SECOND teams. The idea of supporting a second team has come up a few times for me lately and it’s interesting that many fans screw up their face at the very idea, adopting an expression akin to one they’d use if forced to wear a stranger’s underwear (I imagine…).
“How can you have a second team?”
“Why would you go and watch them?”
It’s one of those bizarre unwritten rules of football fandom — billed almost as sporting adultery — that seems to be accepted and never questioned. You’re not allowed to have a second football team. Not a serious one. This isn’t swapping allegiance we’re talking here — it’s additional allegiance. Yet in the wrong company it might still get you a smack in the chops.
While on holiday on the west coast of Ireland last month, I gegged into a conversation centred around which team a man in a pub with a southern accent supported. He was a QPR fan, he said, and one who — much to my quiet delight — hated Liverpool because the Reds pipped his beloved team to the title on the last day of the season in 1976. Sorry about that, mate.
With the QPR association in mind, a Nottingham Forest-supporting drinking partner of this bloke was gleefully questioning why this man seemingly also supported Brighton & Hove Albion. His grin suggested he was blowing him up in front of the lads. Breaking his cover. Doing the reveal. This supposedly die-hard Hoops fan, said the mate, had been spotted in the boozer the night before cheering on the Seagulls in a televised Friday night game.
It was true. And now here he was revealing that not only had he clapped the telly, he’d been a regular at the Goldstone Ground back in the day.
[eyes widen] “So you support TWO clubs?”
“Yeah…”
“What the f….?” [shakes head]
We’re supposed to do shock here, aren’t we? But the QPR/Albion fan’s explanation, which frankly was more interesting than watching Manchester United’s boring Premier League opener against Tottenham on the pub telly, seemed fair enough to be honest.
His old fella supported QPR. He used to go to watch the games with his dad. Then they moved due to his father’s job. With his dad tied up with work, QPR was too far for him to go alone or with his young mates. So he went to Brighton because it was on the doorstep. He liked it, made some match-going mates and ended up developing a love for the club. But he still wants QPR to win because of the earlier bond; the memories with his dad. And he still hates Liverpool because of 1976.
Based on numerous conversations I’ve had down the years, I can guarantee some would sneer at all that. But what’s so wrong? Is it the ‘real fan’ thing? You can’t be a ‘real fan’ if you support two clubs? Has this bloke failed ‘the test’, whatever that is, by not getting to Loftus Road on his own steam somehow? Riding there on his BMX, perhaps. Thumbing a lift?
Speaking to him (I couldn’t resist chipping in eventually), it was clear he was very much a ‘real fan’. A real fan of football. He loved the game and knew all about it — Premier League, Championship, international football, historical, current…he swung from one topic to the other with the ease of a drunk searching for a 10 to two conquest on the dancefloor. No thinking time, it was automatic.
He’d put in some groundwork, this bloke. And this wasn’t just with the aid of a Sky remote, either. He’d been to grounds up and down the leagues all over the country. He talked about stands and pitches and roads and pubs. Things you’d only know by actually going to the grounds. Things you’d only care about if football was in your blood.
And if you’re a fan, why not? As you may have guessed, this gentleman was of a certain vintage. But despite having a few decades on me, I could empathise. Growing up, my next door neighbour, Paddy, went to Goodison one week and Anfield the next. He had no real affinity to either club — he just liked footie.
I’m not a Paddy, I’ve always been a Red, going to as many games as I feasibly could since I first set foot inside Anfield in 1990. But when aways weren’t an option, I used to follow Knowsley United, a decent non-league side that played a stone’s throw from my house. I even watched them at Goodison Park in an FA Cup tie once (they were well beaten by Carlisle United, sadly).
I also used to go regularly to watch Tranmere Rovers on a Friday night in the 1990s. They had a good side back then — John Aldridge, Pat Nevin, Gary Stevens, Johnny Morrissey, Ian Muir…all playing in front of five-figure crowds at Prenton Park and three times coming close to promotion to the top flight.
I later even went to Wembley to watch them in the League Cup final, albeit then under the guise of ‘working’, only for Leicester City and Matt Elliot to spoil the dream of ‘The Deadly Submarine’.
All this behaviour often drew many a frown and a crossed word from some I encountered but frankly I wasn’t arsed. I liked going to the footie. The occasion of it. The atmosphere. The sights and the sounds. It’s why I watched Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday when I was at university in the Steel City and why I drove to Selby Town to watch a friendly while briefly working in north Yorkshire. I still take the kids to Marine when I can for the same reason and last season I helped to persuade a mate to watch Falkirk while visiting Edinburgh (Hearts and Hibs weren’t playing that day).
