Barstooler face offs?

[GavinZac]

A Premiership or Celtic follower living in Ireland is no more of a football fan than pulling yer mickey to porn movies every night makes you a stud.

Not quite as direct but I also like to say supporting Celtic because of their links to Ireland is like shagging a monkey because of its links to Natalie Portman - that was a long time ago and things were considerably hairier back then

[KianD]

One retort I always enjoy when faced with these sort of conversations is "and what rate of tax do you pay to the queen on those tickets/trips/jersies". very effective, especially with "Celtic" "fans".

And Derry fans, I've always found

When I worked in British Telecom (in Ireland) I don't think there was another LOI fan there and I used to get some amount of slagging for it. Didn't help that Harps were floundering horrendously at the time - don't think it'd be quite so bad right now. Got the 'Irish heritage' speech about Celtic enough times to make me want to torture the next person that delivers it, strangely I got it off someone who also 'supported' Liverpool (a Protestant club, historically...).

Current employer, at least the Liverpool fan actually heads over there, frequently - and we've a barstooler LoI fan at that! Don't think he's been to a Longford game since he moved to Dublin.

Although I'm probably just as bad myself in quite a few peoples eyes - wardrobe full of ten seasons of Brighton & Hove Albion shirts, could probably do the journey from Gatwick to Withdean blindfolded...

[osarusan]

Another barstooler bashing thread.

I hate the "we are better than them" attitude that el fans have.

But I do think we are better fans than they are.
It's when we start to say that we are people because of it, then we go too far.
Also the argument of "what would he know about football, sure he watches that premiersh!t" is one that baffles me. Watching Ferguson, Wenger, Ramos etc manage games (in the stadium, not on TV) will teach you at least as much as you will learn from watching any eL manager.

People should be allowed to choose what football they want to watch and they shouldn't be looked down on by others because of it.

They are free to watch whatever games they choose, but I have every right to look down on them for doing so, if I think it is nonsensible.

Public humiliation and insulting is not going to win them over. They'll go if/when they want to. If they believe that the quality is poor then let them believe that

I agree with you that humiliation is never going to win them over, and I've argued on this site that we can't bemoan the small attendances we have while insulting the people most likely to improve those attendances. Regarding the second sentence, my comment would be "If they believe the quality is poor then let's change their mind"

So it's understandable why they would want to watch higher quality football in the comfort of their own home.

That doesn't account for the people who go to bars and drink at least the equivalent of the entry fee to an eL game.

These people are football fans but they continuously pursue the best quality football, not like most el fans who seem to have more interest in being local. These people obviously don't care about being local, it doesn't seem to be an issue to them.

But I don't think it is true that people are searching for the best quality football. Most fans, who for whatever reason start supporting a team home or abroad, tend to stick with that team through thick and thin, and develop a deep allegiance to that team. Indeed, the thought of supporting a different team fills them with horror. Once you become a fan, the quality of football becomes less and less important, as results become more important. So the allegiance you feel to a club has nothing to do with they quality of the football your team plays. If they were purely concerned with quality, they'd be watching different teams every week, without any emotional interest in the results.

I've always been of the opinion that people who start following football are looking for a place to lay their allegiance, and once that allegiance has been formed, they are a fan. What I can't understand is why so many people immediately disregard Irish clubs when they start following football.

[CameramanConka]

Ha a chat one night went something like this


'Who do you support?'

'Buckey Thistle'

'Yer jokin'

'Aye I'm joking. Finn Harps'

'Yer really jokin me now'

'I am. See ye later'

[jebus]

I had one that went like this

Me: You should start supporting Limerick

Him: But I like United

Me: Why do like that shower of ****?

Him: Because I think Ronaldo is great

Me: You're nothing but a puppet of the British media you jumped up piece of ****, I hope you die

At which stage he ran off crying looking for his mother. Moral of the story, don't berate 5 year olds in shopping centres, I got some odd, odd looks

[GavinZac]

I had one that went like this

Me: You should start supporting Limerick

Him: But I like United

Me: Why do like that shower of ****?

Him: Because I think Ronaldo is great

Me: You're nothing but a puppet of the British media you jumped up piece of ****, I hope you die

At which stage he ran off crying looking for his mother. Moral of the story, don't berate 5 year olds in shopping centres, I got some odd, odd looks

sounds like an average day down the crescent

[jebus]

sounds like an average day down the crescent

If only you knew how true that statement is in regards to one of my fellow Limerick supporters

[passerrby]

A Premiership or Celtic follower living in Ireland is no more of a football fan than pulling yer mickey to porn movies every night makes you a stud.

there you go again knocking my hobbies

[Joey Killester]

One thing Premiership fans don't seem to understand is that the quality of football is probably the least important thing in supporting a team. Obviously we all want our teams to do well, but no matter how ****e Shels are I would never stop following them and going to matches, ect, and Im sure its the same for most of you. I like watching football played well like every football fan but that doesnt mean I have to support an English club to see it. Most big Leagues in Europe are avalible to watch somehow now a days for watching good football.

