The "Manchester United are a bit rubbish now" thread

[SpitfiresKent]

I was a Liverpool fan up until the age of 10 but I switched to Bolton after seeing Jay-Jay Okocha on TV doing all his little tricks and flicks. Some people have joked that i'm not a 'true' fan but when you switch teams when you're young I don't think it counts.

 

[War]

Ha i always laugh at all the technicalities & criteria's people choose when supporting club teams in the England, whether its the premier league, championship , league 1 & 2 or the conference.

This is from an early age when i liked Arsenal growing up simply because on Henry, but because i grew up Man City territory - you had all this BS reasoning, calling you glory hunter, traitor blah blah

So I don't get into that, just a football fan, would watch all the best premier league teams. Only team ENG people (for foreigners that diff) should legitimately have all this emotion attachment to is the ENG national team. But of course that comes with its own stigma ha..

 

[barmyarmy]

I'm a glory supporter.

 

[War]

Then of course you have lower league club fans, who call premier league big club supporters plastic fans/not real football fans.

And you have the old time football fans who always say foreigners who did not grow up in ENG withing the area of the club, but show great interest in a particular club, could never qualify as real fans of the club.

 

[Epic]

Ha i always laugh at all the technicalities & criteria's people choose when supporting club teams in the England, whether its the premier league, championship , league 1 & 2 or the conference.

This is from an early age when i liked Arsenal growing up simply because on Henry, but because i grew up Man City territory - you had all this BS reasoning, calling you glory hunter, traitor blah blah

So I don't get into that, just a football fan, would watch all the best premier league teams. Only team ENG people (for foreigners that diff) should legitimately have all this emotion attachment to is the ENG national team. But of course that comes with its own stigma ha..

Then of course you have lower league club fans, who call premier league big club supporters plastic fans/not real football fans.

And you have the old time football fans who always say foreigners who did not grow up in ENG withing the area of the club, but show great interest in a particular club, could never qualify as real fans of the club.

In these modern times where people in China and Indonesia can get access to PL football, all that matters is loyalty, and putting a bit of money into the club you support by purchasing merchandise.

 

[ste_mc_efc]

I don't understand how people choose who they support.

 

[khaleel]

I must commend Man Utd's marketing and reach, because when I started watching football, around 2006, everything related to football was synonymous with Man Utd in India, there was only one club on TV, all discussion was about Man Utd, and most of the matches shown were Man Utd's (We only had 2 sports channels back then).
It was almost imperative that anyone who started watching football would watch Man Utd, and obviously start supporting them. Even I had started by supporting ManU, before I got the chance to watch a Liverpool game, and that's when I realized that's the atmosphere, and style of football I wanted to watch.

This. I started watching football around 2008, and with the Champions League win and the Ronaldo-Tevez-Rooney trio, Manchester United were every where in the news. Must say that before beginning to follow them, I knew of only three clubs- Arsenal (cause of friends who were Henry fans), Real Madrid (Beckham!) and United.

I must admit that I started as a glory hunter, supporting all the domestic league winners in that season. But when I started to drift more towards Barca, there was this huge CL match between United and Barca (Final 2010 I guess?) which made me realize United was the team I supported truly- even though they lost, their style of play was most fascinating to me.

I don't understand how people choose who they support.

I guess its all completely subjective as to how one can choose who they support, but at the end, its all about sticking with your team through all their highs and lows. And for that reason, I simply respect all those 'Pool and Gunners fans who stuck with their teams in their bad years.

 

[Abhas]

I don't understand how people choose who they support.

Ste, for people living in england it's pretty easy, you grow up supporting a club, at times your entire family does. Mostly it is the local club you're supporting because it's the most accessible.
For us, it's completely different. Football literally didn't exist 15 years back, except the world cup. Most of the fans are first generation fans. Criteria? Could be anything, like the style of play, get the chance to see their matches most, have a lot of friends supporting a particular team, have a relative in England who got them a jersey.. Anything.