Now it might just be perception, I don’t have any figures to hand, but there seems to be less of all this now. It feels like more wave away the teams lower down the food chain. Influenced by the proliferation of matches on the box and clever marketing, second teams tend to be Real Madrid or Barcelona. A Bundesliga team or Real Ovideo or FC St Pauli. Away from the Spanish giants, names, pre-Sky and pre-internet, that would mean little to nothing.
It must be disheartening for those in League One, League Two and in non league, who work hard to keep clubs alive and viable but media consumption and exposure to the game is probably the key.
When I try to trace back my affinity to other clubs beyond the Reds, I put much of it down to religiously reading The Football Echo and the Liverpool Echo’s sport pages in the case of Tranmere Rovers and proximity in the case of Knowsley United.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4EXoO9Zc-8
Liverpool were always my first love, but I enjoyed reading of the exploits of Eric Nixon, Jim Steel and Johnny King. It was amazing to me as a young football fan that my dad had gone to school with Ray Mathias, a real-life player, coach and manager.
I remember when Tranmere avoided dropping out of the league with a last-day win against Exeter then later when it felt like they were playing at Wembley every five minutes.
It might sound quaint now, but less was more in terms of learning about the clubs on my doorstep. Without the internet as a tap to stream endless Liverpool into my life, I read about the other teams Merseyside had to offer — Tranmere, the non league teams, and even the amateur reports.
Time was, I could probably name you Tranmere’s squad and the manager of every non-league team locally. So when a non-league team, Kirkby Town — renamed Knowsley United — was parachuted into a disused rugby club ground – Huyton RLFC – I was always going to see what was happening. I was glad I did. Knowsley had a good side — Joey Barton senior, Dave Siddell, Jimmy Bell. They played in red and were rising up the pyramid faster than Wimbledon at one point before the plug was pulled on the ground. It was hard not to get sucked in.
In the same circumstance, would kids now do the same? Would I have done the same? With the options of video clips galore, live games every night on the telly from the world over and social media, perhaps not. Packaged football reports and results are less likely to fall into the lap of a potential fan. The Football Echo has long gone. A generation of fans don’t go near newspapers.
Maybe then we should do more to get kids into going to actual football, whatever the level. Let them step out of the razzmatazz and generated drama of top-flight football on TV and the internet and instead enjoy the whack of a well-struck ball close up minus the mutterings of shouty stats regurgitators. Let them experience pace, strength, finishing, heading and tackling in front of their own eyes rather than those words simply being categories on Football Manager.
Maybe we should forget the “banter” and the “rules”, and say to anyone who will listen that it’s alright to watch another team now and again. With Premier League ticket prices another barrier, it could be the only way some experience the sport live.
Support a second club. It’s allowed.
PS: After this Saturday’s game away to Welling, Tranmere Rovers play Chester at home (September 12) and Southport away (September 15).
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I lived in London for a year in the days when you had to go to Liverpool by bus or train. When Liverpool was not playing in London I would go to one of the London grounds and found myself preferring Highbury because the Arsenal fans made me laugh.
I went to a game at Craven Cottage and spent much of the game watching a scratch match behind the ground. At that game I heard a man at the far end of the ground talking to his son, and the match report in the Sunday paper said – and I’ll never forget this – “Fulham is in the first division, but not of it.”
So Arse was my second team for one season.
Great article
I’m from Carlisle but support Liverpool with Carliale United as my second team. It’s always been Liverpool for me but when I moved to live within 20 metres of Brunton park it made sense – being a football mad 7 year old – to go to Carlisle games, naturally this drew me in.
As I got older, it became easier for me to get to Anfield and believe it or not it was as cheap for me to pay to stand on The Kop as it was to stand on the Warwick Rd end at Carlisle (will 50p difference)
The greatest football moment I’ve witnessed in the flesh was Jimmy Glass scoring an injury time winner to keep Carlisle in the football league. Having said all that, come 23 September I’ll be at Anfield, in the Liverpool end, hoping the Reds teach Carlisle a footballing lesson. I’ll then travel back with a bunch of mates who’ll have been cheering Carlisle on
I support Liverpool&Bournemouth(my home club), and although they’re both in the prem, I’m passionate about both clubs equally, and I’m pretty certain they won’t ever compete with each other.
Top read that Gareth.
