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Why do Irish people support English teams?

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  • Registered Users Posts: 13,288 ✭✭✭✭8-10


    D14Rugby wrote: »
    You're saying two different things now.

    I can 100% guarantee you that seeing the players in person every week, seeing them walk around town, knowing they're from around the same area as you trumps that closeness you feel by being able to watch them on a screen a thousand times over.

    Initially it wasn't a condition. But it's the reason I'm still a fan. Had I not been able to watch every game I probably would have switched to watching a different team that it was easier to watch.

    And you don't have to 100% guarantee that. I agree with you. Seeing your team in person week in week out trumps the closeness I feel watching on TV. That's obvious.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,782 ✭✭✭pgj2015


    8-10 wrote: »
    Many people have said it. I said here multiple times it's because I can watch all games on TV. Home and away, whatever competition.

    I'm sitting in my living room now watching Liverpool play a preseason game away from home on LFC TV

    You don't have that with Irish teams




    you cant beat being at a match live, its like comparing a meal in mcdonalds and a meal in a michelin star restaurant.

    id rather watch a loi match live any day over a premier league game on tv.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 19,889 ✭✭✭✭The Moldy Gowl


    pgj2015 wrote: »
    you cant beat being at a match live, its like comparing a meal in mcdonalds and a meal in a michelin star restaurant.

    id rather watch a loi match live any day over a premier league game on tv.

    Like last night. I went to see bohs and not Chelsea.

    I had to stay around for the fawning over lampard. People with the welcome home frank sign.

    Bohs players thanked the fans, Chelsea went straight down the tunnel.

    It was weird. Was a good game but those fans will never be back. Lasts nights game really turned me against them fans.
    It's sad but is what it is.


  • Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 79,828 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sephiroth_dude


    Omackeral wrote: »
    Rovers with a very credible 2-2 away in Norway though. Cork are a shadow of themselves.

    Maguire was never replaced.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,288 ✭✭✭✭8-10


    pgj2015 wrote: »
    id rather watch a loi match live any day over a premier league game on tv.

    If I was a neutral fan I'd be in full agreement. I'd go see a LOI game over a random PL game on tv

    But I'd rather watch the team I support on TV than a live match of teams I don't support which is the difference


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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,815 ✭✭✭D14Rugby


    8-10 wrote: »
    If I was a neutral fan I'd be in full agreement. I'd go see a LOI game over a random PL game on tv

    But I'd rather watch the team I support on TV than a live match of teams I don't support which is the difference

    You've said that if you couldn't watch every game you'd support someone that you could watch every game of. That's not something a proper supporter would say in my opinion. If I could never watch another rovers game again and just had to go off match reports or online updates or whatever I'd still support rovers.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,288 ✭✭✭✭8-10


    D14Rugby wrote: »
    You've said that if you couldn't watch every game you'd support someone that you could watch every game of. That's not something a proper supporter would say in my opinion. If I could never watch another rovers game again and just had to go off match reports or online updates or whatever I'd still support rovers.

    No I'll always support Liverpool no matter what nowadays, my point was about being a kid it could have worked out differently had I never seen my team play. I'm too invested at this stage to switch anymore. The team grows on you during those formative years, your first trip to the Stadium, pretending to be your favourite player on the playground etc etc. You wouldn't have become a Rovers fan and followed their results every week without ever seeing them kick a ball would you? If I had never gotten the opportunities to see them play I wouldn't personally just have followed blindly. The fact that TV coverage came in it the time it did facilitated me being a fan. If it didn't I'd probably follow a different team or sport right now or not be interested in soccer at all. TV made it easier and is the reason I'm still a fan today

    But that's my personal position. If you want to change the team you support it's up to you, it's each to their own. I don't get the "proper" supporter or "real" supporter argument. You're right, as a supporter you are superior to me, fine for you to feel that way I just don't get it.

