happily without thinking pay £150 for 2 of us to give up our day to watch 90 minutes of crap football?

The minute you start to rationalise it (as Rumpole seems to be doing) is the reason you stop. For everyone else, it's how many PERSONAL barriers you put in the way before the rationality kicks in. These can be any number of personal things, which is why there's so much arguing on this thread. It can be because you have so much disposable income that the money doesn't matter. It can be because you literally don't have anything else exciting in your life so see football as the escape. It can be because for some reason your wife doesn't mind you drinking with mates at football on a Saturday afternoon but would prefer you spending your Saturday evenings at home with the kids. It can be because you've been for years watching your club grind it out in the bottom leagues and now don't want to miss out on them at the top (I'd wager this is why we're getting more threads like this now, because people feel they have 'completed their mission' of seeing Reading in the top flight). It can be because you still get a buzz stopping at a service station on your way to an away game and being part of a community of fans heading all over the country to watch their respective matches.

For me, it's some of the above and a lot more. A big one for instance is that I grew up in South London and now I live in Reading I still see the football club as something that connects my community. Working in London it's also a sense of identity - just like we have 'the Norwich fan' or 'the Torquay fan', I quite like being known as 'the Reading fan' in a company of 800 people. As you get older, wiser, more/less social media savvy, single, married, a family man, those personal barriers change. Many of them will be knocked down, but some will be rebuilt (perhaps having kids grow up and move out leaving you with more free time and disposabal income), the 'trick' is to still have enough to make you still embrace the irrational.

[melonhead]

youv been saying this for months sebbo.


its the longest most drawn out flounce of all time, even worse than AK

[melonhead]

well stop slowly tugging at your trigger, give it a good hard yank, and put us all out of our misery!

[Vic_Flange]

deJa vue time... we get this bollocks every time we get relegated. And every defeat is met by a response of about 1-5% ofwhat I read on here.

Would all those who are not renewing their season tickets or planning to come again next season or 'ever again', please sign an edict to this effect and let the rest of us watch a few victories next season?

[barelylubedcock]

Worth pointing out I don't just mean Reading - I mean the game as a whole.

I look back at a Euro 96 team with fond memories, I aspired to be like those players and genuinely wish we had a team of role models/characters and my general feeling about football is reflective of my thoughts/opinions when comparing the two teams below.

England, Euro '96: D. Seaman, G. Neville, T. Adams, G. Southgate, S. Pearce, D. Anderton, P. Ince, P. Gascoigne, S. McManaman, T. Sheringham, A. Shearer

England 2013 vs Montenegro: Hart, Johnson, Smalling, Lescott, Cole, Gerrard, Carrick, Milner, Cleverley, Welbeck, Rooney.

Ironically, the Euro 96 team was utterly slated about a week before the tournament for going out and getting pissed.

[Extended-Phenotype]

I think what is being missed is that supporting a football team is a bit different to going along to watch a film or sticking on a CD. It probably has more in common with supporting a band or performer live; walking out before the end or booing the band or an individual will probably have a negative effect on the performance.

It’s a symbiotic relationship in a way; fans ‘performance’ helps the entertainers performance and vice versa. In which case you can understand criticism aimed at those whose manner of support may affect the performer, and certainly appreciate that many find negative supporting behaviour self-defeating. If a fans enjoyment hangs on the performance of the entertainer, it is baffling to some why said fan would do something which may jeopardise that. A player suffering from nerves giving the ball away is not going to pass it any better if people boo him, and a team is not going to perform any better if the people they are relying on for encouragement bugger off when things aren’t going their way.

Supporters have a right to support how they wish, they pay their money. But it seems pretty stupid to get upset if their support is criticised when appreciating the fact that your performance as a fan is synergetic to the performance of the team, and therefore as open to assessment as the action on the pitch or stage.

[paultheroyal]

Summary of the OP please?!

Look at me.
I am wanting to be different.
Sit back and take in all the praise for such a well thought out post.
Not enjoyed watching Reading much this season.
I am not renewing my season ticket.
I will renew when we start winning again.
Bye.

[Croydon Royal]

I think what is being missed is that supporting a football team is a bit different to going along to watch a film or sticking on a CD. It probably has more in common with supporting a band or performer live; walking out before the end or booing the band or an individual will probably have a negative effect on the performance.

A good point, and completely agree with you on the booing part. But just a caveat - to an extent you know what you are getting with a band. If I go and see a band I have a fair idea of what songs they are going to play, and barring the odd exceptions then providing I like their songs I'm almost certainly going to enjoy the gig. Your football team having an off day will result in a worse experience than your band having an off day - indeed in some cases your football team doesn't even need to have an off day, they can just be outclassed by something your favourite band won't ever encounter - an opposition intent on spending the entire 90 minute period trying to destroy your sides good time. Furthermore, you choose bands because you like them and their music - you don't always choose your football club because of their quality. No-one would support Reading then!

[RoyalX]

I think what is being missed is that supporting a football team is a bit different to going along to watch a film or sticking on a CD. It probably has more in common with supporting a band or performer live; walking out before the end or booing the band or an individual will probably have a negative effect on the performance.

A good point, and completely agree with you on the booing part. But just a caveat - to an extent you know what you are getting with a band. If I go and see a band I have a fair idea of what songs they are going to play, and barring the odd exceptions then providing I like their songs I'm almost certainly going to enjoy the gig. Your football team having an off day will result in a worse experience than your band having an off day - indeed in some cases your football team doesn't even need to have an off day, they can just be outclassed by something your favourite band won't ever encounter - an opposition intent on spending the entire 90 minute period trying to destroy your sides good time. Furthermore, you choose bands because you like them and their music - you don't always choose your football club because of their quality. No-one would support Reading then!

So the conclusion is: watching football/sport is not really like watching a film/listening to a CD and it's also not really like going to see a band/performer either. So basically, it's a different experience to everything else? Good-o.

[Extended-Phenotype]

I think what is being missed is that supporting a football team is a bit different to going along to watch a film or sticking on a CD. It probably has more in common with supporting a band or performer live; walking out before the end or booing the band or an individual will probably have a negative effect on the performance.

A good point, and completely agree with you on the booing part. But just a caveat - to an extent you know what you are getting with a band. If I go and see a band I have a fair idea of what songs they are going to play, and barring the odd exceptions then providing I like their songs I'm almost certainly going to enjoy the gig. Your football team having an off day will result in a worse experience than your band having an off day

You are obviously not a fan of the Stone Roses or Happy Mondays.

[melonhead]

I think what is being missed is that supporting a football team is a bit different to going along to watch a film or sticking on a CD. It probably has more in common with supporting a band or performer live; walking out before the end or booing the band or an individual will probably have a negative effect on the performance.

A good point, and completely agree with you on the booing part. But just a caveat - to an extent you know what you are getting with a band. If I go and see a band I have a fair idea of what songs they are going to play, and barring the odd exceptions then providing I like their songs I'm almost certainly going to enjoy the gig. Your football team having an off day will result in a worse experience than your band having an off day

You are obviously not a fan of the Stone Roses or Happy Mondays.

[melonhead]

It is a leisure activity, in an already packed leisure market - in that way it is exactly like every other form of entertainment. I just think there's better value to be had elsewhere. Many disagree. That's life.

i certainly do.

in fact it takes shit seasons like this to prove it to me.
even in a season where weve been abject, and dull, theres been more than enough entertainment and emotional connection.