This is a subject close to my heart, because I’ve supported 2 clubs since I was 13 and my best mate took me to The Valley to watch Charlton. I’d already been a Liverpool fan for 6 years at this point, but living in Kent meant going to games was impossible. My dad was my big football influence, but he’d given up on going to games because of the trouble in the 80’s. TV was our only portal, and I guess that’s why he allowed me to pick Liverpool instead of his beloved Spurs.
Liverpool have always been my first love, but The Valley was my matchday education – the train, the songs, the pre and post game drinks, the heated inquests. These images play as big a part in my enduring love for the game as my worn out VHS of Barnsie slaloming between QPR defenders.
Now I live in Liverpool the roles are reversed – Charlton is the team I follow from afar and Anfield gives me the matchday buzz. When the two have played I always want Liverpool to win, but have taken considerable consolation from the times Charlton managed an upset.
I have had stick about this situation for as long as I’ve been a football fan, with people telling me I should support my local team. The closest team growing up was Gillingham, and the two games I attended saw 1 riot and 1 rival fan murdered – that was enough for me.
It makes me sad to think there are kids out there that can’t afford to see Premier league football and therefore don’t see any. Tranmere dropping out of the league will possibly make that situation worse. However, if they romp to the title scoring bucketloads it might be enough to turn some local heads.
The point is, everyone’s football story is unique. Having appreciation or love for more than one club shouldn’t automatically diminish the strength of that feeling, or the validity of your opinions.
That sent a shiver up my spine that mate, my old dadhas supported Liverpool all his life (well in his 80’s now) going to his first game aged 8 and being a season ticket holder for years. He always said that Charlton was his second club and would look out for their results every week. He would go and watch them with his mates when doing his national service in the Army.
My mate’s a Tranmere season ticket holder. I go there with him sometimes when Liverpool aren’t playing. I love starting a Saturday with a few pints and watching live football. I went down to support them against Leyton Otient. Loads of other Liverpool fans based in London went with us.
I wouldn’t say I support them but I’d like to see them do well.
Living in NYC, it makes for difficult second-team syndrome. It used to be simple – get behind the Red Bulls, boo those Hollywood fancy boys in the LA Galaxy. But what to do now? There’s a new second NYC team funded by the same oil/blood money at Man City with Lampard as the iconic figure (but also David Villa and the legendary Pirlo). More confusingly, there’s this new player at La Galaxy who’s a bit fantastic.
Go local? What does local mean now? Red Bulls have slightly more roots than NYCFC, but not really. Or get behind the guy who has fueled my football dreams since I first saw a ball kicked in anger?
New York Cosmos. They’re actively putting down roots by affiliating themselves with about two dozen local clubs. Their league is pushing back against MLS’ hegemony in the USSF pyramid. Tickets are inexpensive. And they’ll be playing for a league title in Brooklyn come November.
I’m sold. It would be nice to have games that I could afford to bring my son along without mortgaging a house (especially since I rent).
Don’t ever call us wools again Robbo lad. #plazziewool
Although a Liverpool fan since early childhood, and definitely preceding the 1986 FA Cup final, when I debuted a hideous Children’s World safari suit in the back garden and discussed my love of Kenny Dalglish with next door’s Sheffield United supporting builders, I’ve flirted with various second teams throughout my life. Growing up in Rotherham, there was a choice of either of the Sheffield clubs (children of players or staff from both teams were in my class at primary school) or the far less fashionable Rotherham United, whose old ground, Millmoor, was regularly rated 92nd in the league in terms of facilities and general niceness, and whose travails rarely took them beyond the old Division Four. It was at Millmoor where I spent my first game, with a friend and her brother, watching as a draw with Chesterfield led to promotion and a pitch invasion full of Sweater Shop jumpers. I still put a Liverpool scarf in the window for Cup Finals, read book after book about them, learned all the words to You’ll Never Walk Alone, watched them avidly on The Match with Elton Welsby, and engaged any passing enthusiast in hours of discussion about Ian Rush, but any sniff of live football would have to take place at the cathedral of football next to the scrapyard and beneath the Tivoli, where punters would come from miles around and pay £15 for as many drinks as you could manage. I went to their shiny new stadium on Boxing Day a couple of years back with my dad and my nephew. It’s a nice place, it was a full house, and a good day out despite a defeat by Port Vale, whose fans dressed as pontiffs were a bit baffling until Pope played a blinder for them, and they netted a second while I tried to find a hotdog for my cold and complaining father.