At times this is true for the English as well. I was with a family in Liverpool, and all of them supported Everton, but 1 supported Liverpool. I found it surprising, but he couldn't explain why.. Just happened, he said.

 

[ste_mc_efc]

Ste, for people living in england it's pretty easy, you grow up supporting a club, at times your entire family does. Mostly it is the local club you're supporting because it's the most accessible.
For us, it's completely different. Football literally didn't exist 15 years back, except the world cup. Most of the fans are first generation fans. Criteria? Could be anything, like the style of play, get the chance to see their matches most, have a lot of friends supporting a particular team, have a relative in England who got them a jersey.. Anything.

At times this is true for the English as well. I was with a family in Liverpool, and all of them supported Everton, but 1 supported Liverpool. I found it surprising, but he couldn't explain why.. Just happened, he said.

My family's mixed. I say mixed my dad is blue, 3 of his brothers red, sister red and a brother who doesn't care.

But that's kinda beside the point. I didn't mean to be disparaging. What I mean is I don't understand the process of choosing a team. I got into the NHL about 2 years ago. I couldn't just pick a team. supporting a team isn't a rational, logic based decision (otherwise we'd all choose whoever is winning, and that clearly isn't the case)

I didn't choose a team. I watched a bunch of different matches and then I just realised "hmmm. I actually care what happens to this team" and that was it.

I didn't sit down with a spreadsheet and make 30 pros and cons list for all the teams.

Supporting a sports team isn't rational. It's a bit silly and makes no real sense. they don't really have anything to do with you. It's not an active choice. It's an emotional bond that just sort of happens in many different legitimate ways.

 

[P Squared]

Yeah I agree with Ste, you can't really choose a team, it just sort of happens.

For me personally, I got into football through Football Manager, I managed United on them as they were the only team I'd ever heard of, then I started following footie and obviously rooted for United as I could recognise with the players through FM and that just grew into a general love for the club really.

 

[Lee1981]

I came across City, fortunately or unfortunately after the takeover.

Conveniently I could say.

Like Epic, think how many more "fans" city have now since they became the richest club, it's human nature to want to be the best, or in this case associate yourself with the best, I don't agree with it but can see why it happens.

I myself supported Chelsea when we were shite in the early to mid 90's, however in the late 80's my teams of choice were Liverpool (obviously) and villa.

These choices as a young kid were mainly because Liverpool were awesome, and really the only team that seemed to be on tv in those days, it was only as my dad started to take me to Chelsea in the early 90's did i actually start to care for a team, win or lose, and there was a lot of losing in those days.

I was just lucky that little did I realise that a few years later a certain Mr Hoddle would come in start the evolution of the club, and then the Zola era.

It's a personal choice, everyone has there reasons, if you are a glory hunter and have joined the city or Chelsea bandwagons over the past few years, hey your choice no problem with that, but that to me makes you a twat and I've no time for people like that.

I'm the same if I'm in conversion with people watching a match in the pub or whatever, and that person is slating how bad a certain player is or what a team is doing wrong, yet this person has either never played football in their life or ever been any good at football themselves, again that persons opinion means nothing to me.

Cannot see how you can be majorly crap at something and then think you can judge a player.

Like me hammering a rugby player, when I've never played it or really watched it, what the hell do I know ?

 

[War]

I'm the same if I'm in conversion with people watching a match in the pub or whatever, and that person is slating how bad a certain player is or what a team is doing wrong, yet this person has either never played football in their life or ever been any good at football themselves, again that persons opinion means nothing to me.

Cannot see how you can be majorly crap at something and then think you can judge a player.

Like me hammering a rugby player, when I've never played it or really watched it, what the hell do I know ?

So what about journalist who distinguished themselves covering the sport or coaches who never played football/were not good enough at football, who coached teams with great success?

 

[Samuels]

For me personally, I got into football through Football Manager, I managed United on them as they were the only team I'd ever heard of, then I started following footie and obviously rooted for United as I could recognise with the players through FM and that just grew into a general love for the club really.

I think that is a pivotal reason why and how ManU has got so many fans.



