- Gloryhunting, Have U Ever Changed Your Club Support?

I'm not sure this would could be called glory hunting but i used to love Leicester City, and Arsenal(The gunners more ofcaurse), and when the LC got promoted i was kinda at a lose, i wanted to support them in their attempt to stay up, but I ofcaurse wanted arsenal to countinue the unbeaten run.

 

I used to support United, but then they started playing rubbish, so I switched to Arsenal. Until they ended their winning streak, that's when I changed to Chelsea. They look more promising right now. I am also wondering if I should support Barcelona, or maybe AC Milan, but I'm still keeping my options open here.

 

Yeah, interesting discussion. Whilst we're at it - has anyone had sex with an eight year-old?

 

The only two people I know who have ever changed clubs did so by abandoning Liverpool to support more local(ish) sides (Birmingham & Derby). A sort of reverse-gloryhunting, though neither are the sort to actually go to games. And both now live a long way from those teams. So, um there you go.

 

I have only suppored Man United and will always only support Man United. It even my name on this site. ( United Forever )

 

that sort of thing is pretty common in towns without a big club, or the surrounding towns. I grew up about 10 miles from Reading, and the number of kids who supported Reading then was zero. Literally, zero. It wasn't that Reading weren't seen as worthy of support, more that the club wasn't even on the radar. I bet half the kids at least didn't even know there was a team in Reading. It's not like now, when lower division reports are in the paper and goals are shown on the local evening news. Apart from the occasional dip into Divs 2,3 & 4 by match of the day, there was nothing other than the classified results on grandstand to tell you these other clubs existed.
I really wasn't into football at all until I was about 11. Then after moving house, my new best mate was an avid football fan, but one who used to change his team as often as he changed his socks (which even in that area, that lack of loyalty was still regarded as something to take the piss out of). As a Man Utd fan, going into the 1981 cup final replay, he wanted tottenham to win (or specifically Man City to lose) so we sat cheering on tottenham, and walking to school the next day he suggested 'we' support them. I became an avid, albeit armchair, fan, who lived for saturday afternoons.
Slightly later Reading did get in the news. Firstly with the Robert Maxwell asset-strip-dressed-up-as-a-merger Thames Valley Royals fiasco, which was huge news at the time, then the "13 wins in a row" start to the 1985/86 season, which saw a Reading match billed as the big match of the day in some national papers. That a lowewr division match might get that billing might seem amazing now, but you have to remember that back then lower division matches didn't even get reports in the papers. So at the tail end of that year, and with a bit of pocket money saved up, I went along out of curiousity more than anything else, to see my first Reading game - a 2-0 home win v Newport County. To my surprise I found the game was a) enjoyable b) had a decent atmosphere c) really meant something to me. By the end of the year Reading's games meant as much to me as Tottenham's. The following season I started a job, and had enough cash to watch more games. By a quirk of fate, the fixture list meant that Reading & Spurs were at home on alternate weeks, so I could watch them both. While it was great at first, the 'glamour' of top division football wore off very quickly. Unless Spurs were playing Arsenal, the atmosphere was far better at Elm Park and it just seemed that bit more important to the Reading fans than the tottenham fans. And I also quickly began to realise that I had no connection or affinity with North London. There was no overnight decision, just a fading of interest in one team with a growing interest in the other. I think the last game I went to as a 'fan' was a 0-3 home defeat to Norwich a year or so later. I realised that rather than being annoyed, I was just bored, and didn't want to be around people who liked Chas 'n' Dave any longer. I did try one more game the following year. Tottenham were playing Middlesbrough, who had ex-Reading striker Trevor Senior in their team. Tottenham won 3-2, scoring twice in injury time, and I was disappointed as I wanted Boro to win. I haven't been back since. There's not a shred of support for them in me.

Overall I'd compare supporting a local club over a 'big' club you liked as a kid to realising that having the love of a real girl is rather more fulfulling than wanking off to a poster of Britney Spears (or whoever floats your boat). You'd need to have a real addiction to superficial and shallow to not prefer the real thing.

 

Very funny post. I like it!

 

A friend of mine from Bournemouth supported WBA when Cyrille Regis was there. Then Regis left and ended up at Coventry, and he's been a Coventry fan ever since. He's Regis's biatch!

 

Non sequitur. What's paedophilia got to do with changing support for a football team?

So what if people change teams? Who defines what being a 'true supporter' is anyhow?!

 

Do you change your parents?

 

That is a distinct possibility when your parents reach the age of 80.

 

I used to support a Premiership club, but now i support a Coca-Cola Championship club.

 

Thats just sick. Scouse pervert, who probs used to support Tranmere and then Everton.

 

Huh? Another non sequitur!

Maybe the 'ethos' of being a football supporter states you can't change your team, but such a belief is not a law of nature or written in stone. If it makes you a 'bad' football fan for changing your team, so be it. What is a 'good' supporter, exactly?

 

You can never change the team you support. Only girls can get away with changing there team, girls can get away with anything, and Americans, cause there just daft. Calling football ' soccer ' please.

 

Wait a second!!!! They do?? Are you joking??

I think you should go start a thread or two hundred about it in the "Beautiful Game" forum. You could be the first uptight Englishman to do it...think of the glory!!

 

Why not? Because your 'moral code' opposes it?

Are you only eight years old?

 

The club you support as a child, is the club you support all your life. Simple as.

How do you work out i'm 8. I was just stating a fact, woman can get away with anything if they put there puss.......*ahem* mind to it. *phew*

 

Geordie scum. never speak again, because you are so damn ignant

 

That means alot coming fom Spanish scum like yourself.

 

Again, why?

Can they? I don't know what world YOU live in.

 

Dunno, it just is. You cant change your club, for one thats doing better at the time.

Women can get away with absolutely anything. Thats not my opinion, its just fact.

 

I dont know about America but in England if you change your club you get rejected by the fans of the club you switched to support, and rejected by the fans of the old club you supported. It simply doesn't happen in England.

On your first day of a new job, school, college or whatever, you get asked which team you support, and the label sticks, like for example, I'm Ben, I used to work near Liverpool, which was full of Everton and Liverpool fans, and I was the only City fan in the place, so I was known as the Man City lad and I got murder for it.

If you dont have pride in the team you support, through the good and bad, then you're missing the point of the whole ethos of supporting. The choice you make as a kid generally sticks if you're devoted to your football. Gloryhunters generally wouldn't travel 250 miles for an away game at Portsmouth in December.

 

I went to Blackburn on Boxing day a coupla seasons ago, and funnily enough, we have Blackburn on Boxing day again. Strange that like.