To think people should support their local football teams, rather than premier league ones?

[HuwEdwardsBottom]

Is it wrong that I silently judge people I see in a Man City/Liverpool/Man United etc shirt when they have a local team on their doorstep? Might not be premier league but still doing good things.

My local football team were absolutely dire for a very long time. They were also very badly run and suffered dreadful financial problems but they’ve also always had a very strong and loyal following both at home and away. Things have changed a lot in the last few years and we now have good owners and are doing well but you still see the glory hunters out and about in their premier league kits and I’m like why when you have all of this happening on your doorstep? We are literally miles away from all premier league clubs. I can’t fathom it out at all.

A lot of it is to do with who your parents supported. And what if you move away from your local area?

I don't really follow football, but I vaguely support Forest as I'm from Nottingham. They're premier league now but definitely haven't always been!

How could you ever identify those people though? People don’t go round with their life stories written on their football shirts.

My dc support one of the big northern premiership teams and neither they nor their father have ever lived anywhere near the region. Their paternal grandparents lived there as youngsters though and like many, moved to where there was more work down south.

These things get passed down because they are supposed to be there for families to enjoy. It just a leisure activity. It doesn’t matter in the slightest. Plus, our local football team isn’t on telly either at home or at the pub and going to watch a bunch of amateurs simply isn’t as entertaining as watching professionals.

My Mancunian DH is a lifelong city supporter, he supported them when they were shit. We no longer live in Manchester but our DS supports city because it's his dad's team.
You'd probably think my DS is just a glory hunter if you saw him out on the street but you'd be making assumptions.

And why does matter anyway?

🙄

London though is an odd one in that you are often very close to a premier league side. From where we are Crystal Palace, Chelsea and Fulham are all in close proximity to us and easy to get to.

there is support though for the local side in league 2 as well but it isn’t a home town

Everyone used to joke this but it was bloody annoying - I grew up in south Manchester in 80’s / 90’s and nearly everyone supported Manchester United. Out of any class there were 85-90% United supporters, one or two City supporters and a couple of randoms like Stoke or something. United are the local team for a lot of manchester.
Of course I do get that there was a big city support drop off when they were crap and it’s now back up again, but it’s really not the case that “proper Mancunians” all support City. It depends a lot on where those Mancunians are from!

I was touchingly innocent about the widespread Man U support across the country though - I remember being in London as a 9 year old and seeing someone in a United shirt and thinking “ooh someone else from Manchester!” So I do know (now!) that a massive load of the United fans are in no way associated with Manchester but it’s not true about “proper Mancunians” IME.

I used to work with a Man Utd supporter. A public school educated guy from down south. He was always going on about ‘we’ won at the weekend, ‘we’ are going to sign some foreign star player, ‘we’ are going to win the league etc etc.

Eventually my home town team, which played in the Championship at the time, were drawn away against United in cup, and I got a ticket so I asked this guy for some advice on parking, away-fan friendly pubs etc etc around Old Trafford. He immediately sounded flustered & started waffling. Turns out he had never actually been to OT. Not once. Not even to visit the shop & do the tour. The muppet was a lot quieter about what ‘we’ were going to achieve after that…

I don't support a big club, I'm not remotely interested in them. My dh is the same, both League One supporters (different teams). Where I live, the city has grown massively in the past 60 to 70 years, so there are very few 'originals' from the city. We've become a London overspill, so many support Arsenal, or Spurs etc. Some of them attend the local matches, some of them 'loan' their support to the team on the occasional Saturday, which is nice. But I've come to terms with us probably being League One strugglers for the rest of my life. We could never compete with the money at a higher level, and that's what I think is a shame for many lower league sides. It's not a level playing field, nor will it ever be. The best we can hope for is the occasional giant killing cup run and yo-yoing between 2 leagues. But perhaps that means more to lower league supporters, because it's so rare? The highs are very high. The lows are expected. 😂

How do you confuse a Man U supporter?

Show them a map of Manchester.

Boom boom.

I don’t think there’s a right way to enjoy a sport. Lots of people talk about glory hunting, but I don’t think it’s odd for children to see a football player at the top of their game and to support them, and by extension start supporting that team. And the players who can perform that well probably aren’t playing at the local non league team.

Yes this.

My kids love football and will take any chance to watch a game even if it isn't their Premier League one (which they can't afford anyway). DS1 watches his 9 year old brother play, goes both to tiny non-League & Championship local games with his friends and supports one of the top 4 EPL teams. They also each support a side in each of the different European leagues. When we are on holiday we always visit the local stadium and buy a shirt.

