Written by Nick Upton
The not-so-short journey I make to catch Boston United at home.
This is a topic that I’m sure is brought up between football fans now and again, but it’s not been discussed much within audible distance of myself. I’ve seen comments all over the place on Facebook, normally on the ‘away days’ and various ‘ultras’ pages – where almost everyone who comments is a bit of a bandwagoner – acting as a vote FOR supporting local football. I’m talking things like ‘Support your local team’.
I’m in no way, shape or form a bandwagoner (I’m too much of an overthinker – if such a word exists) but I tend to agree with a lot of what these people say. However, this sudden requirement where you must support your local team to call yourself a true fan (if such a tag matters to you) is something I disagree with. For that reason, I feel it’s time for me to elaborate on my views, particularly as it’s not something I voice my opinion on very much. It’s something that pops into my head but is usually gone within minutes, but at a time I find myself wanting to write something, I may as well kick it into action. I hope you enjoy it, anyway.
Keyworth United – One of three clubs I could claim as “my local club”.
HOW LOOSE ARE THE ‘SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL TEAM’ RULES?
First of all, I do understand where people are coming from when they say you should support your local club. I get that supporting your local community is important and I get that once upon a time there was a great sense of pride in doing so. However, how many of these people genuinely do support their local team? ‘Support your local club’ implies you should only have one choice – the most local club to you. By the logic these people spout, we should either support a new team every time we move house in a different part of the country (local to where we are at present), or we should support the club based where we were born/where we live. That would mean I should support either Keyworth United or Cotgrave (Cotgrave Miners Welfare as they were previously known). Alternatively, I have a choice between those two and Holwell Sports, since I moved to Leicestershire at a very young age. I wonder how many people consider this. Or do we ignore those teams completely because they’re not major? Are there rules to this ‘support your local team’ scheme?
‘Support your local team’
‘I’m from Keyworth’
What happens in that scenario? Are you expected to support Keyworth? Of course not, because no sod’s ever heard of them and even if they had, they wouldn’t associate the club with regular support worth joining. Football fans are forever expected to meet the criteria one another sets, and quite frankly I find it ridiculous.
The aforementioned scenario shows genuine ignorance towards non-league football and also a contradiction in the way this whole ‘support your local club’ thing works.
‘You must support your local club, but only if we’ve heard of them. Even if we’ve never heard of them and you support someone else from a different county, you’re gonna get it in the neck because the team you do support isn’t local to you.’
With all due zero respect, fuck off.
LOCATION
Another thing which seems to baffle people is the miles racked up, supporting a club not-so-local to you. I remember on the way back from Southport v Boston, I bumped into some Stoke fans (regrettably) and I ended up chatting to one of the younger lads’ father. He couldn’t comprehend the fact I was living in Stafford but supporting Boston. No matter how I put it to him, he didn’t understand. I’m sure the volume of alcohol he’d consumed didn’t aid my cause, but it surprised me a bit that he found it so hard to grasp.
One of the many gripes people have about other people who don’t support their local club is that they never go to games. That’s something that annoys me as well a little bit, but if anything, travelling that little extra distance for a club you love is more admirable, surely? I personally don’t care how far you travel, but speaking from the perspective of a nitpicker, that would make the most sense.
I guess my point here is that I believe you can develop the admiration for a club just about anywhere. There are many reasons people become fans of a football club. It’s not the 1940’s anymore, where people stumbled down the road to catch a game close to them. I have no problem with fans that travel the country even to catch home games. If anything, I admire their dedication. The only types of fans I have a problem with are the idiots who don’t understand what they’re on about when it comes to the technical or tactical sides of the game, yet blurt out complete and utter drivel on the train for all to hear. I also have a minor gripe towards those who sit on their backsides every Saturday, claiming to love the game but never actually turn up.
On the subject of location, what about groundhoppers? Do they love football any less than the average fan who only goes to watch his team? Of course not. In fact, they arguably have a case for loving the game in general, a bit more from a purist’s point-of-view.
As a scout, I watch games every week. Often, I don’t care one iota about either club I’m watching, from a personal perspective. That doesn’t make me any less of a football fan or supporter. I daresay a lot of people would jeopardise the opportunity to watch the team they support, in order to get involved in the running of a football club.
I feel everyone has a choice on what team they support. I do, of course, understand the other side (the traditional side) of the argument where you should be proud of where you come from and you should take pride in your community. However, so long as there’s a degree of commitment there with the club you chose, I don’t see a problem. It often comes into my mind ‘what would it be like if everyone literally supported their local side?’ Hoards of people piling into the likes of Stafford Rangers and similar small town clubs. It’d be interesting to uncover.
Until the day I am physically unable to do so, I shall continue to rack up the miles scouting or travelling 112 miles to Boston home games. I go along with a lot of the ‘Against Modern Football’ views, but this is something I have my own view on. Local or far away, support your club. That’s all that matters.
If you do have your own views on this, please feel free to comment below.
Cheers.
Under The Floodlights 