Irish people supporting English football clubs

[seafoid]

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/08/12/croke-park-to-host-largest-ever-crowd-for-a-soccer-match-in-ireland/
The match between Manchester United and Leeds United at Croke Park will be the largest crowd ever at a soccer game in Ireland.

All 82,000 tickets for Wednesday evening's game, priced between €50 and €155, have been sold – and some have made their way on to the black market at seven times the going rate


The GAA is a very confident, outgoing organisation now," said its president, Jarlath Burns. "We know that many GAA people also support soccer clubs, like myself. I'm an Arsenal fan. I go over to the Emirates whenever I can.

"These things are not mutually exclusive. People have a right to support whatever sport that they want."

[tiempo]

Crufts 2027 $$$ you heard it here first

[seafoid]

Which team do you support? Tottenham

2 - How long have you supported them? Since 1981 FA cup final

3 - Are you from the same town or city as that club? No. None.


4 - If the answers to 3 are all no, why do you support this team? Villa and Ardiles and Hoddle
All the other boys were Liverpool or United
I didn't want to be like them . 

Don't care about England
Norwegians and Danes are mad about English soccer. Smaller markets cannot compete with the glamour.

[Rossfan]

Jarlath a soccer fan😲😲

[seafoid]

You'll never understand it BB.

Postulate and prance all you like, but the Troubles was a very real and complex time.

Which you'll never understand

It started well before the Troubles. Belfast Celtic were a successful Nationalist club who won the Irish League in the 50s and they were bullied out of it by the Unionist clubs.

[J70]

1.    Fed up hearing about 1966 and dread hearing it for another half century if they were to win the damn thing again
I don't begrudge them that. Those of us fortunate enough to see our county win even a single AI senior title cherish that memory all our lives and live in hope that it will happen again. Can't blame the English for being the same way about their national team.

2.    Fed up with the attitude of them expecting to win every time and having a big post-mortem every time they don't
Do they REALLY expect to win every time? Is this not a cliched projection from those of us looking in from the outside? Maybe I'm sheltered from it having lived in the US for two decades now, but the podcasts I listen to (The Athletic, the Guardian one) are generally brutally honest in the analysis. They might expect, given their available talent, that the England team should make the semis at least, but that's hardly unrealistic, anymore that Kerry or Dublin media//fans expecting their counties to make AI semis and finals on a highly regular basis.

3.    Hooliganism
Thing of the past surely, at this point? Yeah, they had the issues with the Euro final a few years back, but that was hardly connected to the old tradition of English hooliganism so much as the modern, social media-driven mob behaviour you see now every time a team in a prominent large city makes a final, regardless of the sport.

4.    Don't like the English personally
No issues with individual English, and I've known and know many. But I've never personally ran into any gobshites longing for the glory days of the empire or spouting anti-immigrant nonsense. If I did, I would dismiss that person in the same way I would a MAGAt spouting nonsense. I wouldn't base my impression of an entire nation around that single gobshite,

5.    Bad experience with British solidiers during the Troubles
Not really applicable to me beyond them walking through the Bus Eireann coaches at Belleek checking IDs (did see a lad pulled off the bus one time for refusing to show them any).

6.    Bad experience with English people when living in or visiting England
No

7.    800 years of oppression, colonisation, famine/genocide, etc.
My enjoyment of their losses is purely rooted in the long tradition of resentment for their historical conduct in Ireland.

8.    Other, please specify ...

[J70]

Jarlath a soccer fan😲😲

Won't someone think of the children! 

Brian McEniff played for one of the Cork LOI teams back in the early 70s under a fake name due to the ban at the time.

[ONeill]

I don't mean this in a confrontational way, I'm just genuinely curious about it, and I'm trying to get to the bottom of it. If you're an Irish person who supports an English soccer club, can you please answer the following questions. Just be as straight and honest as you can with each one.

1 - Which team do you support?

2 - How long have you supported them?

3 - Are you from the same town or city as that club? If not, do you have any personal or familial connection to it? Did you live there for a while? Do you live there now?

4 - If the answers to 3 are all no, why do you support this team? How did you pick them out of all that's available?

