Why do you support the team you do?

[stann]

I come from Waterford. What a strange question...


Mind you, to my shame I took my sweet time about getting behind the local side, really only started about '88/'89.

[Aaron]

I come from Derry but my dad took me to my first City game in the 96/97 season. We were playing Bohs. Its a game that made me come back and ever since i have kept going. Anyway its a game some Bohs fans might remember. James Coll made three awful tackles in the first half and wasnt even booked for them. One at least deserved a sending off. At half time, Felix Healy and Coll had a fight, leading to a fracas. Coll eventually got sent off, the Turlough O'Connor then started to man-handle the linesman. City went on to win 1-0 through a Gary Beckett penalty. Thats were it all started for me.

[Magicme]

Had no major interest in it as a kid and in fact was more a fan of Sean McCaffery's Oriel Celtic in my teens (coz yup, hate to admit it back then was more interested in watchin the lads about my age play) Gymnastics was the sport I was committed to and it and dance classes left me little time for anything else.

When I went to college in Dublin I would keep an eye on Monaghan United's progress coz anything to do with home was of interest and occasionally went to games when the Mons came to Dublin (when they were in the Premier) so that I could scab a lift home on the supporters bus (back when there were fans who needed a bus). My brother was massively into them and kept me up to date on the goings on but I didnt take a real interest in them until I moved back to the county to bring up my sons. When my marriage broke up I felt that my boys needed to be surrounded by more manly pursuits and I started to take them to Century Homes Park to get them involved with football from the grassroots. After a few games I was hooked and even when the boys were in Dublin with their dad, I would drag one of my mates along & go to the games anyway (sometimes went alone too!) It was the family friendly atmosphere at Mons that really made me feel comfortable and after a few weeks of going to the matches, people began to talk to me and I soon felt like "one of them". Since then have gotten roped further and further in and now spend approx 15 to 20 hours a week in my other home.

So yes geography played a part but the welcome and the sense of belonging that is an integral part of MUFC, is the main reason I am still there and will be even if they come bottom of the league this season.

[charliesboots]

I'm just wondering how most of you start supporting a team? What age were you? What area did you live in? Who did you go to your first match with, etc.

Brought to first game in 1989 in Harolds Cross by my sister as something to do on a Sunday afternoon, was 8 years old. Went the odd time after that but without a real affinity I'd say.

I lived in (and continue to live in) Tallaght.

Didn't start going properly until we returned to Richer in 93/94 season. Brother in law (who lived in Clondalkin and was 30 at the time) suggested we start going regularly and have been ever since.

[NY Hoop]

In terms of local team, Rovers could've been my local-est team as the 86 bus went from the top of our road past Milltown. My da brought me to a Rovers league game once when I was young but just cos they played in green and white didn't mean they were a patch on his beloved Belfast Celtic so he never bothered going back and seeing as there was no-one else to bring me, I was saved from a fate worse than death.

I kinda stumbled onto Pats as being my local team about ten years ago. I was renting a flat in Rialto at the time, used to go out for a wander every Sunday, just following my nose, would sometimes end up down in the Museum of Modern Art, sometimes walk along the canal, wherever.

Anyway, one Sunday in Jan 1997 I was just wandering along Emmet Road, heard crowd noises coming from behind the houses, got curious and went to investigate, lo and behold Pats were playing either UCD or Derry, can't remember, it finished 0-0 anyway.

Started going more regularly, then discovered that friends of friends were regulars so started going with them. Been hooked since.

Whatever you say. You are a Hoop! Although reading this I'm surprised cos would have thought, given your age, that you had been a Pats fans since the fifties!

KOH

[Soper]

I just remembered one thing that perplexed me back in the day - they used to have cork city shirts in the window of a sports shop in Sligo (around the time we got promoted in 93/94).Not very condusive to promoting the local team.

[MyTown]

The Junior soccer scene in Galway was always healthy, but if you live (as I do) even a short distance from "town", you had no cause to hitch your wagon to. In 1976 along came Galway Rovers which mutated a few years later into United (no self respecting EL club can survive longer than a decade or two without a name change)

I looked enviously at Limerick & Athlone who both had very good sides in the League at the time and were both about an hours drive from "home".

When Galway got a shot at a League of Ireland "franchise", I wanted to be a part of SUPPORTING it & I've been here since. There have been good days and bad days, great wins and humiliating defeats, but I've got a team based in my local area playing senior soccer for 30 years. I'm well happy with that.

[Higgo]

I started following Shels roughly 12 years ago, my dad brought me to a match V Bohs and I got hooked. To this day, he says it was the worst thing he's ever done...and he's probably right. I treat the whole thing too seriously, to the detriment of other (more important) things in life.

[Calcio Jack]

My old man hurled for Clare, went to a well known fee paying southside rugby school, brought up in D4, but luckily for me that was 10 minjutes walk from Milltown, we were made for each other.