After
Manchester
United’s first loss in 30 Barclays Premier League matches, some of their
fans, not supporters, let loose with some verbal garbage. It was not a very
convincing performance from the Reds by any stretch of the imagination, and
losing is never anything anyone should take easily, however, for the way some of
the fans that were questioning the intentions and qualifications of United was
down right despicable.
The shocking statements that were being spewed
out brings up a much-needed debate about the difference between being a
supporter or a fan of a club, and the latter or two showed their true colors
after United’s disappointing loss. The disparaging remarks, which ranged from
either calling the club a “f*****g disgrace,” or to challenging
Sir Alex Ferguson,
who is the successful manager in English football, were a real eye-opener since
they all claimed they are devoted supporters.
It is very apparent that this disillusioned
portion alleged supporters have never been given the lesson on what what it
means to actually support a football club, especially one of the magnitude of
Manchester United. So what is the real difference between a supporter and a
fan?
The major difference between the two, which is
often mistaken as the same thing, is how much a person actually concerns
themselves about learning the legacies, rivalries, the traditions and, most
importantly, history of that particular club. People will refute this by saying
that it is just the difference terminology, and, to be honest, that is just it,
but it is learning the appropriate ways, or words, to describe the club you
support.
Words that are often used to describe a supporter
are: passionate, dedicate and loyal, and, most importantly, embodying everything
that the club is all about. Supporting a club not only demands unconditional
love, but it requires that person to also honor and respect traditions, which is
something a lot of fans these days do not take into consideration.
Fans, which is short for fanatics, is simply
someone who casually watches a match, but does not have the club’s best interest
at heart – no matter the result. There is no questioning the fact that Sir Alex
Ferguson has upheld level of standards of excellence at United, but if the club
falters a portion of the fan-base start ridiculing either the players or the
manager.
While it is okay to critique or call out a
certain player for not performing to their ability, these fans, if they were
supporters, would have already learned that they must take the good with
bad. Everyone should know that success cannot be fully enjoyed, or appreciated
for that matter, unless the supporter has experienced tough times, and, to be
honest, most modern-day United supporters have never seen the club suffer for
more than a period of two years.
Unequal
Manchester United is one of the world’s
best-supported clubs with approximately 333 million fans worldwide, but not all
of them embody the club for what it was, is and will be. If a United supporter
from Manchester, or in England, decides to move abroad, he never loses his
allegiance for the club he supports, and there is living proof of that with some
Reds throughout America.
However, a lot of these new-aged fans do not
realize that football is not like any other sport, because no matter whom you
support, it should become more like a religion than anything else. As people
will witness following conclusion of Super Bowl XLV, fans will jump on the Green
Bay Packer bandwagon just because they are the new, hottest franchise.
However, one thing that Manchester United should
never be called is a franchise, because the Red Devils are a football club, or
as Sir Alex referred to it as the other day, “a family.”
Flavor
Yes, football is only becoming more and popular
in the United States, because of media outlets such as Fox Soccer Channel and
ESPN, which is England’s version of Sky Sports, showing more and more games
every weekend. With the recent media indulgence into showing the Premier League
on this side of the Atlantic, Americans are now afforded the chance to pick and
choose which English football team that would like follow, which is another
thing that they cannot comprehend, either.
As a supporter, you do not pick your club – the
club picks you. To be fair, it is much harder for people to support a club like
Wigan Athletic or Wolverhampton Wanderers, because they are not on the
television week in and week out, so they tend to choose Manchester United,
Arsenal,
Chelsea or
Liverpool.
When Manchester United toured America this passed
summer, some of the people who attended the matches should be considered
supporters based on the fact that their either had memorabilia of a rival team,
or referred to the club as “Man U.”
It must have been very hard when Gary Neville,
who just brought to an end his dignified 19-year playing career with United,
came over a few years back, and had people with Arsenal or Liverpool shirts
wanting to get his autograph. A lot of these new fans have been attracted to the
club because of the popular players like David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo or
Wayne Rooney, but they tend to leave when that certain play leaves.
While it is good to have highly-marketable
players at your club, you would rather see supporters supporting a player that
stands for what Manchester United was built on: determination, hard work,
tradition and honesty. Another glaring difference between the two is that a
supporter values the color of the shirt and crest on the front of it, while a
fan values name on the back more.
“I Pledge Allegiance To The Crest Of Manchester
United Football Club, And To The Colors For Which It Stands: One Supporter Under
Sir Alex Ferguson, United With Pride And Success For All.” – The United
Religion, 2007
In closing, ask yourself this question: If
Manchester United was to be relegated to the third tier of English football,
would you still honor, value and uphold the history and traditions the club has
stood for over the last 133 years?
Football Passions
Research commissioned by
Canon
Executive summary
Methods
The Football Passions report summarises extensive sociological research
across 18 countries in Europe. The objectives of the study were to capture the
emotions of being a football fan and to compare the feelings, expressions and
behaviour of fans associated with support of their football teams. Fieldwork was
conducted in six of these countries — Britain, France, Germany, Italy,
Netherlands, and Spain — involving observation, recordings of heart rates at
matches, interviews and in-depth discussions with fans. In the remaining 11
countries, online and telephone interviews were conducted with fans. A
pan-European online poll of approximately 2,000 fans was also conducted.
