Why is it wrong to support foreign teams as well?

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Originally Posted by kingdomkerry

IMO it is retarded to support a team you have no affiliation with and quite hypocritical as well. In saying that I respect people freedom to do what they want

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In another thread you said that as you were living in south Dublin now you would probably support Rovers. Now that they are staying northside who will you support? Youve dismissed UCD who are now youre only local team so what criteria will you use to pick the team you 'Support'?

By your own logic you are a retard if you support anyone but UCD.
I dont agree with your logic by the way so I dont think youre a retard:)

Seriously though give UCD a go We are your local team and when you see the mayhem we have planned for our home games next season you will be missing out if you dont come along!

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Originally Posted by gustavo

I suppose those who refer to the Premiership as the Premier**** can come across as being fairly bitter

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I agree. I just haven’t heard that phrase outside of LOI message boards

You can support an Irish team aswell as a foreign team. I had this arguement the other week with my brother in law. He can't understand why people do this because the standard of the league is so bad in his opinion. My response was no matter how bad our league or your local team is you still should follow them. He claims to be a 'proper' football fan because he only follows Manchester Utd, (Even though he only been to Old Trafford once this season ) unlike someone like me.

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Originally Posted by Dodge

Where are people getting the idea that LOI fans are against premiership fans, anywhere but on internet forums? If any of the people who claim they won't go to LOI games because of the attitudes here actually went to games they'd realise people have better things to do than bitch or moan about people's "other" teams. Can you give examples of how this snobbery manifested itself? Was it all in your mind or was it one or two people making comments?

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Precisely.
This is one of the several excuses that some people latch onto for not actually liking football, other than massively hyped events that they connect to through television.
eL fans are bound to challenge the sneering remarks made by those who big themselves up by saying Irish football isn't good enough for them. The only other option is to agree with them, and that's not going to persuade people to come either, now is it?

I wrote about this in my blog back at the start of the season...

http://bohsman.blogspot.com/2007/04/...-ain-team.html

Shameless plug over... :o

It's a strange phenomenon. There seems to be a facination with the premiership in ireland. I can understand the celtic link to an extent, but the English one baffles me.

There's guys in my work here who claim to be "massive" man united fans "cos they've followed them since the 60s" but they look at me as if i have 2 heads when i mention the eircom league.

I love watching football, but i could never support a team if i didn't have a link to them. I watch the Premiership cos i like watching football, but mainly cos of fantasy football. At times it bores the arse off me. Some of the **** offered up by the top english league is awful.

There's no doubt some of the eircom league games are crap, but at least it means something to me. At least there's a connection.

So in a nutshell we should be pushing the local aspect of our game. Donramo said earlier about being acknowledged by players in the street. I think thats one of the biggest factors in supporting an EL team.
I remember being in Edinburgh years ago with a Hibs fan friend. We walked into his local shop and Alan Sneddon (who played for Hibs at the time) was in there buying bread.
He knew my mate from going to matches and we chatted for a few minutes when he was leaving he thanked him for his support. Apparently according to the same mate the current batch of Hibs players would call the cops if you tried to engage them in conversation!
Thankfully thats not the story here (in my experience anyway) so maybe we should be promoting the players as down to earth types that appreciate your support?

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Originally Posted by Titan

In another thread you said that as you were living in south Dublin now you would probably support Rovers. Now that they are staying northside who will you support? Youve dismissed UCD who are now youre only local team so what criteria will you use to pick the team you 'Support'?

By your own logic you are a retard if you support anyone but UCD.
I dont agree with your logic by the way so I dont think youre a retard:)

Seriously though give UCD a go We are your local team and when you see the mayhem we have planned for our home games next season you will be missing out if you dont come along!

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Thanks for the offer and maybe i might go to a game of two in the bowl but i just dont think a college team in a countrys premier league are going to go anywhere.

Anyway when i mention supporting a team you are not affililiated with, that rules out every irish team.

I should of used the word "silly" rather than "retarded".

Probably should move this here from the Bertie thread, so. Didn't see this one.

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Originally Posted by OneRedArmy

In reference to the elitist and zealots points raised in respect of EL supporters, bear in mind that hardcore fans of any club in any league dislike the sunshiner/bandwagon variety of their own support.

