Crying because your team has been relegated (football)

[TinfoilHattie]

Pics on news of football fans (Blackburn? Blackpool? Something like that) crying because their team has gone down from Division 2 to Division 3.

I mean seriously. AIBU to want to tell them all to get a fecking life?

It's the women's FA Cup final on Saturday. Birmingham City Ladies vs Manchester City Women's.

I may cry if Birmingham Ladies win. It would be a huge achievement not just for them, but for women's football in general.

I dare anyone to tell me I'm pathetic or that I should focus on more important things.

Crying over John Lewis adverts, football, any sport, small breakfasts, singing contests, kids who climb slides, all of this....

OP, YANBU

Forgot to say that I may even cry if they lose too.

Or is that okay because female footballers don't earn as much ££ as males do?

The impact of a relegation is far reaching and will likely have direct or indirect implications for many fans, it could mean job losses as with lower attendances they don't need as many stewards or bar staff on a match day. Perhaps they reduce some of their community work as they can't afford to pay the people that run it full time, perhaps all those businesses around the stadium that relied on the revenue from people grabbing a burger or pint on the way to the game go out of business when fewer people attend. Perhaps they're worried that the club they've supported for years might go out of business.

The flip side is true to teams that get promoted - so people cry happy tears because it's just so exciting

So basically yes you're totally BU.

I can understand where you're coming from. I don't like sports and couldn't understand why people cared so much.

Then Hartlepool got knocked out of the league on Saturday. My father is a die-hard Poolie and he is devastated (although not surprised!)

He's in his 50s. As a child, his grandfather used to take him to home matches. He's taken his nephew to his first football match there and seen his nephew be a mascot. He's taken me to matches there. I had a baby last year and he was looking forward to taking my son to his first match (in a few years) and to seeing him be mascot one day etc. Sharing a love of a club that was instilled in him by his grandfather with his own grandson.

The people around him have sat in the same seats every fortnight, next to the same people, for decades.

It's not just about the football, but about the club; the memories, the sentimental attachment.

This picture on the front page of the local paper summed it up for me.

As a full blown Burnley fan I admit to a tiny bit of satisfaction at Blackburn going down (just a smidge of Claret tinted smugness!) just as most Blackburn fans did when we bounced around the leagues for a while. However I totally understand the tears and can only imagine that people who don't get it have never been swept up in the atmosphere of a big game in a stadium. I went to the playoffs when we went up to the premier at Wembley the first time - surrounded by 80,000 fans singing and chanting it's no wonder emotions run high! So YABU.

I cried when my team were relegated twice in a number of seasons to league 2 as was. I cried when they won on pens to get promotion to lge 1 then again when they were promoted to premier league.
I was an emotional wreck when they came back from losing to win in the last game of the season by scoring in the 93rd minute to win the premier league for the first time in 44 years.
Manchester city make you very emotional 😕
OP vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv unreasonable, go get a heart

There are so many lovely posts on this thread explaining what football can mean to people. I too started going many years ago with my dad and now take my own children. Have friends who we've sat with for many years sharing the highs and lows. However you'll never be able to explain what this can mean to people who think football is supporting the blue or red team on tv. That's fine though each to their own. I can't understand the slightly superior tone of some posts telling us what should and shouldn't make us emotional. So sorry to see you go Blackburn and all the best for next season.

@minionsrule the 93rd min goal was against my team. We just stayed up by the skin of our teeth. I cried also! Aguerooooooo ..... :)

I have cried in the past, when my team (Wolves) were relegated, heck I even cried tears of joy the two times we were promoted to the Premiership.

If you don't like football, then you can't even begin to understand, but don't ridicule people who get emotional over something that means a lot to them. Quite frankly, it isn't affecting your life, so why the fuck should it bother you?!

I can fully appreciate the tears of Leyton Orient and Hartlepool fans, the two teams relegated from Division 2, and into the Conference (semi-professional league). For both teams, and particularly Leyton Orient (who are in a dire financial position, thanks to terrible owners), there's a risk their clubs could face extinction due to the financial hit they'll face. There will be fans of both teams, who have supported them for decades, and the thought of their teams not existing in the future will be painful.

No it's not the end of the world, and yes there are more important things, but quite frankly the fact anyone would mock football fans for daring to have feelings/emotions, says more about those people than the fans.

I've followed my team since my DF took me to my 1st match aged 4! They've been up, down, won, lost, got promoted and relegated and I've laughed, cried, shouted during the matches I've attended and shouted at the TV like a mad woman.

Football, you either get it or you don't. But crying over your teams relegation is no worse than crying over a film or crying when Robbie left Take That!

Whenloveandcakecollide we have shed tears of joy and sadness on the same days then as I am a fellow Wolves fan

BitOutOfPractice Couldn't wait to see the end of this season. Hoping for much, much better in 17/18.

I hate football, but the most football obsessed person I know also happens to be one of the most famous, respected (multi award winning) writers of his generation. Stereotyping sport fans as "thick" is ridiculous.

I'm a Preston fan ( was at Wolves yesterday and we were shite ) lots of my friends are Rovers fans. Having been both relegated and promoted in the last few years I completely understand the tears.
Am I going to take the piss out of them tonight?
Too bloody right

I'm from Blackburn and although I'm not a huge football fan, what the venky's have done to our local team is awful. YABU.

I don't think anyone has the right to tell someone else what they should feel passionate about.

If you don't 'get' the emotional aspect of being a football supporter, then that's Fine, but being so critical is ridiculous.

Live and let live.

My team made it into the playoffs on saturday after a wonderful start to the season then a diastrous freefall from dead cert for automatic promotion to scrabbling around tor a playoff place that went down to the last minute of the final game. I didnt cry but there was a lump in my throat. I can understand people who do cry.

Today we should probably not forget fans of Scarborough. There were almost certainly tears at the mccain when jimmy glass scored "that goal". Happy st jimmys day to anyone who celebrates it very sad about orient and for all teams who have crap owners

To the newport fan, we beat you last week but you played well, was hoping you would stay up.

I am not much of a footie fan actually, but I did cry when England went out on penalties a few years ago. I was crushed and it made me feel awful for DAYS.

I don't think anyone feeling upset for anything - however trivial it may seem to some - is anything to laugh at, or mock. But then I am a sensitive soul.

"Crying over a group you don't know? "

That's not true. Some fans are utterly devoted, watch every game. Know their players a lot.

I cried over 'GoT' and 'The Last Kingdom'. I don't normally cry over much. You seem unreasonable and ignorant.

I've seen my team stay up by the skin of our teeth, get relegated, promoted, move to a new ground and play at Wembley and I think I've cried at all of them!

I've so many happy and sad memories watching my team. I've been to hundreds of matches mostly with my dad and now with my son. It's been something my dad and I have done together over the years and like SillyLittleBiscuit said I loved spending that time with him.
It was our "thing" we did together. My dad now has alzheimers and can't go anymore - I cried when we got to Wembley this season because I was so happy to be going and so sad my Dad wasn't able to come!

You'll probably find they weren't really.crying over the football. Like so often when people cry the thing that brought about the final release is just that, the release. As a cross section of the population there will be all sorts of things going on on their lives.

Biscuit, i have to say i was gutted that day for bolton who were relegated instead.... i lived there for a long time an consider them my second team . No offence to QPR mind

The only time the ex husband cried was when his team got relegated. He didn't cry when his dad had numerous surgeries and nearly died about three times. Didn't cry when our children were born. But football made him literally inconsolable with tears.

I've carried my sister out of Wembley distraught after Everton lost again