Moving to Leeds for university meant a) having a new load of people to bore the arse off about Gerard Houllier, and b) having the option of watching Premier League football. However, the combination of working on a Saturday and Elland Road being the least pleasant stadium I have had the pleasure of going to meant that visits there were few and far between, particularly once the board’s gambles failed spectacularly and Real Madrid were replaced as visitors by the likes of Oldham and MK Dons . I developed a bizarre fondness for Carlisle instead, which took me to a couple of aways with their fans, whose chants of D.I.S.C.O. and ‘Cumbria My Lord’ were always passionate if not tuneful.
Sometimes you can’t afford Premier League prices; often you can’t get tickets for the league games. Sometimes it’s just nice to see some lower league football. I’m all for second teams, particularly if it’s a way to encourage kids who’ve grown up loving a team miles away that they avidly follow on Sky that they can also watch the less glitzy team on their doorstep without cheating on their glamorous heroes.
I like the lack of ‘stress’ (or is it expectation?) in watching other teams than LFC,
I’ve been an irregular at Tranmere, Marine and AFC Liverpool (had a ‘half seaso’ with them last season). That said, if I’m not that invested in them, do they qualify as a second team ?
That said, when AFC knocked Everton out of the Senior Cup with a late penalty, I was as ecstatic as everyone else.
liverpool’s been my team since the glenn hysén days. but a few years ago a girl i liked came back from london with a charlton scarf she’d bought for me (she used to go and watch them when she lived there), and since then i’ve had somewhat of a soft spot for The Addicks. i am actually planning on going to a game with a mcfc-supporting friend of mine, who also happen to be fond of them.
I grew up in the south west to a scouse mum and football-disinterested dad. I’ve always supported Liverpool and they’ll always come first for me. However when I was a teenager I used to watch Plymouth Argyle every week. This was in the mid-90s, probably for about four seasons. Me and a mate would hop on a train and head up from Cornwall to Home Park. We had a great regular spot standing on the concrete building which supported the floodlight, just next to the Devonport end (Argyle’s equivalent of the Kop!).
Some of my best football memories are from that time: beating Exeter 4-1 in the FA Cup; seeing John Aldridge miss a penalty for Tranmere in what I think might have been my first ever live game; and most notably the 1995-96 season when we reached the play-off final… and won!
What a day out that was for a 14 year old. Up on a bus to the old Wembley at about 6am. Me and my buddy Steve made a shitty banner from bits of A4 paper which said ‘Forget Cantona, we’ve got Barlow’ – a reference to Martin Barlow, our tricksy winger and the star of the team.
I think that really helped me fall in love with football. It’s different now but back then, watching Liverpool on the tele wasn’t really an option, aside from taping Match of the Day and watching the occasional live game. Going to Argyle week in, week out really helped me connect with the game and in many ways I wish I’d continued to follow them.
It all changed when I moved away at 18, got a job and buddied with up with a group of guys in their mid-20s from the office who I played football with each week. One of them made it clear in no uncertain terms that I couldn’t support two teams – and being a weak-willed 18 year old I just kind of went with that and so Liverpool took the whole of me and hasn’t let go since. Maybe it would have happened anyway but Argyle now feel like a lovely girl who I ditched because somebody said she was ugly.
I went back to watch them play Torquay a couple of Christmases ago. The stadium’s changed almost entirely. The game was terrible. It was blowing a gale, pouring with rain and I was sat next to a man so large that he really should have paid for two seats. I left at half-time.
Green Army!
I never understood the half arsed alegiance to other clubs When I was growing up it was usually Celtic or Rangers. This spawned the half/half bobble hat
For American fans, it’s rarely a question of whether it is acceptable to have more than one team; it’s a question of how many teams a person can properly support, and how you prioritize them. Many have an English club; some prefer a club in Spain or Latin America; in Ohio, where I live, a strong German heritage means I see a healthy share of Bundesliga supporters in the soccer bars around town. And in a country where patriotism demands a more healthy outlet, the national team brings us all together; except when we play Mexico. Then it both divides and consolidates the two factions of the crowd, though we all chant in Spanish, with jeers of “Dos a cero” bouncing aggressively from the narrow walls and high ceilings of soccer bars or ringing around public squares from supporters in red, white and blue kits. Columbus Crew’s Mapfre Stadium is the home of Dos a Cero, and for better or for worse, is probably the MLS team in the nation with the fewest bright green Mexico kits hiding in the back of supporters’ closets.