Those who "follow" English sides and make it over to a game once in a while might like to think the die hards love the effort you make to attend the odd game, but really, as far as they're concerned, there's no difference between you and the Japanese or Norwegian guy who makes it to a match every once in a while.

They look down their nose at sunshiners of any variety. Fact.

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Oh I don't doubt that for a second.

Not many of the hardcore Liverpool or Man. Utd. support grew up in a society where the vast majority of people supported French football and only became elitist and zealous about their local teams later on, though, so their feelings would be pretty straightforward and could never be suspected as being contrived.

Our situation is not as simple as that and it's disingenuous to the extreme to suggest that it is.

I have only ever watched live football in Ireland. That's where I'm used to doing it and that's what the bus and the legs are for. The telly is for the faraway leagues and I've only watched Bohs about three times in my lifetime on it. But fair fecks to the people who do go over to England to see the team they obsess about the whole rest of the time, if that's what they want. And if the locals look down their noses at them, then that's their own problem. It's not a problem that we have here, despite the implications that we're just a normal league with normal prejudices.

Like it or not, the emotional investment that the daytripping barstoolers put in to following the fortunes of their English team (whilst not touching the tribal buzz of local football in terms of 'authentic' pull, as we all smugly know) is genuine; for better or for worse, everyday life in this country provides a forum for defending/exalting the team they align themselves with against/over plenty of other teams from the same league with whom plenty of other people in everyday life have similarly aligned themselves. (For example, I know your heart will bleed for them and all, but United fans in the '80s or Liverpool fans in the '90s in Dublin were about as far from 'sunshine' as it gets in this regard.)

The emotional investment, I repeat, is genuine -- and in some cases, it's massive. It's radically different to the emotional investment of the eircom league fan (and it's fecking egregious that the situation exists whereby a gang of Irish lads who are that mad about football can go from one end of the week, one end of the month even, to the other talking avidly about nothing else but ball and the native league not be mentioned once) but it is real.

To dismiss these people -- as certain League of Ireland supporters tend to do -- as if they were capricious gobdaws, with the drama-queen pretence that the situation is just all too incomprehensible, is unfair and unrealistic.

Not to mention the fact that some of the people who feel genuine attachments to English clubs do go to (.i. up off their bums and pay good money in to see) plenty of League of Ireland matches as well -- what of them? What's the zealots' consensus on dual support, in these heady summer-league days? (Are the Bohs mug and the Liverpool duvet incompatible items of merchandise? ... :eek: )

It is not wrong and don't let anybody else tell you different.

Titan

Support your local sheriff first...,follow the others second.. no problems.
I am a follower of teams overseas but my support is unconditionally for UCD.
But if I am in other countries on a visit there are other teams I am interested in enough to visit their stadium etc and take in a game as long as I won't get killed doing so.Which means I won't be going anywhere near Serie A anytime soon.

I have attended league games in Romania when I was there on a visit and even went to see Universitatea Craiova. Well they are sort of like UCD kind of .... The locals who spoke English couldn't understand why two Irish guys would want to see their team play until we told them we were fans of a University named team too. Then they sort of understood.

Erstwhile Boez is right it is possible to do both. I know a few fans of his club who also attend Manchester City games for instance.

I have no truck with those who follow sides from outside this country AND bother themselves to go and watch games at their local eL club.

As CTID said - I follow other sides - but my main focus and energy is with Bohs.
It won't change next year should my plans come to fruition and I move over to Oslo - I'll still follow Bohs to the hilt - but I'll also be taking out a season ticket for the side I follow there - Valerenga (who play their games on either Sunday afternoons or Monday nights - keeping it nicely seperate from the eL) .

The trips back to Dublin for Bohs games and the European trips will still be done as normal.

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Originally Posted by don ramo

many irish follow a winning team its easy to follow man u, liverpool, arsenal and chelski there always gonna be winnin stuff, but i have more respect for some one that follows leeds or aston villa as they didnt pick there club, there club picked them,

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I actually would be of the polar opposite to this point. I can fully understand in the context of choosing a foreign club that one would choose Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea simply because they want to follow a team that wins most of its matches.

