Credit To Dan, Midas And Falastur On That Olive Branch

There are at least 7 and possibly more than 7 PL teams that stopped being local clubs in any meaningful sense of the word several years ago. The roots are there the the reality today is something far different, and they're being delusional if they want to pretend otherwise. Burnley is a local club. See what happend to them? MC was probably still meaningfully local until the Sheikh bought them. It's preening to pretend that's still the case. Their stadium and shirts carry the name of a national airline of a different country FFS. Local supporters fill the stands and do lots of important stuff to be sure. They can be proud of that and also proud of their history when they were a sometime struggling local club and the fans stood by them. But you don't pay for that roster as a local team.
 
Last edited:
There are at least 7 and possibly more than 7 PL teams that stopped being local clubs in any meaningful sense of the word several years ago. The roots are there the the reality today is something far different, and they're being delusional if they want to pretend otherwise. Burnley is a local club. See what happend to them? MC was probably still meaningfully local until the Sheikh bought them. It's preening to pretend that's still the case. Their stadium and shirts carry the name of a national airline of a different country FFS. Local supporters fill the stands and do lots of important stuff to be sure. They can be proud of that and also proud of their history when they were a sometime struggling local club and the fans stood by them. But you don't pay for that roster as a local team.

If you are just picking a European team to follow this local elitist mindset makes picking Barcelona/Real Madrid/Byren/PSG etc. a lot more attractive than an EPL team. At least those teams fan bases seem to understand the global nature of their team and it's fan base. It's like people from the Bronx being totally baffled that people all over the world follow the Yankees and being slightly annoyed with them. Are people from NY "better" or more important Yankees fans just because they grew up near the stadium? They seem to want the super team that comes with the money from the Sheikh without giving up the small local team identity, but you can't have both.
 
If you are just picking a European team to follow this local elitist mindset makes picking Barcelona/Real Madrid/Byren/PSG etc. a lot more attractive than an EPL team. At least those teams fan bases seem to understand the global nature of their team and it's fan base. It's like people from the Bronx being totally baffled that people all over the world follow the Yankees and being slightly annoyed with them. Are people from NY "better" or more important Yankees fans just because they grew up near the stadium? They seem to want the super team that comes with the money from the Sheikh without giving up the small local team identity, but you can't have both.
EXACTLY.

As a global soccer fan that loves to watch good football from any nation, Ive taken a liking to Real Madrid, Sanfreece Hiroshima in the J-League, and I enjoy watch derby games in the A-League. I have received nothing but support from fans of those teams and leagues...yet Ive encountered a lot of bad attitudes from British football fans when a yank dares support a club that isnt local to them (especially if an American supports a team rival to theirs).

They cannot seem to understand that the reason many foreigners support European clubs, is that in some nations, soccer is very young as a sport. And also, many people may not have had local football that was to their liking. In my case I never took much liking to RBNY...but now that we have NYC FC, they are firmly my number one club. And yes, even more dear to my heart than Real Madrid....and Im a huge Ramos and Ronaldo fan.

But I do not need to be from an area to be able to support that club. If certain people have a problem with that, then they should petition their club to stop their global marketing and drop down to the Championship or League One. Im sure they wont get any global fans down at that level.

Funny thing about all this, is Ive never come across an American bash a Brit for liking the Yankees or the Cowboys. And Ive come across quite a few Brits that like baseball and American football a bit. If anything Americans are very VERY open to people loving our sports, regardless of team affiliation.

PS - Ive never met anyone from the Bronx baffled that Yankee fans are all over the world. They seem to understand that the Yankees have an amazing history of accomplishments. I usually hear a lot of gloating that the Yanks have so many fans, rather than fans upset with foreign fans.
 
Playing devil's advocate: maybe some City fans just don't yet understand that being a "big club" (not that I'd call them that at this point) also means having fans all over the world. Any fan of any team in the Premier League (which is one of, if not, the most watched professional sports league in the world) is going to have a fan base that swells much further than Manchester, London, Birmingham, etc. It's just the current sports landscape and I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. In short, some people need to get over themselves.
 
EXACTLY.

As a global soccer fan that loves to watch good football from any nation, Ive taken a liking to Real Madrid, Sanfreece Hiroshima in the J-League, and I enjoy watch derby games in the A-League. I have received nothing but support from fans of those teams and leagues...yet Ive encountered a lot of bad attitudes from British football fans when a yank dares support a club that isnt local to them (especially if an American supports a team rival to theirs).

They cannot seem to understand that the reason many foreigners support European clubs, is that in some nations, soccer is very young as a sport. And also, many people may not have had local football that was to their liking. In my case I never took much liking to RBNY...but now that we have NYC FC, they are firmly my number one club. And yes, even more dear to my heart than Real Madrid....and Im a huge Ramos and Ronaldo fan.