    Doesn't stop me loving my team and getting a lot a joy out of following them and feeling pride right now being Champions of Europe

    I hope you get the same joy watching your team


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,875 ✭✭✭Edgware


    8-10 wrote: »
    No I'll always support Liverpool no matter what nowadays, my point was about being a kid it could have worked out differently had I never seen my team play. I'm too invested at this stage to switch anymore. The team grows on you during those formative years, your first trip to the Stadium, pretending to be your favourite player on the playground etc etc. You wouldn't have become a Rovers fan and followed their results every week without ever seeing them kick a ball would you? If I had never gotten the opportunities to see them play I wouldn't personally just have followed blindly. The fact that TV coverage came in it the time it did facilitated me being a fan. If it didn't I'd probably follow a different team or sport right now or not be interested in soccer at all. TV made it easier and is the reason I'm still a fan today

    But that's my personal position. If you want to change the team you support it's up to you, it's each to their own. I don't get the "proper" supporter or "real" supporter argument. You're right, as a supporter you are superior to me, fine for you to feel that way I just don't get it.

    Doesn't stop me loving my team and getting a lot a joy out of following them and feeling pride right now being Champions of Europe

    I hope you get the same joy watching your team

    "Little boys in the park , jumpers for goalposts, hmm football innit"


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,288 ✭✭✭✭8-10


    Edgware wrote: »
    "Little boys in the park , jumpers for goalposts, hmm football innit"

    Right, didn't you pretend to be your favourite players?


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,815 ✭✭✭D14Rugby


    8-10 wrote: »
    No I'll always support Liverpool no matter what nowadays, my point was about being a kid it could have worked out differently had I never seen my team play. I'm too invested at this stage to switch anymore. The team grows on you during those formative years, your first trip to the Stadium, pretending to be your favourite player on the playground etc etc. You wouldn't have become a Rovers fan and followed their results every week without ever seeing them kick a ball would you? If I had never gotten the opportunities to see them play I wouldn't personally just have followed blindly. The fact that TV coverage came in it the time it did facilitated me being a fan. If it didn't I'd probably follow a different team or sport right now or not be interested in soccer at all. TV made it easier and is the reason I'm still a fan today

    But that's my personal position. If you want to change the team you support it's up to you, it's each to their own. I don't get the "proper" supporter or "real" supporter argument. You're right, as a supporter you are superior to me, fine for you to feel that way I just don't get it.

    Doesn't stop me loving my team and getting a lot a joy out of following them and feeling pride right now being Champions of Europe

    I hope you get the same joy watching your team

    So you're telling me that as a kid you consciously watched every single Liverpool game including every friendly and if you couldn't do that you would have just moved to another club?
    Supporting a club is about having an actual connection to that club, feeling everything that happens, like it or not being able to watch them on TV isn't a connection.
    If you can just change your team then you were never really a supporter of that club that's just how it is. If you have an actual connection to the club and not some fabricated one then that's just not something that is physically possible to do. That's why you get people that don't support anyone after their club goes bust and why you get phoenix clubs because people have actual connections to the club.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 4,027 ✭✭✭H3llR4iser


    I guess it's the lack of major clubs locally that spurs the support for the "big and famous" ones; Being England close and sharing the same language most people here end up supporting Liverpool, United and whatnot. Also, while at an United match in Dublin two years ago I got to talk to a few people and all seemed to have some sort of connection to the team: their parents used to live in Manchester, moved back to Dublin and obviously kept supporting their team; so the children grew up in an Man UTD supporting environment.

    You get a similar situation in other places; For example, a staggering amount of people from center and southern Italy support northern teams, especially Juventus FC and Inter Milan. With the exception of Rome and Naples, which have clubs competing at a high level (AS Roma, SS Lazio, SSC Napoli), basically all the other cities have minor clubs who hardly ever even make a dent in Serie A, so people go for the "big ones". Why don't they at least pick the closest big ones (e.g. Roma or Napoli) is due to history (no one in Italy won more than Juventus, Milan and Inter Milan) and petty local rivalries.


  • Registered Users Posts: 22 padzer220982


    I'm a Tipperary native who travels down to watch Waterford FC my local team.. absolutely love it nothing beats live football and I grew up supporting Liverpool as sadly the league isn't on any one's radar around me.. I'd urge anyone to at least try a league of Ireland game as the standard is a lot higher than people think.. we had a player in Bastien Hery who has sadly moved to Linfield but he was worth the admission price alone to watch on his day cracking player..


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,815 ✭✭✭D14Rugby


    H3llR4iser wrote: »
    I guess it's the lack of major clubs locally that spurs the support for the "big and famous" ones; Being England close and sharing the same language most people here end up supporting Liverpool, United and whatnot. Also, while at an United match in Dublin two years ago I got to talk to a few people and all seemed to have some sort of connection to the team: their parents used to live in Manchester, moved back to Dublin and obviously kept supporting their team; so the children grew up in an Man UTD supporting environment.

