NQR: Roll Call: SJ Fans, Name your favorite EPL Team & Why

My teams aren't in the EPL right now but I support Norwich City & Shrewsbury Town FC. I've got both their shirts and I like following the smaller teams. From the teams in the EPL right now I'd have to support Aston Villa because they came to San Jose to play our team and we got to hang out with them at the Brit afterwards and drink many pints
Fulham runs second in the EPL for me right now.

 

I don't have a team in the EPL that I consider "my team." I've certainly watched a lot but I've always felt like my support from afar couldn't measure up to what the fans go through day to day over there. Not wanting to be a poseur, I never really felt like I was entitled to call myself a fan of any one team in the EPL.

That said, there are two teams that I pay attention to in the EPL. One is Arsenal, for which I have to blame Nick Hornby. (If you have read Fever Pitch or seen the English movie of the same name -- no, not the American version that substitutes the Red Sox for Arsenal -- then you'll know why. His description of what it means to be a football supporter is what I consider the archetype.)

The other is Fulham. My wife and I were able to see a game at Craven Cottage a few years ago, the season that Fulham won the First Division and promotion to the EPL. Craven Cottage is a great old stadium, with one stand (Stevenage Road) being around 100 years old -- with great old wooden seats that have seen a tremendous amount of footy history. It reminded me a bit of the old Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Fulham played Tranmere and really outclassed them, with a style that reminds me of the best of the Quakes -- ball on the ground, one- and two-touch passing, team defense, etc.

Outside of England, I've been enjoying watching Barcelona lately and I also enjoy watching the J-League when I get a chance.

 

Chelsea.

 

Any team with Americans or ex-MLSers on it. So that means Fulham and Blackburn primarily, at the moment. Of the big three, I think ManU would get my vote but that's more due to a dislike of Arsenal's having so few English players, and Chelsea's "buy a championship" strategy.

 

Manchester United, of course, have Tim Howard although he's been a bust so far and was replaced in the first XI by Edwin Van der Sar this season. They also have Jonathan Spector from Chicago (currently loaned out to Charlton), Kenny Cooper from Dallas and Giuseppe Rossi from New York, although the latter has rejected call-ups from the US national team programme and pledged his international career to Italy if he is ever to play international football.

 

Being a fan of both Manchester United and Leeds United is akin to being a fan of both the San Jose Earthquakes and the LA Galaxy! Those two clubs and their fans despise each other.

 

My first football love was the Quakes, and my second was/is Hibernian in the Scottish Premier League. I'd hate to ever have to choose between them and honestly couldn't say which I would choose if I had to pick only one. Although I guess the choice wouldn't be that difficult at the moment because only one of the two currently exists.

Nevertheless, the question was about the Premiership, or at least English clubs...

Despite living in England for the last ten years, and on-and-off for a few months at a time in the years before that, I've never really followed any team in the Premiership more than casually. I was a casual Liverpool fan back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the days of Kenny Dalglish, Ian Rush, John Barnes, Steve Nicol, Bruce Grobelaar, etc. Then, due to friendships and marriage, I became a casual fan of Newcastle United in the days of Kevin Keegan, Les Ferdinand, Peter Beardsley, Phillipe Albert, etc. But I got sick of all the local hype and, especially, of their megalomaniacal owner of the time, Sir John Hall. Finally, I came to admire the brilliance of Eric Cantona and the genius of Sir Alex Ferguson and started casually following Manchester United. Signing some American players (see post above) sealed the deal, and then it dawned on me that George Best had played for all three of my favourite clubs (Man Utd, Hibs, Quakes) and was a common link between the three. I'd also lived in Manchester for a few months in late 1992/early 1993, so had a connection with the city. And lastly, I found out that some of my favourite musicians such as Joy Division/New Order and many of the people associated with Factory Records were also Manchester United fans, so it kind of made sense all-around for me to support them, too.

However, the hostile takeover of Manchester United by Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Malcolm Glazer and his sons, which instantly turned United from the richest club in the world into the most heavily-indebted, has alienated me just like it alienated many other fans of the club. So now I'm stuck in a kind of limbo where it's hard to be enthusiastic about the club under current ownership.

Perhaps it will take my next move within the UK, if I move elsewhere in England rather than back up to Scotland, to cement my relationship with an English club (Premiership or otherwise). Right now I'm still following Manchester United, though with less enthusiasm, and keeping an eye on Liverpool. Which is blasphemous to fans of both clubs, I know, considering the long and heated rivalry between not just the two clubs but the two cities themselves.

 

Premiership. Who cares? lol

Of course my # 1 Soccer love as most of you all know is Hartlepool United struggling in League 1. I don't really have a Premiership team I follow. However, if asked to name who mu favourites are it would probably be Middlesbrough as they are the nearest to Hartlepool and we saved them by letting them play at our ground when Boro went bankrupt and would have been kicked out of the league if they hadn't played and also Newcastle as I actually saw my first live game at St. James when my dad took my there to see them play Man Utd in 1977 as a birthday present.

I do have a team in the Premiership I hate though - Arsenal!!