Another thing which grinds my gears is when someone supports a team other then the big 4 in England and they see it as some kind of achievement. I remeber hearing, or someone telling me about, Ken Early on Off The Ball one night talking about how great it is to see Irish fans supporting smaller clubs like Sunderland, idiot. That reminds me, another time he was talking about how he'll be watching a big match in England the next day and the host, whatever his name is again, asked him was he going to watch some big GAA match that weekend also, in Cork or somewhere. Ken says no and is asked why not. Ken says it's cause hes not from there. The host says "Well you're not from Liverpool either." followed by silence, it was brilliant, he didnt know what to say.

Rambelled on a bit there, but one last thing, you often get barstoolers from parts of the country who dont have an eircom League team near them, and they say thats the reason they dont support an eircom League club. My cousin from Cavan is like this and he supports Liverpool. I tried telling him Monaghan is closer to Cavan then Liverpool, but he wasn't listening of course.

[michaelguineys]

I was there, the atmosphere was surreal. You could hear the keeper coughing. I lay claim to being the only person in the ground wearing a Cork City jersey - this because I got a phone call from a friend up in the media gantry asking was I the one in the city jersey. It was disgusting - thousands of people politely clapping a load of kids they'd mostly likely never see again against a team of local players.

Thank god that wasn't the case in the City v Sundireland game last summer.
Because of the way the tickets went on sale (Munster Senior League were in charge of their distribution) and some people in our city's obsession with Roy Keane and sunderland, i was half dreading the game to be honest.
I thought it was going to be full of barstoolers cheering for sunderland.
How wrong was i??
Now there was a lot of barstoolers around, don't get me wrong, but the amount of city fans that managed to get their hands on tickets was unreal.
The atmosphere was unbelievable, chanting "Support your local team" from start to finish. I was so proud to be a city fan and a LOI fan that day.
When Denis scored and we went 1 up it was unreal
It was a big 2 fingers to all those barstoolers who say our league is sh*t.
It might have ended 1-1 but every single cork city supporter did their club and league proud that day.
Best feeling ever
http://bebo.com/FlashBox.jsp?FlashBoxId=4538449544&

[Jamjar]

This isn't just an Irish phenonenom (how do you spell that word ?). Wasn't there something on telly a while back showing all the Norwegians who flock to england at the weekend, and when interviewed, some of them said that the Norwegian league was crap.
The english premiership is, like it or not, the biggest league in the world right now. I work with a polish guy who goes to watch Leeds utd. I live in Gort and a lot of the Brazilians follow Arsenal (because of Gilberto I was told). Although I also saw a Brazilian in a Dublin GAA jersey which made me laugh.

[Réiteoir]

This isn't just an Irish phenonenom (how do you spell that word ?). Wasn't there something on telly a while back showing all the Norwegians who flock to england at the weekend, and when interviewed, some of them said that the Norwegian league was crap.
The english premiership is, like it or not, the biggest league in the world right now. I work with a polish guy who goes to watch Leeds utd. I live in Gort and a lot of the Brazilians follow Arsenal (because of Gilberto I was told). Although I also saw a Brazilian in a Dublin GAA jersey which made me laugh.

Jamjar - about 95% of Norwegian football fans do follow their local clubs (having had experience of going there and being amongst them for the past decade or so)

The attendance figures for the Tippeligaen and Adeccoligaen are quite healthy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegi...07#Attendances

[gilberto_eire]

This isn't just an Irish phenonenom (how do you spell that word ?). Wasn't there something on telly a while back showing all the Norwegians who flock to england at the weekend, and when interviewed, some of them said that the Norwegian league was crap.
The english premiership is, like it or not, the biggest league in the world right now. I work with a polish guy who goes to watch Leeds utd. I live in Gort and a lot of the Brazilians follow Arsenal (because of Gilberto I was told). Although I also saw a Brazilian in a Dublin GAA jersey which made me laugh.

How dare you make accusations about me without a shread of evidence.