    You get a similar situation in other places; For example, a staggering amount of people from center and southern Italy support northern teams, especially Juventus FC and Inter Milan. With the exception of Rome and Naples, which have clubs competing at a high level (AS Roma, SS Lazio, SSC Napoli), basically all the other cities have minor clubs who hardly ever even make a dent in Serie A, so people go for the "big ones". Why don't they at least pick the closest big ones (e.g. Roma or Napoli) is due to history (no one in Italy won more than Juventus, Milan and Inter Milan) and petty local rivalries.

    There are tonnes of major clubs locally, at different periods of time the likes of Rovers, Dundalk, Athlone, Cork (insert version here), Waterford have all been big clubs. People just tend to think of the English clubs as historically being more major because since the 80s at the latest the public (and FAI) have just ignored the national league but before then the big clubs here weren't far off their English counterparts, even in the 80s the likes of Rovers were a match for the likes of Manchester United and there's some great stories from players from that time about when they played them.

    I tend to find if you dig deeper to the old "oh I've family from there" one a lot of the time, not all, it doesn't carry. "oh your dads from Manchester what part? I've family from there myself" is quickly followed by "oh I don't know exactly where" or some sort of backtracking.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,288 ✭✭✭✭8-10


    D14Rugby wrote: »
    So you're telling me that as a kid you consciously watched every single Liverpool game including every friendly and if you couldn't do that you would have just moved to another club?

    Nope, didn't say that at all.

    Same as I never said that wanting the EPL to be successful doesn't mean I want the LOI to not be successful.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,815 ✭✭✭D14Rugby


    8-10 wrote: »
    Many people have said it. I said here multiple times it's because I can watch all games on TV. Home and away, whatever competition.

    I'm sitting in my living room now watching Liverpool play a preseason game away from home on LFC TV

    You don't have that with Irish teams
    8-10 wrote: »
    Initially it wasn't a condition. But it's the reason I'm still a fan. Had I not been able to watch every game I probably would have switched to watching a different team that it was easier to watch.

    And you don't have to 100% guarantee that. I agree with you. Seeing your team in person week in week out trumps the closeness I feel watching on TV. That's obvious.
    8-10 wrote: »
    No I'll always support Liverpool no matter what nowadays, my point was about being a kid it could have worked out differently had I never seen my team play. I'm too invested at this stage to switch anymore. The team grows on you during those formative years, your first trip to the Stadium, pretending to be your favourite player on the playground etc etc. You wouldn't have become a Rovers fan and followed their results every week without ever seeing them kick a ball would you? If I had never gotten the opportunities to see them play I wouldn't personally just have followed blindly. The fact that TV coverage came in it the time it did facilitated me being a fan. If it didn't I'd probably follow a different team or sport right now or not be interested in soccer at all. TV made it easier and is the reason I'm still a fan today

    But that's my personal position. If you want to change the team you support it's up to you, it's each to their own. I don't get the "proper" supporter or "real" supporter argument. You're right, as a supporter you are superior to me, fine for you to feel that way I just don't get it.

    Doesn't stop me loving my team and getting a lot a joy out of following them and feeling pride right now being Champions of Europe

    I hope you get the same joy watching your team
    8-10 wrote: »
    Nope, didn't say that at all.

    Same as I never said that wanting the EPL to be successful doesn't mean I want the LOI to not be successful.

    "I'm a fan because I can watch everything on tv"
    "Being able to watch every game is why I'm still a fan, If I couldn't do that I'd support someone else"
    "no I wouldn't swith now I was talking about as a kid"
    "As a kid being able to watch every game on tv wasn't important"

    So being able to watch every game is so important that if you couldn't do it you'd switch clubs but not now, but when you were a kid, but when you were a kid it wasn't important? Am I getting that right?

    You said you'd rather the EPL be successful than the LOI. So given the choice of one or the other being successful you'd pick a foreign league over your own domestic one. That is what you said and it says a lot about you.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,714 ✭✭✭Greyfox


    D14Rugby wrote: »
    Supporting a club is about having an actual connection to that club, feeling everything that happens, like it or not being able to watch them on TV isn't a connection.

