Supporting English Soccer Teams

[AMayoSheep]

Or as someone said before just because i liked the color red they supported liverpool!

What does it matter? I don't support them any less because of it.

Sure I only support Galway through an accident of birth. If I was born further to the north I'd probably be a Mayo fan.

Just thank god that you wernt born further north and in mayo......

Sure by your logic, cork must be close to your heart, see them on telly a lot and they wear red, plus seeing that they ar in the same country you would have more in common with them  than liverpool!!

The reason you support Galway is because you are from there - they represent you and your place like galway united in soccer....liverpool doesnt!

[magickingdom]

Like if it just say that someone like old-ham were the best team around then, you would have supported them....most people are glory hunters following teams like liverpool or united and whether they like it or not have bought into a product like sky who are only delighted that irish fans have such a keen obsession on the premiership.


But it this way, i am interested in the premiership but find it difficult to get passionate about a team that has nothing in common with me, that i have no links to!!
Or as someone said before just because i liked the color red they supported liverpool!

whats wrong with glory hunters or bandwaggon jumpers? i'm going to keep an eye on sunderland next year. thats the beauty of it for some people they can pick and choose. its all a bit of craic mayosheep and you been a sheep you should know that

i think the point was that when they were young red was the favourite color thus they picked liverpool. nothing wrong with that either...

[deiseach]

Sure I only support Galway through an accident of birth. If I was born further to the north I'd probably be a Mayo fan.

And the counties are English administrative creations, not lines etched on the map by God and the source of competitions dating back to Cúchulainn and Fionn mac Cumhaill

[Fishead_Sam]

Sure I only support Galway through an accident of birth. If I was born further to the north I'd probably be a Mayo fan.

And the counties are English administrative creations, not lines etched on the map by God and the source of competitions dating back to Cúchulainn and Fionn mac Cumhaill

Ya but I like to think it was God who interceaded when an Englishman drew that map of Mayo & yes indeed it was the bigman who create Gods own County.

[new devil]

Ive been to 37 united games so does that give me the right to say "we" are premier league champions??
also play GAA & iam from tyrone but i would pick the 99 champions league win over our 2 all irelands ever time!

[Carmen Stateside]

Ive been to 37 united games so does that give me the right to say "we" are premier league champions??
also play GAA & iam from tyrone but i would pick the 99 champions league win over our 2 all irelands ever time!

Shame on you!!

[ONeill]

Ive been to 37 united games so does that give me the right to say "we" are premier league champions??
also play GAA & iam from tyrone but i would pick the 99 champions league win over our 2 all irelands ever time!

Each to their own, yet this does have to be a joke.

[The Real Laoislad]

Im a fan of soccer myself but find it very hard to understand how people in this country are so obsessed with the premiership and english soccer teams in general!

Like ill walk into a pub on any given saturday and see loads of people sitting wearing man united and liverpool jerseys wathing a match. Im a big fan of soccer myself and bought into the hype in my earlier years and later realised that supporting spurs compared nothing to supporting mayo or ireland, because i had nothing in common with the club and i wasnt from north-east london.
So after a few years of caring less and less if they won or not kinda gaves up supporting them.

Some people go on about supporting teams like liverpool and man u for their history but i honestly dont believe that-not for one second wpould they support them if they wernt successfull. I mean Not Forest have a good history but you wont see many of their fans in this country.

I find myself having more and more of an interest in the eircom league now. Ok it isnt near the standard of the premiership but you dont see other nationalities on a massive scale supporting a team outside their country, in fact they find  it hard to understand.
     

I have been to the City Ground in Nottingham at least a dozen times as my best mate is a Forest fanatic,and was actually just talking to him tonight about going to Play Off Final if they get there.
I've been a Liverpool fan all my life and am sick and tired explaining to people why i support them(my grandad was from there btw) im sick of hearing this shite about having no connection to a team or calling them "we" etc.
Get a life lads FFS it's only a sport at the end of the day same as Gaa,and if someone wants to support a club thats in England or wherever than so what,don't be spending your time worrying as to why that individual calls a team "we" lifes too short
Gaa is great and i'd prefer Laois to win one All Ireland than for Liverpool to win next ten Premierships but at the end of the day both are only sports and some people here get too caught up about it all and let it rule there lives,Liverpool winning the Champions League in a few weeks will be great if they can do it and i will be over the moon same if Laois win All Ireland,but neither will compare to my first nephew being born this September or seeing my youngest sister getting married in a few weeks.

