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Why do Irish people support English teams?

DEFTLEFTHAND

I was born and raised in Tipperary. My mother kept the home when Dad worked.

Dad worked in the merchant navy for yrs and loved soccer.

He lived in Inchicore when I was born. He was an officer on the Holyhead ferry.

We used to go to Richmond Park. Some of my earliest memomories in life are of him swearing and getting angry with me up on his lap.

He was a very emotive man, but very loving.

I just could never get why most of Dublin and the rest of the country supported the English league .

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Necro

wobatkicker23 wrote: »

I take it you haven’t met LOI fans. They will stop at no length to get their own back.

[Deleted User]

wobatkicker23 wrote: »

I take it you haven’t met LOI fans. They will stop at no length to get their own back.

Just admit you were talking bollox and then we can have a proper and honest discussion?

Necro

Omackeral wrote: »

Just admit you were talking bollox and then we can have a proper and honest discussion?

I wouldn't bother tbh, there's much more logical people on thread to discuss the issue with tbf.

The last few pages read like this:

cjragoo

OP Why are you only going after the fans? What about all the players who leave their boyhood Irish clubs to play in England? Traitors the lot of them. Keane should have played for Cobh Ramblers his entire career.

Achasanai

Yamanoto wrote: »

Club like Everton had considerable support in Dublin from the 1920's onwards. Support for other English teams would also have long preceded MOTD.

Yeah, I should have qualified what I said. I think MOTD kicked it off to a new level. Most of the older fans of football (who predated MOTD and live English football) would have been regular or semi-regulars to LOI grounds, at least in my experience. They would also have supported an English team, at least to a degree. Live football or highlights allowed a greater degree of association that somebody could feel for a team.

Avatar MIA

wobatkicker23 wrote: »

That’s okay guys, go back to watching Glen Crowe try and play something resembling soccer.

There's finally! a soccer thread outside an access request forum and the AH mods are allowing it (probably at the cinema watching Captain Marvel). Can we play nice so we can have nice things?

Billy Mays

Having a bit of an interest in how an English team does is grand I suppose, I don't get the whole "die hard" fans thing though. I just don't see how you can claim to be as big a fan of a team in another country as someone who follows their local team and goes every week. Irish people referring to themselves and others as scousers and mancs is weird aswell.

I know people who'd rather see the English team they support win a premier league or a champions league than see Ireland win a world cup or a European championship. That to me is just bizarre.

trashcan

wobatkicker23 wrote: »

I shouldn’t be surprised that LOI fans don’t understand symbolism.

That’s okay guys, go back to watching Glen Crowe try and play something resembling soccer.

Bad example there. Glen Crowe scored probably the best goal I've ever seen live (and I'm not a Bohs fan - Pats fan and he scored it against us at Dalymount, circa 2001. Maybe someone more tech savvy than me could post up the video from YouTube (I'm sure Omackeral remembers the goal I'm talking about). Crowe also made the Ireland squad, so he can't have been that bad.

By the way, was your Tolkien analogy an admission that you made your story up ?

Balanadan

You can’t beat going to live matches, or any live event for that matter. The anticipation and excitement. The passion, the camaraderie, the banter. The interaction with the players that you never get to experience if you just watch football on tv. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve been creased over with laughter at some of the things that go on. It’s a great feeling after a hard week at work to get into the ground and just look out at the green field. When your team scores a goal, for 30 seconds you lose the run of yourself, shouting, celebrating, you forget everything else going on in your life, it’s pure elation. Of course you experience lows as well following a football club, but once you’ve experienced the lows, you truly appreciate the highs.

Woke Hogan

I enjoy watching football so I brought my son to a few League of Ireland games when he was a young boy. The language out of the Ultras was foul, their faces contorted and twisted beyond recognition with hate, lads in their mid forties chanting vile rhymes in English accents about the other side. Feral children running around like packs of wild animals. Letting off flares.

