Stuttgart88
26/05/2006, 9:17 AM
It seems that many threads digress completely off topic into some kind of "if you're not a fan of domestic football or if you don't know the Irish referees' names" then you're somehow tainted. How could any forum regular think that a fan like "the accused" in the referee example from this morning is in any way symptomatic of a problem in this country?
Give it a rest lads. There's no one defintion of what constitutes a real fan.
I'm not going to post my "CV" up here (do a search if you like, but I rather humiliatingly had to do something along these lines just to drop the "barstooler" accusations from some of the eL hardliners on this board about 2 years ago). I know one of the foot.ie eL hardcore, a Rovers fan, personally & professionally, and despite his devotion to the Hoops I'm sure he'll acknowledge there's no way whatsoever he can claim to be a better Irish fan than someone like me me, who watches 95% of his football on TV. I have a very young family & a large mortgage. I make a personal & economic decision not to attend football regularly in the UK where I live. It's bad value for money & it'd deprive me of time spent with my kids, which are more important to me.
Recently it's become almost Talibann-esque in its fundamentalism: Western values are sh1t, the more primitive the better, televised football is crap and all that. I cited The Life of Brian (what have the Romans ever done for us?) as an example recently: Irish-based players get picked for the national side, a manager is appointed to run the rule over eL players, a B team is to be established which will include eL players etc. etc. and yet not one of these positives was met with a positive reaction by many.
One guy in the eL section last week dismissed junior football players as "just barstoolers who play football". When I read this I just thought "God, can anyone win?"
The fact of the matter is that many of us on this board simply love football in all its forms. I have no prejudices as to what constitutes a better fan than another (though I resent those who attend Irish matches with no appreciation whatsoever of what it entails to be an Irish fan -the adding of Republican slogans to songs, wearing a club shirt and so on. I actually love simple songs like "Boys in Green " but I digress). Someone who plays the game regularly, a regular eL goer, a devout Premiership watcher on TV etc,. all have as much claim to be a football fan, and each has an equal background to offer informed opinion. There's more than one manifestation of a football fan.
I post almost exclusively on the Ireland International section of this forum. Occasional posts on the eL section, especially offering qualified support for Genesis, just get ignored! I'm fed up when perfectly good threads get sidetracked into "we're better fans than you" debates. There's been sh1t-stirring on both sides, yesterday much more from the non eL goers I have to admit. This is pointless and ruins what's otherwise a perfectly good debating platform.
The reason I post on this part of the forum is because I want to talk about the Irish national team, and just about anything that in any way is relevant to it. This includes commenting on a young Irish lad at some crappy English club, commenting on another country's set up because we might learn something from it or the domestic league because I fervently agree with one poster yesterday: a thriving domestic game can only be good for the international set up.
On this part of the forum at least, can we try and keep this in mind? Some people seem to relish a confrontational approach. Let off steam elsewhere if you need to, but most of us here like to keep a level head. I hope the moderators and fellow posters feel the same way.
Give it a rest lads. There's no one defintion of what constitutes a real fan.
I'm not going to post my "CV" up here (do a search if you like, but I rather humiliatingly had to do something along these lines just to drop the "barstooler" accusations from some of the eL hardliners on this board about 2 years ago). I know one of the foot.ie eL hardcore, a Rovers fan, personally & professionally, and despite his devotion to the Hoops I'm sure he'll acknowledge there's no way whatsoever he can claim to be a better Irish fan than someone like me me, who watches 95% of his football on TV. I have a very young family & a large mortgage. I make a personal & economic decision not to attend football regularly in the UK where I live. It's bad value for money & it'd deprive me of time spent with my kids, which are more important to me.
Recently it's become almost Talibann-esque in its fundamentalism: Western values are sh1t, the more primitive the better, televised football is crap and all that. I cited The Life of Brian (what have the Romans ever done for us?) as an example recently: Irish-based players get picked for the national side, a manager is appointed to run the rule over eL players, a B team is to be established which will include eL players etc. etc. and yet not one of these positives was met with a positive reaction by many.
One guy in the eL section last week dismissed junior football players as "just barstoolers who play football". When I read this I just thought "God, can anyone win?"
The fact of the matter is that many of us on this board simply love football in all its forms. I have no prejudices as to what constitutes a better fan than another (though I resent those who attend Irish matches with no appreciation whatsoever of what it entails to be an Irish fan -the adding of Republican slogans to songs, wearing a club shirt and so on. I actually love simple songs like "Boys in Green " but I digress). Someone who plays the game regularly, a regular eL goer, a devout Premiership watcher on TV etc,. all have as much claim to be a football fan, and each has an equal background to offer informed opinion. There's more than one manifestation of a football fan.
I post almost exclusively on the Ireland International section of this forum. Occasional posts on the eL section, especially offering qualified support for Genesis, just get ignored! I'm fed up when perfectly good threads get sidetracked into "we're better fans than you" debates. There's been sh1t-stirring on both sides, yesterday much more from the non eL goers I have to admit. This is pointless and ruins what's otherwise a perfectly good debating platform.
The reason I post on this part of the forum is because I want to talk about the Irish national team, and just about anything that in any way is relevant to it. This includes commenting on a young Irish lad at some crappy English club, commenting on another country's set up because we might learn something from it or the domestic league because I fervently agree with one poster yesterday: a thriving domestic game can only be good for the international set up.
On this part of the forum at least, can we try and keep this in mind? Some people seem to relish a confrontational approach. Let off steam elsewhere if you need to, but most of us here like to keep a level head. I hope the moderators and fellow posters feel the same way.