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Plastic Fandom - A Caffeine-Fuled Rant by Richey Edwards

Richey Edwards

By Richey Edwards
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Richey Edwards

Richey Edwards

Posted
Posted

I saw a video on Youtube in which two American Borussia Dortmund "supporters" were talking about how much they hate Bayern Munich and their "plastic fans" with absolutely no hint of irony whatsoever (Americans. "Supporting" a major European club. What could be more plastic?).

It got me thinking. What drives people to latch onto football teams that they have no geographical or blood ties to? Is it merely glory hunting or do millions of people all over the world have such pathetic and unhappy lives that they feel the need to pretend that the achievements of a football club will reflect on them personally if they buy and wear their replica tops?

I support Ayr United because I am from Ayr. I support the team which represents my hometown. With that comes a sense of local pride when they are doing well because they are doing my hometown proud, and a sense of embarrassment and disappointment when they are doing poorly because they are letting my hometown down.

I cannot imagine supporting a team from Manchester, Glasgow, London or abroad because I have no ties to and feel absolutely nothing for these places or their teams. Is there any reason why, for example, someone who has lived in Scotland all of their lives should support Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United etc.? I am all for respecting peoples choices but I struggle to take anyone seriously who refers to a club they cannot possibly have any ties to as "we".

I am not sure how well I have articulated this because I have been awake for over 24 hours and have been tanning coffee so I am in a temporary slightly unhinged state.

Do you have any insight or observations regarding plastic fandom that you wish to share?  Maybe you are a plastic fan yourself and feel I am being harsh. Now is your chance to shed light on the mysteries of plastic fandom.

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Ross.

Ross.

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I followed Celtic as they were the first team I was taken to watch. I regularly watched Clydebank as they were my local team. I try to watch Aarau over here as they are pretty much my local team and a few friends generally go and watch them so I did too. I have been down to Cardiff a few times for games because a few friends used to go down and I fancied the piss up, generally wish them well but I have no massive affinity for them.

To answer your question, f**k knows, but I guess for folk from places like the US/China it could simply be that the local game was utterly awful/non existent when they started watching football and the teams you mentioned were regularly on TV playing well so they developed an affinity with those teams because they associated them with good football.

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PB1994

PB1994

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I "like" Parma and Napoli purely down to the fact I have had some cracking Football Manager games with them. So I always keep an eye out for their results but I would never say that I support them.

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F_T_Y

F_T_Y

Posted
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2 hours ago, Richey Edwards said:

I saw a video on Youtube in which two American Borussia Dortmund "supporters" were talking about how much they hate Bayern Munich and their "plastic fans" with absolutely no hint of irony whatsoever (Americans. "Supporting" a major European club. What could be more plastic?).

It got me thinking. What drives people to latch onto football teams that they have no geographical or blood ties to? Is it merely glory hunting or do millions of people all over the world have such pathetic and unhappy lives that they feel the need to pretend that the achievements of a football club will reflect on them personally if they buy and wear their replica tops?

I support Ayr United because I am from Ayr. I support the team which represents my hometown. With that comes a sense of local pride when they are doing well because they are doing my hometown proud, and a sense of embarrassment and disappointment when they are doing poorly because they are letting my hometown down.

I cannot imagine supporting a team from Manchester, Glasgow, London or abroad because I have no ties to and feel absolutely nothing for these places or their teams. Is there any reason why, for example, someone who has lived in Scotland all of their lives should support Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United etc.? I am all for respecting peoples choices but I struggle to take anyone seriously who refers to a club they cannot possibly have any ties to as "we".

I am not sure how well I have articulated this because I have been awake for over 24 hours and have been tanning coffee so I am in a temporary slightly unhinged state.

Do you have any insight or observations regarding plastic fandom that you wish to share?  Maybe you are a plastic fan yourself and feel I am being harsh. Now is your chance to shed light on the mysteries of plastic fandom.

 

Aye, but who is your big team?