    Supporting a club is about FEELING a connection for a club. You can feel a connection to a foreign club, feel everything that happens and this is perfectly normal and happens with most football fans in Ireland. Yes the club doesnt represent where you were born but there's other factors that make you feel connected e.g when you talk about your clubs success or failure with your family and friends


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,288 ✭✭✭✭8-10


    D14Rugby wrote: »
    So being able to watch every game is so important that if you couldn't do it you'd switch clubs but not now, but when you were a kid, but when you were a kid it wasn't important? Am I getting that right?

    No, not right. You're not getting it at all, that doesn't make sense.
    D14Rugby wrote: »
    You said you'd rather the EPL be successful than the LOI.

    I said I'm more interested in the EPL being successful than I have an interest in the LOI being successful.

    What you keep trying to argue over and over is that this means that I want the EPL to be more successful than the LOI. I have never said that here, or anywhere.

    Wanting the English league to be successful does not mean it has to be at the expense of the LOI. The LOI is free to become the biggest league in the world. All I'm saying is that I have more of an interest in the EPL being a success regardless of what the LOI does. It doesn't interest me as much what they do because I don't support a LOI club. I do not specifically want it to be unsuccessful or less successful or whatever you're trying to argue.

    It's honestly astounding that you don't get the difference here and maintain that I want the English league to be more successful than the LOI. Drop it, I'm not saying that and never have.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,288 ✭✭✭✭8-10


    Greyfox wrote: »
    Supporting a club is about FEELING a connection for a club. You can feel a connection to a foreign club, feel everything that happens and this is perfectly normal and happens with most football fans in Ireland. Yes the club doesnt represent where you were born but there's other factors that make you feel connected e.g when you talk about your clubs success or failure with your family and friends

    I was born very far away from where I grew up same as a lot of people. There's loads of reasons why physical proximity as the sole factor in who you support doesn't work as the definitive factor. If it was the closest team to where I live I'd have had about 10 different supported clubs in my life.


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,956 ✭✭✭✭Omackeral


    H3llR4iser wrote: »
    Also, while at an United match in Dublin two years ago I got to talk to a few people and all seemed to have some sort of connection to the team: their parents used to live in Manchester, moved back to Dublin and obviously kept supporting their team; so the children grew up in an Man UTD supporting environment.

    And yet there's a shocking lack of Birmingham City fans, Crystal Palace fans, Everton fans over here.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,288 ✭✭✭✭8-10


    Omackeral wrote: »
    And yet there's a shocking lack of Birmingham City fans, Crystal Palace fans, Everton fans over here.

    Nothing's stopping you from supporting them if you think there's a lack

    Go to Birmingham and London and you'll see United and Liverpool fans, same as here


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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,815 ✭✭✭D14Rugby


    8-10 wrote: »
    No, not right. You're not getting it at all, that doesn't make sense.



    I said I'm more interested in the EPL being successful than I have an interest in the LOI being successful.

    What you keep trying to argue over and over is that this means that I want the EPL to be more successful than the LOI. I have never said that here, or anywhere.

    Wanting the English league to be successful does not mean it has to be at the expense of the LOI. The LOI is free to become the biggest league in the world. All I'm saying is that I have more of an interest in the EPL being a success regardless of what the LOI does. It doesn't interest me as much what they do because I don't support a LOI club. I do not specifically want it to be unsuccessful or less successful or whatever you're trying to argue.

    It's honestly astounding that you don't get the difference here and maintain that I want the English league to be more successful than the LOI. Drop it, I'm not saying that and never have.

    Glad you acknowledge what youre saying doesn't make sense. :D

    So answer me this. You have the chance to save one league system, the LOI or the EPL and FL. Which do you save since you have more interest in the EPL being successful than the LOI.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,288 ✭✭✭✭8-10


    D14Rugby wrote: »
    So answer me this. You have the chance to save one league system, the LOI or the EPL and FL. Which do you save since you have more interest in the EPL being successful than the LOI.

    What happens to the league that isn't saved, those clubs and those players?