I think it is the case with most of us to either support the home team or the one which is usually in the news for the goods they do on the field. The ones in the second category hugely outnumber the ones in the first and it will not be 100% true to say that they are all more or less glory hunters. As Lee stated, it is obvious to support the best unless you have a competent home team or the favorites are your rivals. Coming back to whether those 450,000 were plastic fans or not, I would say about 40% of those would be real fans. The fans are so used to seeing their team on the top they are unable to digest the performance of their club in the recent past. The decline has been quite huge and it is not a sudden poor run of form at all. It has been there for a while now and I think most had it it after the loss to Liverpool. That again does not mean they will stop following ManU; they will in fact keep a very close eye on their performance and might return back with the form for ManU. I feel the fans are just frustrated than anything else. To say they are all plastic is hyperbole.

 

[Lee1981]

But coaches have been in and around football all their lives so have the knowledge just not the physical abilities

As for the journalists they are all ------s anyway, I don't listen to what they bloody say.

 

[Epic]

My family's mixed. I say mixed my dad is blue, 3 of his brothers red, sister red and a brother who doesn't care.

But that's kinda beside the point. I didn't mean to be disparaging. What I mean is I don't understand the process of choosing a team. I got into the NHL about 2 years ago. I couldn't just pick a team. supporting a team isn't a rational, logic based decision (otherwise we'd all choose whoever is winning, and that clearly isn't the case)

I didn't choose a team. I watched a bunch of different matches and then I just realised "hmmm. I actually care what happens to this team" and that was it.

I didn't sit down with a spreadsheet and make 30 pros and cons list for all the teams.

Supporting a sports team isn't rational. It's a bit silly and makes no real sense. they don't really have anything to do with you. It's not an active choice. It's an emotional bond that just sort of happens in many different legitimate ways.

Trust me, I tried that for years, just watching club football and hoping I'd just like a team, it just didn't happen that way, so I took matters into my own hands... and the irrational vs the rational, I agree, no one I know even those who support the European elites like United, Barca, Real, Bayern or Milan do so because of some spreadsheet comparison and graphs of greatness, no, most of the time it's merely just the color of the kit or what players played for the team at that time, think it was Haari on here who said he got behind Liverpool because of how impressed he was of Owen, it's often like that.

Conveniently I could say.

Like Epic, think how many more "fans" city have now since they became the richest club, it's human nature to want to be the best, or in this case associate yourself with the best, I don't agree with it but can see why it happens.

I myself supported Chelsea when we were shite in the early to mid 90's, however in the late 80's my teams of choice were Liverpool (obviously) and villa.

These choices as a young kid were mainly because Liverpool were awesome, and really the only team that seemed to be on tv in those days, it was only as my dad started to take me to Chelsea in the early 90's did i actually start to care for a team, win or lose, and there was a lot of losing in those days.

I was just lucky that little did I realise that a few years later a certain Mr Hoddle would come in start the evolution of the club, and then the Zola era.

It's a personal choice, everyone has there reasons, if you are a glory hunter and have joined the city or Chelsea bandwagons over the past few years, hey your choice no problem with that, but that to me makes you a twat and I've no time for people like that.

I'm the same if I'm in conversion with people watching a match in the pub or whatever, and that person is slating how bad a certain player is or what a team is doing wrong, yet this person has either never played football in their life or ever been any good at football themselves, again that persons opinion means nothing to me.

Cannot see how you can be majorly crap at something and then think you can judge a player.

Like me hammering a rugby player, when I've never played it or really watched it, what the hell do I know ?

In my defense, I didn't get behind City because they had the potential to be the best, hell, I didn't even know Manchester had 2 teams... the way I had setup the thread was so I would support whatever team's name got posted as long as I liked their kits (the irrational) and not do some in depth analysis on each team to deem what was worthy (the rational), and 2 of my friends on that forum who I'm still in touch with today suggested Manchester City and Swansea City respectively, and it simply came down to the sky blue and the all white, and I picked the blue City.

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