Tonight's football thread

[Danbert Nocurry]

hope we win tonight, and you lose at the weekend. Thats cos its in my blood and i'm sure you think the same...but with grace and humour;-)

I do to be honest - In my experience, the "thoughtful" United fans are the older ones who remember when they were a piss poor team and know what its like to flounder mid table or get relegated.

Its the generation of younger United fans who have grown up knowing nothing other than success that i'm not so keen on. They think success is a birthright to them, and they think that by default they will win something big over a season, and it will always be that way. A bad season for them is only one trophy, or second in the prem.

When i lock horns with these dicks, i point out that they are not football supporters, they know nothing about the game, because the game is not just winning all the time, the game is winning AND losing, its following your team through shit and shitter, seeing the humour in your situation, and living with your failures way more than any of your successes. And the successes you do get, you really appreciate.

[Witton Park]

I do to be honest - In my experience, the "thoughtful" United fans are the older ones who remember when they were a piss poor team and know what its like to flounder mid table or get relegated.

Its the generation of younger United fans who have grown up knowing nothing other than success that i'm not so keen on. They think success is a birthright to them, and they think that by default they will win something big over a season, and it will always be that way. A bad season for them is only one trophy, or second in the prem.

When i lock horns with these dicks, i point out that they are not football supporters, they know nothing about the game, because the game is not just winning all the time, the game is winning AND losing, its following your team through shit and shitter, seeing the humour in your situation, and living with your failures way more than any of your successes. And the successes you do get, you really appreciate.

I first supported Burnley when my Dad took me over on the bus from the Railway in Stacksteads and then on the back of his motorbike. Peter Noble, Leighton James and Martin Dobson were my heroes at the time and Leighton used to live up the road from me when I was 6 - 10 years old and he would have a kick about with us.

I used to listen to the bile even then between particularly the Leeds fans and the Man Utd fans and never quite got it.

I now see a lot of mates I grew up with and they are Liverpool fans. They haven't a scouse bone in their body, but of course the late 70s and 80s drew in a lot of supports from outside - you should try flying in and out of Liverpool airport when there's a match at Anfield - it's absolutely full of Scandanavians.

I still support Burnley - I have rarely been to a match in the last 10 years as I'm full on in to the athletics now and if not running at weekend I team manage, or coach.

But I'm still Burnley through and through.

But I also have an appreciation for other football teams. The great teams at Liverpool, my favourite was the team that included John Barnes as they played some great football. Man Utd have had some fantastic teams and the FA Cup semi against Arsenal where Giggs scored his screamer has to be one of the best games of football I've ever seen.
The Michael Thomas goal for Arsenal against Liverpool to win the title with the last kick of the season - unbelievable.

I can appreciate all that - these events have international wide reaching resonance.

I am sure that if Clubs such as Man City, Spurs, Newcastle, Everton, Villa ever manage to get a run of success in a manner that inspires emotions as those events that I mentioned, they too will perhaps be elevated to the status of "Big Club" that they seem to crave so much.

In the meantime they will have to carry on with their "banter" which to me is often a form of inverted snobbery and be happy to be making up the numbers. If they ever arrive at the top level, I wonder if they will look at their new found fans and politely ask them to bu**er off or start bragging about how many followers they have worldwide?

[Danbert Nocurry]

In the meantime they will have to carry on with their "banter" which to me is often a form of inverted snobbery and be happy to be making up the numbers. If they ever arrive at the top level, I wonder if they will look at their new found fans and politely ask them to bu**er off or start bragging about how many followers they have worldwide?

No. You've not got it there Witton.

Let me use the words of the great Paul Morley who explains it all far better than me with his ''CITY OF LOST SOULS''


To support Manchester City is to believe that God might have trouble running things on this planet, but he's in control of the next world. He has to be. The Devil rules this world and always will, because his team are Manchester United, and they are world famous and monolithic.


Manchester City, who's name travels the world about as well as Gracie Fields or Pulp, are on the side of the angels; the poor, sapped, unfortunate angels who still believe in quaint antiquated notions of earthly good.


To support Manchester City is to accept with heroic willingness the dead-flat that the universe is cold and hostile, and nothing good will become of it.


To support City is to tackle head on the crushing pointlessness of existence and to attempt to make something of it. It is hard work. So why do it? Because somehow this seems ultimately more dignified and fulfilling than taking the easy way out and supporting the lulling and obnoxious United.


To support United is too easy. It's convenience supporting. It makes life too easy. There is no challenge. It is a cowardly form of escapism, a sell-out to the forces of evil.


United fans have no soul and will spend their eternity neck deep in boiling vomit. City fans retain their soul and will spend their eternity forever reliving the moment their team beat Newcastle 4-3 away from home to win the League Championship in 1968, beating United into second place. Surely we will have such eternal bliss again, for why do we spend so much time suffering in this life watching our team climb to the summit only so that we can watch them dive, dive, dive to their pitiless bottom of the heap while United, of Manchester, but nothing really to do with it, float every more triumphantly skywards?


Heartless United are the incarnation of shamelessness and to support them is heroism in a can. Cavalier City, however awry their football, however dire their straits, glow with something mystical and transcendental. City have soul. United do not.


When they are great again, City will have shown that they are worth their extraordinary fans. To this day these fans will walk a million miles for one of Joe Mercer's smiles. They'll sing a million songs waiting for some new Mercer-like magic. Because they are City, and Christ do they know they're born.


Paul Morley
November 1998

:thumbup:

[Witton Park]

Danbert - you sound like the Metallica fans who claim they had sold out when they had a success with the album named after them in the 1990s.

It sounds to me that you will wash your hands of them if they ever have a run of success and receive the plaudits.

I think I actually have got it.