Theloveofmylife, Liverpool FC will always be my first club, despite the fact that I’ve never been to Anfield and the only “match” I’ve so far been able to attend was the friendly v. Olympiakos in Chicago the summer before last. There’s an MLS team a two-hour drive from me, and 45 minutes south is a 4th division team, a 2nd division womens team and, controversially, a USL (a likely candidate to become the nation’s 2nd divison league) team coming soon.
Following an English club from afar necessarily means missing out on many of the more visceral enjoyments of the game; the thwump of a well-hit pass, the roar of the crowd around you, the warm sun on your face and hot styrofoam cup in your hand on a chilly afternoon. If I want that, I have to find a second club to support. There’s no harm in these basic enjoyments, and I don’t see any disloyalty in them, on this side of the pond, or the other. After all, though NBC has revolutionized US television soccer coverage, and there are many wonderful things about the footballing community on the internet, it can’t fully compensate for being too far, either geographically or financially, from Anfield to go and watch the match. There’s nothing quite like a live football match.
Went to a couple of Friday night Tranmere games about 9-10 years ago maybe(?); a mindfuck how they’ve allowed themselves to drop out the football league.
That’s incomprehensible footballing despair relative to fuming over Liverpool probably not challenging. Got a bit of respect for their fans over there for not just supporting Liverpool/Everton/United/whoever.
Went to Tranmere once in the 80’s….never again.
Moved up to Scotland for work and went to see St Johnstone at McDiarmid park…..never again.
Don’t intend to try a third time (it would have to be an Edinburgh club).
Only Anfield will do.
When I moved to Prescot I kept promising I’d go & watch a game one day. It took about 4 years but the visit of Gary Ablett’s Liverpool reserve team in a Liverpool Senior cup tie finally got me into the ground. Liverpool had Spearing, Pacheco playing. The game went to extra time with Pacheco eventually scoring the winner. Despite being a Liverpool season ticket holder I was hooked & went to Prescot’s next home game the next Saturday. I still have my LFC season ticket but watch Cables when Liverpool are away or playing on Sunday’s. You get to see & hear the players & benches close up, you can have a pint on the terraces (in plastic glass) & speak to players in the bar after the game. It’s the same game but a totally different match day experience.
My son was talking to a Chelsea fan a few weeks ago and said ‘I see Tinkerman is managing Leicester.’
“Who is Tinkean?”
“Ranieri.”
“Who is he.?”
“Used to be Chelsea manager before you started supporting them.”
They’re 33 years old.
I started my football supporter life as a 4-year old when my dad, an AEK ‘Athens’ (AEK has never been an “Athens”-based club, btw), took me to my first ever football match, a game vs Olympiacos, which ‘we’ lost 2-1.
Liverpool were my “English” club. Back then (late 60s then 1970s), Greek wee lads and lads had ONE first-division Greek club to support, perhaps a local (or from the ancestral village) lower-division club, and one for each of the major European leagues (which back then definitely included the Dutch league).
These days, I am a Liverpool FC supporter first and foremost, religiously. But I do have ‘favorite’ clubs in other leagues. And, of course, I will never ever not be an AEK supporter. :-)
Great article and something me and mates have debated for many years. In Nick Hornby’s book Fever Pitch he came under fire for not being a “true” fan due to supporting Cambridge for a year.
I’m not a fan of those that say “my favourite Spanish/Italian/French/German/Icelandic team is…..” Nor do I really care for anyone who has to tell me they support either Celtic or Rangers (other Scottish clubs are available but nobody giving half arsed support picks them,) but I have always had soft spots for other teams. I like Vale because my Grandad supported them, I worked with a Dorchester Town season ticket holder, I like Accrington Stanley because of the milk advert. All daft reasons but I want to see them do well.
Sadly my best mate is a bluenose. A proper bluenose too. Goes the game home and away, is bitter and twisted, blames us for everything!! The sad part is he embraces the match day the same as me, beer, crap pie, sing a song, have a laugh, discuss how you’re better than the full back, It’s an odd feeling when you can’t go to a game together because you’re in different towns,watching different teams, hoping your mate is having a shit day. So to sort of combat this we will go see a random team whenever there’s an international break or we don’t have a game. We get to go the game together, see a new ground and sort of “borrow” a team to follow. In the past few seasons we’ve been Bradford fans, Swindon fans, we’ve been relegated with Chester and promoted with Norwich!