Watching a top flight team play is just a different experience - the athleticism, technique, panache and theatre just isn't there lower down the leagues (or indeed even when you get to the bottom half of the PL table.) The joy of small local games is the community and intimacy - being close to the play (not to mention the Bovril).

I don't get the weirdness people have about football teams. DS1 supports (my) team which is 100s miles away but it's his heritage. DS2 supports the team nearest to where he was born. DH chose his team for personal reasons. All different teams.

BTW I must destroy a myth: 1) the majority of Mancunians support MUFC and 2) from my experience living in London supporting MUFC is rare. DS1 was the only kid in his school to do so. Liverpool is a far more widely supported team in London.

I will enjoy watching Arsenal play Manchester City later on today on the television. Lots of amazingly talented players . It wont come close to the enjoyment, if that’s the correct word , I get from watching my local team on the pitch.
It doesn’t matter that we’re not in the top flight.
All the men in their Liverpool shirts , it’s always men, who will tell me today , you should support a proper team. I just smile and nod.

Is it wrong that I silently judge people I see in a Man City/Liverpool/Man United etc shirt when they have a local team on their doorstep?

It’s wrong because it shows a lack of understanding about how people’s identity and culture can be linked to a team in ways far beyond geography. If someone’s parents and grandparents are/were supporters of a team, supporting the same team can be incredibly important to them emotionally and in terms of their own identity and heritage. Also, people move. I used to live very near a Premier League ground (which was also the home of the team my family have supported for generations). I now live 200 miles away in another region. Was I supposed to ditch my team because I live somewhere else now?

You’re also failing to understand that lots of people who support a PL side also watch small local teams. I regularly watch a League 2 side near my home, for instance.

Finally, people who don’t grow up in a football family often pick their side when they are very young. Of course a six year old is going to be attracted to a team they see and hear about all the time on the telly, so they start supporting Manchester City or whatever. And once they’ve supported a team for years they’re not going to ditch them, because that isn’t how football works.

Is it wrong that I silently judge people I see in a Man City/Liverpool/Man United etc shirt when they have a local team on their doorstep?

The team on my doorstep is that plucky little bunch of local lads...er...Arsenal.

I live a mile away from my local (premier league) team. If I supported a lower division or non league team I’d have to travel 15 miles. I only supported them as my husband is a die hard fan and he and my kids have season tickets - my daughter went to her “first game” from the moment of conception til I was too pregnant to go. Maybe I should tell them they need to support another team in case of being glory hunters 🤔

You can do both. My DH and DS support Tottenham but also Luton.

Although tbh, my son has a Mbappe kit and follows PSG - that’s real glory hunting 😂

I am a little surprised at living down south and seeing a lot of Liverpool and Man U supporters but its usually because kids support the team their parents support, so it's passed on through generations.

Thanks for telling us this

Loving the instant defensiveness on this thread. Obviously if your local team is Liverpool or Arsenal then I’m not referring to you am.😉 @MrsMurphyIWish if you live a mile away from a PL side then they are your local team, the lower league team fifteen miles away isn’t your local side so I’m not quite sure of the point your trying to make?🤔

OP are you from Wrexham?
DH's family are die hard Spurs supporters, his Dad used to go in the 30s I believe. Our nephew, who lives in Australia, is an avid Spurs fan and always goes to at least one match when he visits, is that far enough away? The family is North London Jewish so, in some ways, they are typical!
I used to go to QPR and had a season ticket for a few years but that was because I lived very nearby, not a lifelong or family supporter.
When I used to go to Ireland a lot in the 70s and 80s, almost everyone supported Man Utd or Liverpool, they didn't live nearby either.

How did you guess I was from Wrexham?! I tried to be as cryptic as possible. Wrexham have always had good crowds and support, since way before Ryan bought them. They town, oh sorry city, is quite frankly a massive shit hole but the football team and their new found success has made people feel a lot more positive about the area. My family have always supported and followed them, through the very dark days when they were nearly wound up and are loving what’s happening now. You see so many more people in Wrexham shirts now, but still a lot of PL fans who are uninterested in Wrexhams success.

I had one colleague get quite stroppy with me and others when Wrexham were promoted back to the league. He supports one of the big six clubs and kept repeating over and over ‘but I don’t support Wrexham’ when we kept saying ‘but aren’t you pleased for them being promoted?’, the response was ‘but I don’t support them’. For fhe record he is also local. Born and bred here. Family from here. Knobhead.

FML Wrexham fans are still coming out of the woodwork, all claiming have been regulars since the day dot 🤣

Believe what you like @Softnatural my dad put his hand in his own pocket when they went into administration, as did most of the fans. The club wouldn’t exist without the fans, they were still fan owned until Ryan Reynolds bought them.