In fairness though what happens elsewhere is'nt our problem, it's whats happening here that counts!. Ya see the barstoolers are the first to slate the national team when they don't realise that our national team will decline until we can get the domestic game up to a good standard and thus give us a massive pool of players to choose from instead of a few decent lads + championship wasters!!.

I'll just use galway as an example but it's the same for everywhere else.... if all ''football'' fans in galway came to terryland we could easily get 20,000+ per game, this in turn means more revenue, which in turn will get a better standard of player over from the continent along with our better players staying at home instead of going over to english clubs. Champions league football would be the norm and the irish national team would be back among the best teams in europe!!.

So barstoolers IMO are'nt football fans, there glory hunters, no surprise 99% follow teams occupying the top 4 places in the Premiership(there was a massive surge in kids wearing Chelsea jersies when they were the champions)

[TonyD]

This isn't just an Irish phenonenom (how do you spell that word ?).

Phenomenon. (Do do de do do) Fans of the Muppet show will get the reference.

[yiddo]

Hey folks, im new to this site as a member but i have been a lurker for years. One thing i always wanted to ask. Have any of you EL fans ever had a contratemps with a barstooler or fan of the premiership so much that it actually sickened you for a couple of days but after that it just rebaptised your faith in your home team?
Im a Longford fan living down in Cork (its ok Cork people we all know where your from etc etc), only joking. Anyway i used to work with this Liverpol fan from the City & he never bothered with Cork City or Turners Cross much but he read the papers or saw the odd match on tv. He regularly goes to Anfield & made his way to the last 3 Champions league matches of Liverpool last season & blew a fortune getting to the final in Athens. To cut this short we were drunk one night & a debate flared up between us. The main gist was that he started calling EL fans dreamers & that you would never get the Anfield atmosphere anywhere in Ireland. Its all about money, "Im a fan of great football" etc etc & basically rubbishing what we follow & with venom too. It all blew over after a couple of days obviously.
My main memory of the occasion was being actually sickened by what i saw in him & this exists around us still as you all know. It got to the stage where he started looking for support from the "buddies" but nobody said anything.
Anybody here ever had anything like that & how did you present your argument? All tales welcome.

Viva The Town.....

TBH I wouldn't class that lad as a barstooler. The fact he goes to live football albeit in England rules him out as a true barstooler.A real barstooler never leaves the comfort of the pub

[Erstwhile Bóz]

Phenomenon. (Do do de do do) Fans of the Muppet show will get the reference.

Originally written for the sauna scene in a Swedish porno, somebody told me!

[Blue Man]

Im a die hard Leeds fan but Ive played in the league for a number of seasons so I class myself as a fan of the league.Leeds will be my first love but the eircom league is my priority. I dont think it makes a difference if one follows an English or Scottish team as long as they're aware that a local team is within reach

[A face]

I used to berate barstoolers when given half a chance, now i just dont bother. Any eircom League fan can find flaw in all the excuses not to support home team, no matter how much a barstooler will try and convince you.

Someone mentioned it eariler, its them who are missing out. But what does need to happen is things need to improve here first, and then there'll be no convincing, barstoolers will just end up at games anyway. We wont get them all as some will just bite off their nose to spit their face but would we really want them anyway.

[Straightstory]

I think the problem is Irish people having little imagination. The more supporters who go to games, the better the atmosphere, the stadiums and the standard of play will be. It’s simple economics. But people can't make this link. How good would Man United be if they got attendances of 2,500? My theory on the lack of support for the LOI is that Irish people and society really suffers from a lack of imagination. You can see this in many areas; for example RTE and newspapers. They just completely copy everything from their British counterparts. There is so little innovation and enterprise in anything, and mediocrity rules.
An important point: It’s not mentioned here enough about Dublin’s attitude to sport. A modern, well populated cosmopolitan European city - but with an incredibly parochial and insular sporting outlook. Why are 80,000 people going to see Dublin v Laois to witness the brutish spectacle of Gaelic football when these numbers should really be going to see Bohs or Shamrock Rovers versus Real Madrid or Juventus in the Champions League? It just doesn’t make sense. Full houses at Croke Park for Ireland friendles, while even 5,000 at a league game is a rarity. It’s just crazy. We’re a weird country.
(I also used to support Leeds. Finally got there for a game in 1996. I won’t be back. It’s grim up north. Couldn’t realate to the place at all. My time as a supporter of an English club was a waste of time).

[Straightstory]

Incidentally, the best thing to do with barstoolers is to presume they support England. Say something to them like: ‘How do you think your boys will do under Capello?’ That drives them frigging mad.
Also works for Celtic fans if you mention George Burley.