When we were walking out of the park after one match, I bent down to my son and told him that the behaviour we had witnessed from the "fans" that evening was bilious and I urged him to never consider engaging in it himself. When righting wrongs his voice must be heard. But at a football game, silence can be even more devastating than jeering. We both swore that we would never go to a League of Ireland game again. The quality's better in the Premier League anyway, and the Spanish League is better still.

Perifect

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

Because if someone has spent years watching a team, then they are more likely to continue following that team but also watching other teams.

Surely people cop on when they grow up?

Perifect

Woke Hogan wrote: »

I enjoy watching football so I brought my son to a few League of Ireland games when he was a young boy. The language out of the Ultras was foul, their faces contorted and twisted beyond recognition with hate, lads in their mid forties chanting vile rhymes in English accents about the other side. Feral children running around like packs of wild animals. Letting off flares.

When we were walking out of the park after one match, I bent down to my son and told him that the behaviour we had witnessed from the "fans" that evening was bilious and I urged him to never consider engaging in it himself. When righting wrongs his voice must be heard. But at a football game, silence can be even more devastating than jeering. We both swore that we would never go to a League of Ireland game again. The quality's better in the Premier League anyway, and the Spanish League is better still.

You'd never hear swearing in English soccer! Hooligans, racism, sexism, the list is endless.

Monokne

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

I was born and raised in Tipperary. My mother kept the home when Dad worked.

Dad worked in the merchant navy for yrs and loved soccer.

He lived in Inchicore when I was born. He was an officer on the Holyhead ferry.

We used to go to Richmond Park. Some of my earliest memomories in life are of him swearing and getting angry with me up on his lap.

He was a very emotive man, but very loving.

I just could never get why most of Dublin and the rest of the country supported the English league .

My Dad was a Liverpool fan, and named me after Kenny Dalglish as I was born on the day LFC won the European cup in 1984 so it was only natural for me to follow in his footsteps.

I think that the accessibility of English football is why it's more popular here. Until relatively recently, it was much easier to view English football on TV than Irish.

There's also just the quality factor. I am a big MLS fan but in the US it's watched by about 20% as many people as watch the EPL there for that reason. People would rather watch the very top level of football abroad than lower quality football at home.

Monokne

ThomasFlynn wrote: »

Hoards of plastics in England too, not just Ireland.

I was born in South Oxfordshire (left after my 1st birthday) moved London (left at 6) moved to Ipswich (left at 14), Moved to Omagh.

I'm a Man Utd fan. I have no connection to Manchester or to the north of England.

Not sure why Irish people are giving themselves a hard time over non local support? Loads of English people don't even support their local team.

For full disclosure, I am a Liverpool fan and this post by a United fan is perhaps the most logical thing I've read in the past 26 pages.

You aren't noble or superior to anyone if you're supporting a league of Ireland team.

You aren't bad, wrong or worse than anyone if you follow an English team. Or a Spanish team. Or an Italian team. Or an Armenian team. I could go on but I think my point is made.

Trying to impose rules or boundaries to ones desire to support a given team in a given sport is missing the point altogether. I support the teams that I do in the leagues & sports that I do because I have a genuine affection for them. If you feel the need to explain to me why that's incorrect, you're living inside a box. I'm happy enough out here in the free world where I don't need to impose my opinions & beliefs on others and expect the same courtesy.

[Deleted User]

Monokne wrote: »

For full disclosure, I am a Liverpool fan and this post by a United fan is perhaps the most logical thing I've read in the past 26 pages.

You aren't noble or superior to anyone if you're supporting a league of Ireland team.

By the same token, the fact you feel the need to say you're a Liverpool fan just because he's a United fan is daft. As if that makes any semblance of difference. You're both just blokes in Ireland that like two of the biggest teams in England. United and Liverpool fans over here are the exact same as each other, no difference at all.

wobatkicker23

Omackeral wrote: »

By the same token, the fact you feel the need to say you're a Liverpool fan just because he's a United fan is daft. As if that makes any semblance of difference. You're both just blokes in Ireland that like two of the biggest teams in England. United and Liverpool fans over here are the exact same as each other, no difference at all.

