Why do Irish people support English teams?

I cringe when I think of my previous life as a diehard Liverpool fan. I completely lost interest when I got off my hole and started following my local LOI side. Are some matches muck? Yes. But the majority are an intense competition between two teams of reasonably similar quality. Yes, either one would get hockeyed against Man City but at its own level it's highly enjoyable, not to mention the prospect of European qualification and the very slim chance your team may meet a European heavyweight or two if they get far enough. I still enjoy the pints and the atmosphere at a poor match, which is more than I can say for when I nearly fell asleep on the couch watching the Merseyside derby last weekend, or Liverpool's limp attempt to put a 10 point gap at City when they played them in December, or the North West derby the other week. That right there is 270 minutes of awful, pedestrian,boring football that Martin O'Neill be ashamed to put out in his last months. 270 minutes of my weekends wasted, to think my brother pays 50 odd quid a month to buy this rubbish.

I still think it would be nice to see Liverpool win the league, but their Irish fans have become as insufferable as the United lads used to be before they went to pot. I truly couldn't give a fiddlers any more. The worst about them being the ones who are somewhat under the illusion they are actually from Liverpool, that things like Hillsborough are/ were a personal assault on them.

And I know an Everton fan even more convinced hes actually from the region, an irrational hatred of the redmen, harps on every now and then about how Heysel got them banned from Europe (he would've been about four when Heysel happened). He's from bleedin Dundalk.

I don't understand how Irish people can't mix it up in their support. Plenty of, for example, Scottish fans have love for an English club while still putting money and support into their local side. Ditto Swedes, Norwegians, Dutch as well I think.

I would somewhat buy into the argument for country folk who have no local team. The GAA makes county rivalries more heated than, say, a man from Wocestershire supporting Aston Villa a few miles away in the nearest town. Given the rivalry they've grown up with you can half understand a man from Kells not supporting Bohs or Drogheda/ Dundalk (in saying that I do know of lads from Kildare and Wicklow who follow Rovers. And plenty of country lads living in Dublin have no qualms about adopting Bohs/ Shels/ Pats seeing as they've no local team to be tied to) But people from the main towns and cities have no excuse. When Manchester United go to the darkest corners of Eastern Europe in the group stages the stadium isn't 10 percent home fans, 10 percent travelling fans and 80 percent Belarussians wearing Man Utd jerseys, yet if they ended up coming here for a European tie (which would likely be played as the Aviva as per regs) that's exactly the crowd you would be getting.

My ma grew up in Burnley near Turf Moor I suppose I could support that lot but I see enough of Jeff Hendrick watching Ireland. Or don’t see him more like.

Edenmoar wrote: »

I dread the day Dundalk or Bohs or Cark draw Yenira or Celtic or one of those teams in Europa group stage and the crowd is 90% for the British team. Cringe.

I'd be half tempted to dust off the Pool jersey and stall in if Rovers ended up playing them


I really wouldn't. Loath Rovers as everyone outside of Tallaght does, but joining the Dublin Reds or whatever they refer to themselves as in the stands to belt out the two chants they average fan knows would be toe curling.

Mentioning Celtic, even more bizarre mental gymnastics are those who chastise "West Brits" who fpllow an English club, because they themselves keep it Irish by following....Celtic?!? I'll admit I do like to see them go on in Europe but it is textbook armchair fan nonsense.

limnam wrote: »

Why does a guy from ballinhassig follow cork city fc and not ballinhassig afc?


Why should you be restricted to the most _local_ team?


In a globally connected world, working in American companies, presses full of foreign foods, buying from forigen supermarkets watching foreign/British television drinking foreign beverages.


But it;s odd to follow a team an hour away?


People follow teams like united all over the world. It's not just "irish" people

I think it’s just annoying to LOI fans that there’s such fervent support for foreign teams when we have a league on our own doorstep that would greatly improve if we paid more attention to it. People saying “we” this and that about Spurs and Liverpool is hella cringe.

8-10 wrote: »

I suppose the same lads only support RTE and Irish funded TV productions and don't go near British programming

D-. Must try harder.

limnam wrote: »

Yeah?


You should tell that to the scandiavain manchester united supporters club. They'd love to hear from you.

I would wager the majority of the supporters club also support Helsingsborgs, Malmo etc etc.

Just under 18,000 people countrywide attended the first week of this season of LOI. Assuming it's mostly men, about 0.75 percent of the male population. More than 99 out of 100 men were not there. Yet probably 70 out of 100 of these regard themselves as a fan of a British club.

I believe something like 200,000 attend at least one EPL game per year. I'd bet the majority of these never attend LOI.