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Ira Gaines

Ira Gaines

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Posted

I have a soft spot for Blackpool. Mainly because I loved watching them play in their top flight season and they got me a bit hooked as a result. Wouldn't say I support them but I have been down and seen them and stuff. So I can understand how someone can latch onto a team that easily.

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The OP

The OP

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I’ve got an acquaintance from Cumbernauld who is a Man Utd supporter. A lot of his Facebook status updates seem to be slagging Liverpool or occasionally Man City or Chelsea. I kinda wonder who this is aimed at given almost all of his mates will be **** or ****.

OTOH I can kinda see why Irish people all support EPL teams they see on TV. I’ll take an interest in the NBA if it’s on but wouldn’t ever go to watch the Glasgow Rocks (had to Google the name). To give myself a wee bit of interest I’ll half arsedly want Boston to win cuz Celtics but I could never see myself getting properly into it without money on. Suppose “soccer” is similar for the Irish - they’ll follow their local hurling or gaelic fitba team but when it comes to the beautiful game they want to watch the best and want to give themselves an interest, so they’ll usually latch onto a successful team with an Irish player. Then, if all your mates also support EPL teams, you enjoy slagging them about being scouse bin dippers from Dublin.

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Ira Gaines

Ira Gaines

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12 minutes ago, Mark Connolly said:

I grew up two miles from the ground of Kirkintilloch Rob Roy.

Even as a youngster, I was too intelligent to be a Junior fan.

Greenock juniors were literally about a 2 minute walk from my house. Pretty much in the same boat.

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killiefan27

killiefan27

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I think it's alright to have a "second team" to follow because you may have developed some attachment to them, whether through watching on TV, playing FM, your favourite player played for them etc etc etc.

If you watch your local, main team most of the season and occasionally pop over to Camp Nou or the Allianz arena or whatever I totally get that.

Seems sadly though that globalisation means a lot of yer youngsters probably grown up supporting EPL clubs, Real Madrid or Barcelona.

Partly an issue of cost: if you're a mum or dad with two fitba daft kids you can either spend £50+ taking them to a home game every other week, or the same a month for Sky Sports and BT where they can watch football basically all day every day.

Purely anecdotal this next bit, but walking around Kilmarnock or playing with my mates at Powerleague, I almost never see kids in Scottish football shirts these days, not even Rangers or Celtic.

Lot of Real Madrid and Barcelona, plenty of Man United, Chelsea, City, Arsenal and even the odd Bayern Munich, Dortmund, PSG or Juventus but never a Killie or even one of the scum.

To be fair I used to get people to bring me foreign tops back from holiday when I was a wee guy but I think the "plastic fandom" the OP refers to will only become more common.

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Arch Stanton

Arch Stanton

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I support St. Mirren and Scotland.  f**k everybody else.

However, if really, really pressed, I have a soft spot for Huddersfield for 2 tenuous reasons.

1. My Dad lived there for a while in the 60s.

2.  My football hero, Denis Law, started his career there.

That's it.

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Kejan

Kejan

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I cringe a bit if I hear a 'we' about a team outwith Scotland. I'll even let off pot-hunting Celtic (and previously Rangers fans) from outwith Glasgow/areas where everyone has a weegie-ish accent from supporting them - pointing at the bus loads of fans from Dundee, Angus, Highlands, Fife etc. The main reason/excuse for following Celtic/Rangers over the local team is ''Ma dad/granda is a  fan'' a bit like the old voting Labour reason.

It's perfectly acceptable to have a second/third/etc team. People who move abroad/England etc are likely to adopt another team, sport, etc.

Although can't really have the cake and eat it about being angry at Americans using American phrases or supporting Munich, Chelsea, etc a when we've got people in the NFL forum describing American cities thousands of miles away as ''My Bears/Giants'' etc . Buffalo Bills are my favourite NFL team , but I'm yet to say we about them - I'm waiting til they(we) finally make the post-season.

 

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