It’s like saying I’m a plastic just because I support The All Blacks in rugby even though I am from Ireland.

SEPT 23 1989

Supported city my whole life but I won't hear of people knocking the LOI

Was brought to matches from a stupidly young age by my father in my innocence standing on terraces I thought Rovers were Ireland

Always the stories on the way home about when he was a kid in the 50's when 30 or 40 thousand watched Dublin derbies

TV killed it

[Deleted User]

wobatkicker23 wrote: »

It’s like saying I’m a plastic just because I support The All Blacks in rugby even though I am from Ireland.

Well you have the ability to go on Snapchat Stories 5 years before anyone else so you have my undying admiration.

wobatkicker23

Omackeral wrote: »

Well you have the ability to go on Snapchat Stories 5 years before anyone else so you have my undying admiration.

You LOI fans are the ultimate hipsters. Everything non-popular, mainstream or unavailable to the general population draws your admiration.

Monokne

Omackeral wrote: »

By the same token, the fact you feel the need to say you're a Liverpool fan just because he's a United fan is daft. As if that makes any semblance of difference. You're both just blokes in Ireland that like two of the biggest teams in England. United and Liverpool fans over here are the exact same as each other, no difference at all.

The same how? What does that mean?

Also, did you literally read my entire post and ignore everything just so you could say this, which adds nothing and has no context, rather than take on the actual rational, logical and considered points I made?

[Deleted User]

wobatkicker23 wrote: »

You LOI fans are the ultimate hipsters. Everything non-popular, mainstream or unavailable to the general population draws your admiration.

You're on Snapchat 5 years before everyone else and I'm the hipster!?!?

wobatkicker23

Omackeral wrote: »

You're on Snapchat 5 years before everyone else and I'm the hipster!?!?

I didn’t say I was on snapchat.

[Deleted User]

Monokne wrote: »

The same how? What does that mean?

Also, did you literally read my entire post and ignore everything just so you could say this, which adds nothing and has no context, rather than take on the actual rational, logical and considered points I made?

The same in that you're no different. Why did you feel the need to say ''full disclosure, I'm a Liverpool fan'' as if it makes a difference at all to anything? The rest of your points were middling to valid and unremarkable to me personally.

[Deleted User]

wobatkicker23 wrote: »

I didn’t say I was on snapchat.

You seem to be in some timeline that has access to it half a decade before anyone else at the very least so obviously you're ripping around in a DeLorean. Now who's the hipster?

Monokne

It was a tongue in cheek reference to the rivalry between the two clubs which, even someone who's not into English football, I assumed would be aware of.

[Deleted User]

Monokne wrote: »

It was a tongue in cheek reference to the rivalry between the two clubs which, even someone who's not into English football, I assumed would be aware of.

Ah it's tongue in cheek. Must've missed the subtlety.

wobatkicker23

Monokne wrote: »

It was a tongue in cheek reference to the rivalry between the two clubs which, even someone who's not into English football, I assumed would be aware of.

Don’t mind him. He has been twisted an embittered by years of watching LOI hoof ball.

[Deleted User]

wobatkicker23 wrote: »

Don’t mind him. He has been twisted an embittered by years of watching LOI hoof ball.

Did you miss where I say I watch the Premiership every week. I've been to the Euros. I've been to games in Cyprus, Germany, Scotland and even evil Old Trafford.

The Rape of Lucretia

It has become the accepted way for Irish people to express their deep bond with England through the disguise of it being a sporting motivation.
Fundamentally, it expresses the deep Englishness of most Irish people, and despite a century of trying to repel everything English, has survived to become a hiding in plain sight way of waving the Union Jack, and, code for the fact that the Irish retain a deep affiliation and love for England.
Picking a team, generally completely arbitrarily, and rising and falling with their performances in the leagues, allows us to feel as one with the rest of England following the same teams.

wobatkicker23

Omackeral wrote: »

Did you miss where I say I watch the Premiership every week. I've been to the Euros. I've been to games in Cyprus, Germany, Scotland and even evil Old Trafford.

Boasting on the internet. Well done pal.