But I do not need to be from an area to be able to support that club. If certain people have a problem with that, then they should petition their club to stop their global marketing and drop down to the Championship or League One. Im sure they wont get any global fans down at that level.

Funny thing about all this, is Ive never come across an American bash a Brit for liking the Yankees or the Cowboys. And Ive come across quite a few Brits that like baseball and American football a bit. If anything Americans are very VERY open to people loving our sports, regardless of team affiliation.

PS - Ive never met anyone from the Bronx baffled that Yankee fans are all over the world. They seem to understand that the Yankees have an amazing history of accomplishments. I usually hear a lot of gloating that the Yanks have so many fans, rather than fans upset with foreign fans.

Just for the once I'm going to break ranks and act as apologist for this, because understanding other peoples' mindsets is important to me (as I hope people might appreciate from the way I post in that Bluemoon thread).

The thing is, it's the culture - it's how people are programmed to think. In the UK, we are brought up to believe that you follow your dad's football team or your local team - and preferably they are both the same club. If that team is the club who just won the league last year - congratulations, you just won the lottery. If that club is some two-bit village side competing in the fourteenth tier of the pyramid, averaging 20 fans a game then that's just the way it goes, so get used to it. Changing your allegiance is not an option - it's virtually heresy, and not only will the fans of the team you used to support reject you as a traitor, but the fans of your new club will not accept you either. It also doesn't help that we don't really have new clubs here - the ones founded recently are virtually all just old clubs reforming under a new name. People can't really understand where new clubs get fans from.

The reason British fans often take badly to foreign fans is not because we don't like foreign people supporting our teams but because we have been hard-wired from a young age to accept that these are the only two ways people become fans. Obviously some take it better than others (I'd say probably the older the fan, the less they are willing to accept it) but this rise of a new third way of supporting a club - finding a team you have no link with but choosing to form a bond on your own merits - doesn't make sense to many people here, because it's simply not how we learned it. It's not too dissimilar to how we can't comprehend the gun culture in the US - we grew up with no guns, so many people just don't understand why anyone would want one.

What makes it so contentious is that, shortly before the rush of foreign fans supporting PL sides (or rather, at the same time but much more visibly early on) was the "glory hunter" fans in the UK who had no reason not to support their local/dad's team, but started following a club solely because it was winning trophies. This was particularly an issue in schools where playground politics and juvenile emotions made things seem worse than they really were, but at the same time cemented a bias in a huge number of peoples' minds against people jumping on bandwagons. Successful clubs were hated clubs, and because the successful clubs got the bandwagoners, the bandwagoners became hated.

Now a lot of foreign football fans are picking up PL clubs, a lot of people simply can't distinguish the difference between this situation and the problem of that unpopular kid at school who supported Manchester United because he wanted to see them win, even though he lived in London.

For the record - it is becoming far more acceptable as people simply have to adapt to the fact that this is the way the world is, and attitudes are changing. I don't want to give the impression that you're always going to be treated with hostility if you follow a British team, because for the most part you will be accepted. However, threads like this where hostility is already simmering are catalysts for bringing issues like this to the surface, hence why so long as there are frosty relations between the two CFG clubs, this argument is always going to keep resurfacing.
 
(Allow me to rant a little bit here. Reading the bluemoon thread has really made me remember a lot of the crap Ive taken in my years of daring to be an American soccer fan. Understand that the frustration is pent up.)

Falastur,

Thats the thing though. No one is changing allegiance over here. Many Americans don't have a soccer team local to them. They aren't team hopping. From what I always see, Americans choose a 1 team per soccer league, and thats their club. You don't see allegiance changes often with soccer, the way youll see in NFL or NBA. At least I havent seen it amongst footie fans.

Also, who says I HAVE to support 1 football club and thats it? Why can I not support a club in a different league? My Hiroshima, Madrid, and NY fandom do not conflict with one another? So whats the problem? Thats what I wonder when some people have criticized me for supporting non-local clubs. Americans are used to being bashed for stereotypically ignoring soccer...yet Ive also been bashed several times before for following foreign teams...and sometimes given shit for daring to follow foreign leagues that arent top flight European leagues.

You know what I think the problem is? Anti-Americanism. There's just this damn attitude that some foreigners have towards anything the USA does (and it seems to stem mostly from what our government does and bleeds over into other facets of general life). Allow me to explain.

When the MLS has a salary cap and playoffs, I have to hear foreigners, usually Brits, slag us off about it. They ignore the fact that theres a playoff for promotion into the EPL...and ignore that Aussies and other nations have playoffs to decide the champion for their league. Americans get crap for calling the game soccer...despite it being an ENGLISH word...despite the existence of Sky Sports Soccer Saturday...and despite the fact that World Soccer is a famous UK magazine. And let's not even get into the fact that several other nations use the term soccer, and that even back in the day folks in the UK used it with regularity (according to my Scottish friend)

There's also the fact that until last summer's World Cup, it was fairly regular for UK soccer fans to call the US national team shite...and say how Americans know nothing about football. I could go on and on with more examples of poor attitudes I receive from foreigners regarding my love and knowledge of football. But the fact remains is that many UK fans have an arrogance about yanks and soccer...because its "their sport" and "their team".

