I've discovered over the last 48 hours that almost everybody here is now a Manchester United "supporter." Even those who don't care about soccer. In fact, especially those who don't care about soccer because Manchester United is the only team they've heard of. Makes me boak. Most damaging brand of the last decade easily.

MM, The Liquidator and KOTR are the ones talking sense on this thread. Pan Tau's Beatles comment was just daft.

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So, Melbourne ... define a 'Manchester United Supporter'.

We will need to know how many games he or she must go to, and I suppose how much current merchandise they should buy.

I really think this is necessary, otherwise we're all pissing in the wind.


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The whole argument is dogshit. It has always been dogshit and will always be dogshit.

This need to define your support is so fucking needy. What's that? You weren't at Newcastle Town when we won 3-2, Rory Patterson went in net, and we ran the Naughty Forty? Lose 10 Top Red points. I am redder than you. Therefore I am better than you.

Get to fuck you dullards. Support who you want how you want. And if you get some dick telling you you're not a proper fan because you weren't at the Sherpa Van Final in 1988, chin the gobby cunt.

End of.

(and that's the end of the thread and debate. I said End Of. Them's the rules)

QUOTE:
I'd also argue, because I'm dead argumentative like, that if you stopped a fan at random at Old Trafford, The Emirates, Anfield, or Stamford Bridge, you're as likely to find a totally unknowledgeable idiot as a die-hard fan.

Well yes, there isn't a stadium in the country that doesn't house a significant number of total know-nothings on a match day, but that's not really my point.

QUOTE:
Basically, at the top level, attending a match is no sign of anything other than a high disposable income/empty social life.

Well you would say that now, wouldn't you?

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Amen

[to EIM]


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QUOTE:
The whole argument is dogshit. It has always been dogshit and will always be dogshit.

This need to define your support is so fucking needy. What's that? You weren't at Newcastle Town when we won 3-2, Rory Patterson went in net, and we ran the Naughty Forty? Lose 10 Top Red points. I am redder than you. Therefore I am better than you.

Get to fuck you dullards. Support who you want how you want. And if you get some dick telling you you're not a proper fan because you weren't at the Sherpa Van Final in 1988, chin the gobby cunt.

End of.

(and that's the end of the thread and debate. I said End Of. Them's the rules)

Stop misrepresenting what I'm saying you big ball bag. It's 'in goal' as well, not 'in net'.

The_Liquidator wrote:

QUOTE:

Well you would say that now, wouldn't you?

I would and I did.

I'm interested though, guys. Who's the 'better' (because that's what we're talking about here isn't it? A scale of 'goodness') fan?

Me, who couldn't afford to go to Old Trafford regularly after about 2001. Worked Saturdays anyway, so went to the occasional match when he got a day off, and the odd midweeker. But was there when the Glazers were barricaded in Old Trafford. Was there when the protests were going on. And was there when FC United was formed to give an alternative football team for those who felt alienated by Big United?

Or is my bro-in-law better because he couldn't give a fuck about all that, but has a season ticket, and has been a regular match goer for fucking years?

Because, really, there's no fucking difference, is there? I'm no better than he, and he no better than me (football wise, I'm obv better in every other department). We just have different outlooks, priorities and philosophies. And I'll be fucked up my stinky little bum if I'm having someone tell me I'm not a proper fan because I don't stump £50 up every week to line Malcom Glazer's dribble-filled pockets.

I'm not just misrepresenting what you're saying. I'm still, kinda, replying to MM's points. And everyone else that agrees with him.

Basically, I've wound myself up and you're paying the price.

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You're singing my tune, EIM.


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Let's sing it together, like the BeeGees after the first one died.

I'm not talking about people who can't afford to go to football, I'm talking about people who choose to support a club hundreds of miles away with no familial connections who don't go to games not because they can't afford a ticket, but because where they are is so far away it's not feasible. I can't understand why you would to do that for one thing, but in terms of affecting what happens at the club or at the games the match going fans are more important, yes? I'm not drawing a moral scale, because I already said that no-one is morally better. I'm certainly not comparing two people whose dad is from Stretford and grew up with Man United in their family, that's just fucking daft.

Christ I know loads of people who would go to Chelsea every game if they could afford it, but can't. They're usually local fans that the club needs to keep on, because without it the club will die.

Is it possible to agree with EIM, Liq and Purves simultaneously in this discussion? Because I think I do.

I've grown to dislike "real fan" snobbery, because it's actually become more boorish in football's turbo-capitalist global-media age, matching the growing boorishnes of yer stereotypical TV-fan gloryhunter.

But what's been said about the importance of the match-going experience rings true none the less. EIM himself has acknowledged this in his glowing accounts of how much fun FCUM is: it's not about who's the best type of fan - let's not internalise or personalise this - but a simple acknowledgement that the experience of watching football live, regularly, as part of a community of match-going fans, remains the best way of experiencing the game.

I don't think it's about goodness; it's about irritatingness. For proof of that look at how people were falling over themselves in this thread to exclude Liq and others from their righteous glee at Chelsea's failure.

The thing is, I don't think anybody finds it truly irritating to be gloated at by a genuine supporter of another club. It's not pleasant, but that's not quite the same thing. There is a sense that it's a jury of ones peers.

Someone who manifestly makes the effort to go to games enjoys an elevated status to a couch-based observer and rightly so. And people are trying to set up a false argument by saying "oh yeah, and do people who miss a game count for less?" The fact is that these distinctions do count for something even among those who actually attend. Whether it's Roy Keane slagging off the prawn sandwich brigade, or people in the Kingsmeadow Tempest End slagging off the miserable moaning cunts who stand in the John Smiths Corridor of Discontent these hierarchies do exist and they do reflect something.

I make less of a contribution to AFC Wimbledon than, say, Tintin who puts on the Haydon costume and gets the crowd going at quiet moments. But by the same token, I make more than some of the miserable fuckers who snipe from teh guestbooks while games are in progress. More, also, than the assorted Italians, Bulgarians, Algerians and so on wh osupport us from afar for political or emotional or whatever reason, fine people though they clearly are. That's why I was worth my ticket to the playoff final.

But so what if someone 'picks' a club hundreds of miles away? It rarely happens that you pick a club anyway, your club picks you. But whatever. If they stick with it, then fair fucks. You're a supporter.

No one ever questions Otto Katz on his Newcastle support. Or rarely Ganja on his Milan. Yet an Irishman supports a BRC, or someone not conceived and born in the centre circle of Old Trafford claims a Manchester United allegiance, and they're hounded about it forever by these inverse-snob, indie, elitist cunts.

Live and let live, man.

You don't understand, fair enough. Sometimes it's a mystery to me and all. But football is different things to different people. And that's one of the things that makes it fairly bloody brilliant.

Mind, having said all that, PG is right on one thing. I'd be furious if a ticket for a big match went in to the hands of a 'Big Game Red' (man, my Man Utd message board glossary is taking a battering tonight) at the expense of a home and awayer.