5 - When England plays in international competitions, how do you feel about them? Do you
a - Root for England, particularly any players from your favourite EPL club?
b - Don't have a strong opinion one way or another, but would lean slightly towards wanting England to do well
c - Don't have any opinion at all
d - Have a mild preference for England to lose
e - Vigorously support England's opponents, and yearn for the English to do on the receiving end of a bloody good hiding

6 - Are there any local clubs in your own town or city that you could give your support to? If there are but you don't, why not? Is the quality of the competition not worth your while? Are the facilities crap? Did you just never get into it? Is it not well publicised and you don't know the games are on?

Many thanks.

1. Arsenal
2. Since 1984
3. No
4. RTE used to show games and I watched Arsenal and then asked people about them and they said they were good to the Irish in the 70s/80s.
5. E
6. Been to a few Dgn Swifts games, even as a journalist. Went to Irish Cup final last year.

[Captain Obvious]

Mayo players Tommy Conroy,Darragh Berine,Eoin McGreal,Enda Hession,Diarmuid O'Connor and Matthew Ruane in Croke Park tonight supporting Manchester United. 

[Puckoon]

Feels like there is an argument here that we should only watch the local channels, and go to the local theatre rather than watch the big movies. This is entertainment. It is not life and death. This judgement even in the initial question being phrased needs to be countered. It is sport and entertainment. There are as many die hard finn harps fans as I know who are die hard wolves fans. One. One person (Mickey if you're out there I apologize for doxing you). Its ok.

[Rufus T Firefly]

I don't mean this in a confrontational way, I'm just genuinely curious about it, and I'm trying to get to the bottom of it. If you're an Irish person who supports an English soccer club, can you please answer the following questions. Just be as straight and honest as you can with each one.

1 - Which team do you support?

Leeds

2 - How long have you supported them?

Since 1972

3 - Are you from the same town or city as that club? If not, do you have any personal or familial connection to it? Did you live there for a while? Do you live there now?

No

4 - If the answers to 3 are all no, why do you support this team? How did you pick them out of all that's available?

When I first started getting into football, they were the top team, and on the TV more than others. They also had my favourite footballer at the time - Allan Clarke.

5 - When England plays in international competitions, how do you feel about them? Do you
a - Root for England, particularly any players from your favourite EPL club?
b - Don't have a strong opinion one way or another, but would lean slightly towards wanting England to do well
c - Don't have any opinion at all
d - Have a mild preference for England to lose
e - Vigorously support England's opponents, and yearn for the English to do on the receiving end of a bloody good hiding

E. I actually thought I was getting milder in my old age and moving towards D, given that some of the players come across as decent, but ultimately, cometh the hour, and they are one up with fifteen minutes left in a World Cup semi-final, I'm pleading for an equaliser.

6 - Are there any local clubs in your own town or city that you could give your support to? If there are but you don't, why not? Is the quality of the competition not worth your while? Are the facilities crap? Did you just never get into it? Is it not well publicised and you don't know the games are on?

Armagh City. Never really got into local soccer. Probably the standard was a factor. It didn't help that playing local soccer myself ensured I couldn't go to games, even if the notion took me.

Can I add - I do notice an increasingly loud narrative being pushed in social media around this issue - people who follow English Clubs, being challenged because they don't follow / support local clubs. Interesting.

Many thanks.

[RedHand88]

Alot of LOI fans really unhappy that the game last night got 82k people and the average LOI attendance is what, a few thousand at most?

Just let people support whatever team they want.

[Baile Brigín 2]

Alot of LOI fans really unhappy that the game last night got 82k people and the average LOI attendance is what, a few thousand at most?

Just let people support whatever team they want.

Not really the argument.

I don't think 99% of the Irish there would be aware of the existence of the LoI and the soccer lads don't care.

The issue they seem to have is more how the game was technically not a soccer game as the organisers didn't have any FAI sign-off never mind any fee to them. Even the referees were brought in. At least these games in the Aviva give the FAI a rental income.

[Armagh4sam2024]

Hope the parents of the wee scrotes who ended the United v Leeds match early out of sheer selfishness are happy with themselves. Parents and kids need a good slap....