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,815 ✭✭✭D14Rugby


    Greyfox wrote: »
    Supporting a club is about FEELING a connection for a club. You can feel a connection to a foreign club, feel everything that happens and this is perfectly normal and happens with most football fans in Ireland. Yes the club doesnt represent where you were born but there's other factors that make you feel connected e.g when you talk about your clubs success or failure with your family and friends

    And do you know what, every single one of those factors applies to me just as much as someone that claims to support that club. I can talk about Man City winning the EPL with anyone thats not a connection, in fact talking about your own local clubs success with someone that doesn't know about it is far far more of a connection than talking about Liverpool winning the Champions league where everyone talking about it has the same "opinion" on it that they've got 2nd or 3rd hand whereas if you're explaining the significance of say Dundalk being where they are now considering where they were a few years ago is a far more interesting conversation.

    Comparing "I was at the game yesterday, unreal atmosphere, nobody left the ground for an hour after the trophy was lifted" to "I watched the game on tv yesterday, sounded like a good atmosphere" is absolute night and day.


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,956 ✭✭✭✭Omackeral


    Greyfox wrote: »
    Supporting a club is about FEELING a connection for a club. You can feel a connection to a foreign club, feel everything that happens and this is perfectly normal and happens with most football fans in Ireland. Yes the club doesnt represent where you were born but there's other factors that make you feel connected e.g when you talk about your clubs success or failure with your family and friends

    Read this last night with regard to Wimbledon being moved to Milton Keynes.

    "The nature of the relationship between clubs and their fans is based on the fact that the local football club is regarded by most English football supporters as part of the local identity and social fabric"

    Wonder would any English club moving to another area bother any Irish fan in the way it did the Dons supporters. They didn't have a bar of it. They protested, boycotted and eventually formed the ultimate Phoenix club. Meanwhile, Paddy flicks on Chelsea TV for a pre-season friendly and he's the mutts nuts.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,815 ✭✭✭D14Rugby


    8-10 wrote: »
    What happens to the league that isn't saved, those clubs and those players?

    Gone wiped from history players (read mercenaries) go to clubs in other countries, clubs don't exist, sunday league only in those countries


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,956 ✭✭✭✭Omackeral


    8-10 wrote: »
    Go to Birmingham and London and you'll see United and Liverpool fans, same as here

    It goes against the idea that the Irish follow United and Arsenal because of their parents and uncles and whoever else is my point. Why don't you address that instead of coming with things like this;
    8-10 wrote: »
    Nothing's stopping you from supporting them if you think there's a lack


  • Registered Users Posts: 22 padzer220982


    Omackeral wrote: »
    Chelsea is probably the one club an Irish man shouldn't gravitate to.

    I always find it funny when people here say they support Chelsea.. a big section of their fan base are well in with the Linfield and Rangers crowd.. they'd be big admirers of the UVF/UDA boys up north.. always cracks me up when I hear people I know shouting about Chelsea


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,844 ✭✭✭pavb2


    8-10 wrote: »

    Go to Birmingham and London and you'll see United and Liverpool fans, same as here

    Not too many Utd or Liverpool fans in Birmingham, it's quite polarised Villa or Blues with very little in between.


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,956 ✭✭✭✭Omackeral


    pavb2 wrote: »
    Not too many Utd or Liverpool fans in Birmingham, it's quite polarised Villa or Blues with very little in between.

    Proper football people IMO


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  • Registered Users Posts: 13,288 ✭✭✭✭8-10


    D14Rugby wrote: »
    Gone wiped from history players (read mercenaries) go to clubs in other countries, clubs don't exist, sunday league only in those countries

    Yeah honestly that scenario leads into economic and social issues in the respective countries, I think you're talking about a scenario that would go above soccer and the nature of support. I would definitely not be happy to see the LOI or EPL completely cease to exist as you mention, hopefully that never comes to pass.
    Omackeral wrote: »
    It goes against the idea that the Irish follow United and Arsenal because of their parents and uncles and whoever else is my point. Why don't you address that instead of coming with things like this;

    As I've said many times, there's loads and loads of valid reasons why, quote from earlier in the thread -
    being born there and moving, Irish players playing there, advertisements and promotion of the league and teams in Irish and English media, success and historical success, ease of watching games on TV, liking the colour of the jersey, fancying the attractive players....whatever.

    Nobody is saying it's only because of parents and uncles. There's loads of valid reasons for supporting an English team.
    pavb2 wrote: »
    Not too many Utd or Liverpool fans in Birmingham, it's quite polarised Villa or Blues with very little in between.

    I regularly fly into Birmingham for Liverpool games and see plenty on the train up. Maybe it just looks that way on game days. You're probably right.


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