Football supporters. Can someone please explain...

[WildRosie]

I'm not a sports fan so I'm on the outside looking in, in wonderment. How does a person become a supporter/fan of a football club for which they have no plausible connection ? At my workplace, the local club is a Premier League side and I can count on one hand the number of fans among my colleagues. The other football fans support clubs such as Liverpool, Manchester City and United and Newcastle United. Yet, they are all locally raised and resident. One oddity is a chap who does support the local Premier League side but also has a Glasgow Rangers tattoo - he is not Scottish! Whenever I've genuinely enquired as to their support choices, I've received some peculiar answers, such as who won the FA Cup on the day they were born or the town where they first got their leg over. I kind of understand familial connections - my nephew was born in Middlesex yet supports his Dad's local side, i.e where he was born. One chap I've known for about a decade has supported four different Premier League sides in that time!

The explanation may be a lot more simple - glory supporters, associating themselves with a fashionable, successful club for their own self-validation. I wouldn't be so bold as to suggest this in person to these people - I have to work with them, after all - plus no one would be likely to admit it!

some people go where the best pies are served.
there is a league table i believe.
often the lower clubs have the best pies.

Morecombe are topping the pie league at the moment.
and it's homemade, not a branded item.
probably explains why it's top.
www.pierate.co.uk/p/football-pie-league.html

@ThePurpleOctopus

When you've supported the team as long as I have, you learn to just go with it! Same as back in 84!

It's the Derby way!

If I want entertainment and success I’ll stay home Tuesday night and watch Liverpool or Manchester City on tv.
I won’t though I’ll head off to support my team and live in hope. Like PiggyPlumPie, it’s what you do when you support your team.

I support the team I did as a kid. I supported them as a kid because my mum and uncles did, plus it was one of the local teams where I grew up. When we moved away I didn't switch allegiances. We continued to attend matches when we visited family, and I still make the effort to go a couple of times each season (despite the cost). My sister is the same, except that she has a child now and he is also likely to support our ex-local team. So by the time he grows up the connection will be somewhat distant but still there.

I imagine people from non-football families have a huge range of reasons for supporting a particular team. The only ones who really annoy me are those who show precisely zero interest in football until "their" team starts to do well. If you are a supporter then you have to stick with it in bad times as well as good IMO.

On the Hillsborough thing - I think it is hard to imagine the full effects of what happened if you don't know anyone who lived it. My family were at Hillsborough and were deeply affected by it. Their trauma was compounded by being vilified in a national newspaper (and by our current prime minister) and the fact that they have had to fight for literally decades before it was properly acknowledged that they weren't responsible for the deaths of their fellow fans. The disaster, and the fight to clear the names of survivors, has had a long lasting impression on the club, the city and anyone associated with the club/city.

Glory seeking in the main, especially Manchester United supporters. When Barnet played at Old Trafford and I went to the game, the only local accents I heard were the stewards and catering staff.

@barnet2709

Glory seeking in the main, especially Manchester United supporters. When Barnet played at Old Trafford and I went to the game, the only local accents I heard were the stewards and catering staff.

Wouldn’t that have been because you were in with your own supporters though?