[Lecale2]

Well saig.

[5 Sams]

I was in primary school  in the late 60s/early 70s...I absolutely idolised George Best and this in turn made me follow United...remember now they won f**k all in the 70s apart from the FA Cup in 77 and the Second Division ...still do follow them to a certain extent but not as fanatically as I used to...last time I got really excited about them was when Eric (The King ) was playing.

Watching soccer over the past 10 or 15 years has made me realise what I always knew....there's more excitement, passion and honesty in a club U 12 game than in most premiership games .....


I challenge any of you to disgree with me.

[stephenite]

What gets me is the anti-English people who wear Liverpool/Utd/Arsenal tops out to the pub.

Like yer man wearing the Celtic jersey whilst holding the placard "no to foreign games" outside Croker before the rugby.

People like this should really be taken out and shot - they have nothing to offer society and the chances are they'll breed like rabbits thus creating more brain dead little cretins that are of no use to anyone for anything.

[thewobbler]

My take on the English football thing.

I've followed the fortunes of Spurs over the past 20 years. For much of that time, I was a bonafide "we" man. I even made it to White Hart Lane around a dozen times, and went on a few away trips too. As recently as 5 years ago, I would have cancelled everything if Spurs were on the box, and made my way to a pub (normally on my own) to scream at the tele.

But in recent years, I've found myself having less and less time for soccer, and consequently less time for Spurs. Put simply, the game bores me now. Even when Spurs are on the box, I find myself playing internet poker and keeping only one eye on events.

Don't get me wrong, I still love playing the game. For me it beats Gaelic Football hands down in terms of playing. Less emphasis on speed, fitness and strength, no emphasis on training. Just turn up and kick a ball around. Tactics? None. Pure fun. Anyone with a resaonable standard of co-ordination can play a role in a soccer team, somewhere.

But watching it, for me, has become bloody hard work. Overkill. Games last an eternity, nothing much ever happens, and the players mostly come across as overpaid cheats, liars and actors. Sky Sports has turned the Premiership into a 24-hours-a-day theatre, and everyone seems happy to play the role they are cast in. There's wily Alex Ferguson. Thuggish Joey Barton. Arsene the intelligent. Local boy Carragher. Greedy Anelka. And all their clones. It's a bit like death by chocolate. At the start it was exciting and everything seemed great, but repetition has now set in. I'm sick of it.

There are now so many things that grate me. Too much money, too much coverage. Premiership teams play 38 games, yet half the teams are solely interested in securing enough points to avoid relegation. Teams finishing second (like Chelsea) and regarding the season as a disaster, talking wholesale changes, and fans up in arms about underachievement. For crying out loud, only one team can win the league each year! Just accept that it's not your turn.

But above all, another thread on the board this week summed up for me everything that is wrong with the game. Manchester United have just won the league, and in a rather stylish manner. They played open, entertaining football, scored sackloads of goals and conceded none too many. Statistics would suggest that this is a vintage United team. There is certainly a balance about their side that has been improved upon by few teams I've ever seen. No square pegs in round holes there. They also reached the semi-finals of the Champions League, producing one of the greatest results of all time en route. They have an FA Cup final to look forward to next week.

Yet rather than accept this as a vintage United side, and maybe work on improving it a little more by training together, United fans on this board piled in with suggestions for three players that would improve "their" side. In other words, let's not waste time applauding the efforts of this team, but instead let's dismantle it and start again. That way, they'll have something to complain about next season.   

Maybe it's because so little actually happens on the field, but soccer fans seem obsessed with off the field affairs. Like little Veruca Salts, they always want what someone else has, even when everything they need is right in front of them.

Man Utd were beaten by AC Milan, not because Utd are a couple of players short, or because Milan are a better side, but simply because Milan's two world-class midfielders both played to form on the one night. On another night, it would have been Ronaldo and Rooney on form, and the result would have been as convincing the other way.

You could spend billions on a team, and you'll never be able to stop this happening. It is actually one of the most beautiful things about "the beautiful game".