You can change your partner, pick your mates, ignore your family but your team is your one and only but trust me try a borrow of another team. There’s a strange feeling when a red and a blue can both be relatively happy on a Saturday because Kidderminster Harriers have won!!
At the age of 5 which was 1978, for some reason I fell in love with LFC and very soon after Kenny Dalglish.
But I was from a town in South Wales and nobody was ever going to take me to Liverpool to see them. But lots of cousins did go and watch Cardiff City every week and so I remember being taken to see Cardiff around the 80/81 season a couple of times ( one with the pre FA Cup QPR team with Fenwick, Hucker etc)
So Cardiff have been my second side since then, even though I actually lived 7 miles from Swansea!
Being squeezed out of Anfield by disability and cost, me and mine now go to Widnes to watch the ladies’ team. KO 5.30 on Satiurday, 6.30 week day matches. They play gutsy fast football with genuinely talented footballers. Less agro more real enjoyment, every game. Redmen til I die, but the ladies are now my 1A team.
Select Security Stadium. Come and check ’em out.
This is a great article. One I have had to endure for years.
1968 aged 7 my first game piggy backed in the paddock watching Liverpool v WBA I was hooked. Dad had moved with jobs up to the area. He came from Brighton.
We watched Liverpool all the time but when they were away we went to Rochdale, Bury, Oldham, Bolton watching Brighton. I grew up with 2 teams.
Family moved back South in my teens no chance of staying or any influence.
I travelled back up to watch games in Liverpool and around the country.
When I had a family, mortgage etc I couldn’t afford to keep travelling. Involvement in football in the area and I took my lad to watch Brighton.
Now older with more finance and opportunity I can get back up to watch Liverpool again my first love. But still have affinity to Brighton.
2 teams is possible.
Great Article! I Live in Norwich and support Liverpool, I have a season ticket at Norwich and always enjoy watching them play albeit frustrating at times however I feel a certain duty to support them to an extent because they are my home team. Although my grandad was the man who got me into football and he was a Liverpool supporter, so I always supported them whilst growing up. I may not be from Liverpool but do feel a certain connection with the club because of all the memories I have watching and supporting them. Whenever Norwich play them in the premier league I always go to the Game at Anfield for the experience and a great game. YNWA
I may be late to the party here, but I’ve got to say that this is a good read. It’s always difficult to look at other clubs when you’ve become so attached to one. This may not have to do with football, but it certainly applies: long ago when visiting France I became a fan of Biarritz’s rugby club Biarritz Olympique (BO). It had to do with the fans, city, players—just about everything. Well over a decade gone and BO is the only shirt I wear in rugby (outside of national colors of course). But I have this passion for French rugby in general, too. I follow the game down to the amateur divisions. Even if I can’t watch them live, I’m still keeping up every season with all things French rugby, the lower leagues even more so than the top flight. With BO in the D2 for a few seasons now, I find myself a becoming estranged with the Top 14. I feel that there isn’t much to love since the lower league sides are closer to home. My family is full of amateur rugby players from southern France and you can’t throw a stone without finding a side somewhere out there. But I don’t want to lose interest in the top flight, the league that coincidentally captured my attention 14 years ago. So what do I do? I have turned to a club that my family and friends pushed me towards long ago, Stade Toulousain (Toulouse). Am I switching sides? Absolutely not. Returning to France this year my main objective aside from family is to attend a BO match. I can’t wait. But Toulouse will be there for me so that I have a reason to watch the top flight—a league so burning red with money these days that it’s becoming difficult to find interest in. At least Toulouse is a traditional club, one that isn’t a direct rival of BO, and is still close to home. But you better believe that when BO make their way back up to the Top 14, it will be all AUPA BO!
Even several years down the line this doesn’t lose any relevance and is an interesting read. I know several people who have supported more than one club, often due to moving to a different area. My dad for a start grew up supporting Birmingham City but after moving away became a season ticket holder at Macclesfield (both the old club and the reformed one). Due to connections in South Wales I support Newport County and go to games when down there or if they’re playing up here, although when they played Macclesfield I wanted Macc to win. I know for definite that the former chairman of the Leek Town supporters club grew up in London, supporting Sutton United and never made any secret of the fact he still followed them, but as he lived halfway across the country and loved to watch and support football, he got behind his new local club. On the reverse side, a friend of mine has lived opposite Vale Park for decades but supported Chelsea when he lived down there in the 1970s and stuck with them ever since, long before Mr Abramovic came along. The only time he’s set foot in Vale Park was to see a Youth Cup match involving Chelsea.