For the life of me I cannot understand why anybody from here (generally speaking) would choose Villa, Reading, Sunderland et al. Why the hell not support a homegrown side in this case?

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Originally Posted by CharlesThompson

For the life of me I cannot understand why anybody from here (generally speaking) would choose Villa, Reading, Sunderland et al. Why the hell not support a homegrown side in this case?

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Followed Villa as a kid because growing up in the county Limerick might as well have been playing on the moon and Villa had a fair few Irish players at the time (Townsend, McGrath, Houghton, Staunton, Farrelly). Started going to Limerick games in university and never looked back. I still watch out for Villa's results and a few other teams aside in different countries and at different levels (Forest Green Rovers, Dundee United and Minnesota Thunder mostly) for a variety of reasons.

My link with Limerick is about 68,485,733,128 times stronger than my link with any of these teams.

Anybody who follows football in other countries and not their own is a consumer at best and a parasite at worst. Anybody else has no case to answer in my less than humble opinion.

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Originally Posted by BohDiddley

I follow Leeds. It doesn't feel wrong. :o

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It should, not because it's an English team, but it's Leeds, come on man

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Originally Posted by Paddyfield

I don't want to swing this off topic, but I support all Irish teams in Europe.

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I think that attitude sets the league back as well. A few non-EL followers I know have commented on the way it seems like it's a lovefest at times amongst so call rivals. In general I think football fans want to have rivals, want there to be teams who you dislike for no other reason than they exist. So when we're all hugging each other and saying how great we all are we fly in the face of that basic want in the football supporter

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Originally Posted by jebus

I think that attitude sets the league back as well. A few non-EL followers I know have commented on the way it seems like it's a lovefest at times amongst so call rivals. In general I think football fans want to have rivals, want there to be teams who you dislike for no other reason than they exist. So when we're all hugging each other and saying how great we all are we fly in the face of that basic want in the football supporter

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Hear, hear. Wrecks my head.

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Originally Posted by jebus

I think that attitude sets the league back as well. A few non-EL followers I know have commented on the way it seems like it's a lovefest at times amongst so call rivals. In general I think football fans want to have rivals, want there to be teams who you dislike for no other reason than they exist. So when we're all hugging each other and saying how great we all are we fly in the face of that basic want in the football supporter

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I always like to see eL teams do well in Europe, regardless of who they are.

I would liken it to the brother who you are always fighting with, but if some random bloke off the street starts on him you're in there like a shot to back him up.

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Originally Posted by Réiteoir

I have no truck with those who follow sides from outside this country AND bother themselves to go and watch games at their local eL club.

As CTID said - I follow other sides - but my main focus and energy is with Bohs.
It won't change next year should my plans come to fruition and I move over to Oslo - I'll still follow Bohs to the hilt - but I'll also be taking out a season ticket for the side I follow there - Valerenga (who play their games on either Sunday afternoons or Monday nights - keeping it nicely seperate from the eL) .

The trips back to Dublin for Bohs games and the European trips will still be done as normal.

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Jou have a great life man

In that country, jou gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then ya get the women.

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Originally Posted by Dodge

I've yet to meet a LOI fan that doesn't watch Match of the day or the live sunday game most of the time. Whether we allign themselves with one of the British sides or not we all have an interest in it.

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Yeah i guess thats def true, football is football at the end of the day and if its on the box you will watch it.
Remember when italian football was on a highlights package on rte years ago.........jeez the buzz that it created.....all the young fellas were watching it........but it died out in the end cause italian football can be a bit too defensive and a tad bit boring. To be fair the English premiership is a very exciting league, even if there are only about 5 teams that can actually play football

When I was doing my tour of duty in asia i noticied a lot of football fans there hadnt a clue about their local teams but were mad into......no not the premiership but.......italian, german and spanish football.........strange that the EPL hype hadnt influenced their choices

i do find it a pain that people moan that the eircom lague is a rubbish standard though, for fecks sake football is rubbish these days anyway but thats not the point, its about passion and support just as much as what is going on on the pitch

Man united is my team, and Celtic(irish connection) are 2nd, but when they're up against each other it is definately United who are number 1. Have been to OT and Parkhead recently.