-Richard

 

I started liking Blackburn when Alan Shearer began playing for them (mostly because I was a Shearer fan) and since have always had a soft spot in my heart for the Rovers. I've always liked Everton as well, for what reason I can't say. Other than that, I've followed Liverpool, mostly because my son is a big Man U fan, and I thought that some counterbalance was necessary.

 

i'm an EPL team whore.. I started with Man City.. then moved to Wigan.. then Arsenal all this season..

currently I just follow the yanks.. particularly Fulham

 

Wednesday with Harks played for them, (Loudly cheering with a bunch of real EPL fans while watching an FA cup final in which Harks scored).
Fullam when Lewis went there, but I mosly get bored by the clinical precision (if that is possible) with which the ball can be moved around the midfield only to be dropped back to an outside defender who whacks a long ball up the field.

 

I am a casual EPL fan. I usually follow teams with Yanks on them. I have been keeping special tabs on McBride/Fulham (8 goals so farthis season) and Eddie Lewis/Leeds United. I dunno, I really like how those two play, especially EL for being a Quakes alum.

Anyhow, I also casually follow Liverpool since I saw some of their Champion's League games last year and the incredible final. I also occasionally look into what West Bromwich Albion is up to since I remember they played in an friendly double header at Spartan in the 80's. Cologne was there but I an hazy on the other two teams. Was one of them Vasco de Gama? Getting back on topic, I do not consider myself a hardcore EPL fan for the reasons JayHipps stated in his post earlier.

 

I remember going nuts in a pub in Prestwich, North Manchester on a dark winter night in January or February 1993, watching as Blackburn Rovers took on Sheffield Wednesday in the first leg of the English Coca Cola League Cup semi-final. The reason? The first two goals of the game, which eventually finished 4-2 to Wednesday, were scored by Wednesday's John Harkes and Blackburn's Roy Wegerle, both US internationals. At the time, there was still a ton of skepticism in England as to whether Americans could play the game (it was often - correctly - pointed out that Wegerle was in fact South African, but never mind!). Those guys were modern-day pioneers for US footballers abroad and for the reputation of American soccer.

Overall, American soccer still doesn't get a lot of respect in England but attitudes are slowly changing and American players who come to England are now given a lot more benefit of the doubt even if Major League Soccer and other US leagues are still considered an object of ridicule by many in this green and pleasant land.

 

Tell us something we don't know.

 

I follow Manchester City 'cause of Reyna...I tried to follow Bolton but Borgetti doesn't even make the bench.
Don't really have a team, but will stick with any of the EPL games when I run into them on FSC.

 

Since we started getting FSC, I really love watching the style of the EPL.

Great ATTACKING soccer. Yallop brought that to the Quakes.

I like seeing McBride and other do well.

I really need to know the players, however, to be a real fan.

Need a local team to really get into it.......

 

Chelsea EPL, QPR coca cola.

Long story but my #2 team (after the quakes) has always been PSV Eindhoven in the Dutch eredivisie. My favorite two players from the PSV team of three years ago were Mateja Kezman and Arjen Robben. All along I watched the EPL but really only supported PSV. After that season both Kezman and Robben got transfered over to Chelsea. For some unexplainable reason I had a weird attraction to Chels before then but now it was sealed. Between being a london team, and a bunch of guys I genuinely liked to watch play I was hooked. Cant say im a huge fan of the way the current team is being run but I do still watch the guys even if it seems weird to be the most hated club in the league. I have always disliked the Real Madrids of the world who buy all the most expensive players, and it feels odd every time I read about Jose buying the new hot midfielder when I feel like the have the best midfield in the world etc. I would like to see the wealth spread around more and I hate when guys like Cudicini, Huth, C.Cole etc sit on the bench. Secretly I wish Abramovich would sell the team and we could get back to reality. I don't like watching games where I know a win is all but guaranteed, it takes all of the excitement out of it for me. But he wont sell the team and I suppose he will continue to push people like me away... and for this reason I support QPR in the championship. I like the excitement of the relegation/promotion battles and if/when I live in london I most definitely will be going to QPR games over paying 50$ to go to Stamford Bridge, to me the smaller clubs are just more down to earth, all this money in the EPL makes me sick. But for some reason I still wake up to watch Chelsea at 4:30 am on the weekends i'm crazy.

 

Arsenal, i fell in love with the style of their play in the 02/03 season. no matter how "mid-table" they are getting i will always love them.

 

i'm looking forward to watching Bobby and Marcus in the Prem next season with Reading

 

Liverpool - only EPL team that could catch Chelsea, and have a ridiculous
ability to win in European football (how?), and their fans have been
good friends and co-workers, as well as rabid supporters.

Newcastle - Alan Shearer...OK, and Owen

 

How could you not? My introduction to the game came as a kid, living in Sussex in the late 60's, watching George Best and Bobby Charlton. I tuned back in, thanks to better media (internet!) and better US coverage, during the Cantona era, and, have been following them more closely ever since.

New Order and the Smiths! New Order were still great last summer...they came through w/ the Chemical Brothers. Very cool.

Does it look inevitable that these guys are gonna screw things up or, is it the idea of a US owner that's alienating fans?