And this bullshit attitude filters down to the lowest level of soccer. Teams that start a season in the Carnbane League in Newry - junior soccer at its most junior - are often unrecognisable from the teams that finish the campaign. During the season, average players come and go, replaced by other average players, as managers strive to improve results by cutting corners. After every game, those managers don't talk about improving their defence thorough organising it better, but through getting a lad in from the club next door. Repeat the trick three weeks later, and so so.

f**k, I'm ranting.

[ONeill]

So what are you saying?

[Uladh]

I think he's saying

My take on the English football thing.

I've followed the fortunes of Spurs over the past 20 years. For much of that time, I was a bonafide "we" man. I even made it to White Hart Lane around a dozen times, and went on a few away trips too. As recently as 5 years ago, I would have cancelled everything if Spurs were on the box, and made my way to a pub (normally on my own) to scream at the tele.

But in recent years, I've found myself having less and less time for soccer, and consequently less time for Spurs. Put simply, the game bores me now. Even when Spurs are on the box, I find myself playing internet poker and keeping only one eye on events.

Don't get me wrong, I still love playing the game. For me it beats Gaelic Football hands down in terms of playing. Less emphasis on speed, fitness and strength, no emphasis on training. Just turn up and kick a ball around. Tactics? None. Pure fun. Anyone with a resaonable standard of co-ordination can play a role in a soccer team, somewhere.

But watching it, for me, has become bloody hard work. Overkill. Games last an eternity, nothing much ever happens, and the players mostly come across as overpaid cheats, liars and actors. Sky Sports has turned the Premiership into a 24-hours-a-day theatre, and everyone seems happy to play the role they are cast in. There's wily Alex Ferguson. Thuggish Joey Barton. Arsene the intelligent. Local boy Carragher. Greedy Anelka. And all their clones. It's a bit like death by chocolate. At the start it was exciting and everything seemed great, but repetition has now set in. I'm sick of it.

There are now so many things that grate me. Too much money, too much coverage. Premiership teams play 38 games, yet half the teams are solely interested in securing enough points to avoid relegation. Teams finishing second (like Chelsea) and regarding the season as a disaster, talking wholesale changes, and fans up in arms about underachievement. For crying out loud, only one team can win the league each year! Just accept that it's not your turn.

But above all, another thread on the board this week summed up for me everything that is wrong with the game. Manchester United have just won the league, and in a rather stylish manner. They played open, entertaining football, scored sackloads of goals and conceded none too many. Statistics would suggest that this is a vintage United team. There is certainly a balance about their side that has been improved upon by few teams I've ever seen. No square pegs in round holes there. They also reached the semi-finals of the Champions League, producing one of the greatest results of all time en route. They have an FA Cup final to look forward to next week.

Yet rather than accept this as a vintage United side, and maybe work on improving it a little more by training together, United fans on this board piled in with suggestions for three players that would improve "their" side. In other words, let's not waste time applauding the efforts of this team, but instead let's dismantle it and start again. That way, they'll have something to complain about next season.   

Maybe it's because so little actually happens on the field, but soccer fans seem obsessed with off the field affairs. Like little Veruca Salts, they always want what someone else has, even when everything they need is right in front of them.

Man Utd were beaten by AC Milan, not because Utd are a couple of players short, or because Milan are a better side, but simply because Milan's two world-class midfielders both played to form on the one night. On another night, it would have been Ronaldo and Rooney on form, and the result would have been as convincing the other way.

You could spend billions on a team, and you'll never be able to stop this happening. It is actually one of the most beautiful things about "the beautiful game".

And this bullshit attitude filters down to the lowest level of soccer. Teams that start a season in the Carnbane League in Newry - junior soccer at its most junior - are often unrecognisable from the teams that finish the campaign. During the season, average players come and go, replaced by other average players, as managers strive to improve results by cutting corners. After every game, those managers don't talk about improving their defence thorough organising it better, but through getting a lad in from the club next door. Repeat the trick three weeks later, and so so.

f**k, I'm ranting.

[thewobbler]

New job, I only have time to post beginnings and middles, but not ends.

Effectively, what I'm saying is that I find watching  soccer a bit boring these days and that I dislike the emphasis on spending money to improve teams.

Personally, I'll never again have an affinity with a team that changes so often and often so illogically, that charges ridiculous prices for an often substandard product, that is in effect a badly managed, greedy bastard business with a sporting front end.

If others want to do so, well that's their choice and there's no point in me worrying about it. I'd imagine most will have their eureka moment someday though.