When Americans ignore football, we get shit. And when we follow and try to grow the interest of the game here at home, we get shit from foreigners and many of our own countrymen.

Personally I feel many people need to get with the times, stop being close minded, and respect when people from different locals support a club. This isnt the freaking 70s or 80s anymore. Foreigner players and foreign interest is what has made these leagues great anyway.

/rant.

EDIT: PS - I understand how any sport fan would dislike glory hunters. We here in the States dislike them as well. But your European sporting model makes it so that if fans ever want to support a winning side, they have to glory hunt. There's no fair economic model in your leagues, there's certainly no parity, and most top European leagues are dominated by the same few sides year in and year out. How sad must it be for middle table teams fans who will never ever see hardware in their life time in any competition. And unless they get a rich owner to pump hundreds of millions into a club (like with Man City and Cardiff City), there's little hope.

Personally I don't even prefer watching top flight European league matches. I prefer American, Japanese, and Australian club football for competitions sake. And if I want top flight European football, Ill watch the Champions League. At least with the Champions League I know the title wont be decided weeks before season's end.
 
Last edited:
I get what you're saying. You make some good points.

First off I would counter that I never said that Americans are pluralistic in their support - I know full well people would only support one team in the US. I don't think I ever suggested it was otherwise.

I think the argument that it is anti-Americanism is Your Mileage May Vary. I can't deny that there is some anti-American sentiment in the UK, as many other places, but you would be wrong to think that being American is the cause of the antipathy. Honestly, it just boils down to people being different. If you read British football forums, you'll find that when people talk about foreign fans and bandwagoning - particularly when they debate it amongst themselves rather than discussing it with foreign fans - it's generally the Asian fans who get the most ire. Then there's all the people who call out the Irish for literally living 100 miles away, in countries where the teams are myriad and as old as the hills, and yet coming over in their hundreds and thousands every week to actually attend matches - despite being actual match-going fans, which usually is enough to qualify you for special respect, they get called out for feeling the need to come to England to watch our teams.

People will find fault in people who are different to them. In that you are American people may have more ammunition to throw at you than otherwise - not so much because we hate your government but because, ironically, we know your culture so well compared to other places - but at the end of the day, people will call out just about anyone if they are different.
 
Cultural difference than I guess.

For Americans, despite our arrogance at times (especially regarding sports), we embrace foreigners supporting our leagues. And on that same token, if a foreigner hates our leagues we simply say "who cares...we dont need you." (a phrase used a lot when people bash "hand-egg" lol). We know that when it comes to our top 4 sports in the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL...the best players in the world come to the USA to play. So its not odd to us when foreigners support an American team. We truly embrace it to.

With as much as the NBA has expanded in global appeal over the last 20 years, and with all the European, South American, Asian, and now even a few Australian talents in the league...I never have once seen a group of Americans talk badly about foreign support. Its actually something we would boast about.

For example, if the NY Knicks were actually good this coming season, and if this Latvian rookie Kristaps Porzingis plays well...you won't hear NY fans upset if we got a bunch of new fans in Europe. We welcome all those European fans...doesnt matter if they are Latvian, or from other Baltic nations, or if they are Spanish league fans. You do not know how bad the NY Knicks fans want our team to be relevant lol.
 
Bringing the nationalities of the actual players into the conversation is a good point. I find that to be a big hypocritical element to anyone not supportive of foreign fans.
 
There was a level of arrogance among those MCFC fans that is seriously making me reconsider rooting for MCFC.

Seriously they want New Yorkers to be grateful to a soccer team that was distinctly a middle of the pack / relegation fight status club until Sheik Mansour bought them? Even disregarding the latter half of that statement, they want New Yorkers to be grateful?

I'm eternally grateful to Sheik Mansour for bringing his high caliber organization to NYC. But those thanks go to the CFG and their vision, not one club in particular.
 
Playing devil's advocate: maybe some City fans just don't yet understand that being a "big club" (not that I'd call them that at this point) also means having fans all over the world. Any fan of any team in the Premier League (which is one of, if not, the most watched professional sports league in the world) is going to have a fan base that swells much further than Manchester, London, Birmingham, etc. It's just the current sports landscape and I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. In short, some people need to get over themselves.
City are a big club. Not the biggest but they have a global fan base and have had one for some time now. That being said, I applaud the efforts of those on here who go over to their forum in peace. Hopefully the divide will lessen over the coming seasons.
 
City are a big club. Not the biggest but they have a global fan base and have had one for some time now. That being said, I applaud the efforts of those on here who go over to their forum in peace. Hopefully the divide will lessen over the coming seasons.

My comment was tongue in cheek.
 
Back
Top