The research revealed that while there are differences between countries in
the way fans express their emotions and behaviour, we ultimately all speak one
language, the language of football. The research, however, did unearth a number
of quirks and national differences that may challenge our conventional
stereotypes.
Themes of Football Emotions Research
Passion and emotion
Football is associated with passion, emotion, excitement and dedication
across Europe. References to extreme emotional experiences at football games
characterised all aspects of discussions with fans — some referring to the 'pure
joy' and exhilaration of being at football games. Such is the intensity of the
experience that two thirds of fans have cried at football matches — mostly
through joy, but occasionally because of despair. Football provides for many
fans an opportunity to let themselves go emotionally — to release the
frustrations of everyday life.
What defines a fan
To be a 'true' fan requires the 'living' experience of football. It is not
about being a mere spectator — it is about being a participant. Match attendance
is a given, of course, but there is also a duty to engage emotionally in the
life of the team in order to impact positively on a team's performance.
Attending away games is an important ritual for fans involving a number of
psychological and logistical challenges. Away supporters are always out-numbered
and mostly out-sung. In our discussions with fans there was a defiant stance
against 'fair-weather supporters' — those who only attend matches occasionally
or when their team is doing well. Such fans lack dedication and resilience and
the detailed knowledge of team statistics, standings, players and history that
is characteristic of 'true' fans. Football fandom is seen as a rite of passage
involving a process akin to apprenticeship. It involves years of instruction, of
'practice', of dedication and of demonstrating your own knowledge in the
presence of others before being accepted by 'real' fans.
The Twelfth Man
Football fans describe themselves as the 'twelfth man' — as essential to the
success of the team as the players and coaching staff. It is the actions
performed by fans during the game — the ritual chants, songs, banner waving,
etc. — that motivates the team, intimidates the opposition players and perhaps
even influences referees' decisions. The fans truly believe they must attend the
game to 'help the team to win', not just to observe the event.
Rituals
In addition to the actions performed in the stadiums during the match, pre-
and post-game rituals are important in creating a sense of community among fans.
From meeting up with other fans for a drink before and after the game to the
orchestrated coordination of fabric squares to make up a larger banner, rituals
foster a strong sense of belonging to the fan group. What might otherwise be
forgettable, everyday actions become as meaningful and important to fans as,
say, a church Mass, and generate powerful bonds. These rituals often have a
superstitious quality — wearing the same 'lucky' shirt to every game or
following the same routine during the build-up — even eating two pies just
before the kick-off because that made the team win last time. In many European
countries the presence of drummers, horn blowers etc. in the sections occupied
by 'true' fans, each performing their rehearsed ritual roles, generates an
emotionally charged atmosphere that is unparalleled in any other sport.
Friends and belonging
Football is an important means for people to form and maintain strong
friendships that might otherwise not exist. These social bonds between fans are
so strong that many describe them in familial, kinship terms — 'my brotherhood'
or 'my family'. 'Football friends' are different from friends in other areas of
life. Something special is shared and exchanged by them. The football team is
also a 'friend' to many fans. Over half of all fans feel that being a fan of the
team is like having a long-term girlfriend/boyfriend.
Family
Football plays a key role in family life in much of Europe, linking the
shared experiences of family members across generations and creating a lasting
sense of tradition and belonging. The strongest of these relationships is that
of father and son. Most men become fans because their father would take them to
matches as a child, and many older fans still retain strong memories of these
formative experiences. As football fandom is socially inherited within the
family, matches regularly comprise ritualised days out for all members —
toddlers and grandmothers included — and the passion for football is a unifying
event that frequently leads to animated conversations at home in front of the
television or around the family dinner table. The role that football plays in
this context is very important given fears about the break down of the
traditional family unit and its values across Europe.
History & national identity
There is a strong commonality among all fans across Europe — football unites
rather than divides in this sense. The specific social and cultural role that
football plays in any given country, however, is heavily influenced by
historical factors. These include whether a major side or national team has won
an important tournament at a decisive time in the past or whether the sport was
traditionally played by upper or lower classes. Similarly, historically poignant
football rivalries between some nations (e.g. Holland v Germany, England v
Scotland) play a role in defining specific national football characteristics.
These influence how people relate to football in their country and how they
support teams at the local, regional, national and international level. Fans in
countries with strong local and regional identities have a slightly different
relationship to the sport than fans in countries where regionalism is of less
importance. In some countries such as Norway and Sweden, allegiance to the local
team is much stronger than that associated with the national side. In contrast,
in France, Poland and Portugal have stronger allegiances to their national
side.
Gender
The large majority of football fans in Europe are men. Both male and female
fans acknowledge that football is a largely masculine domain in which the world
of the fan is organised around typically male-oriented social spaces — pubs,
bars, and large-scale sports arenas. In such spaces, men are permitted to
express their emotions and passions — having women present, it is felt can
inhibit this sometimes 'unmanly' behaviour. The predominance of males, however,
does not preclude the involvement of women in the world of the football fan.
Women's participation in and, and their 'consumption' of, the sport has
increased significantly over the past few decades. Several fan clubs across
Europe are now dedicated exclusively to women and they are increasingly accepted
as 'authentic' fans, not just the wives, girlfriends or daughters of male
fans.
The Internet
The Internet is now a significant resource in the world of football — fixture
schedules, statistics, injuries, purchases and sales of players, team
selections, ticket prices and day-to-day news about football politics. European
fans spend increasing amounts of their time on football web sites accessing
up-to-the-minute information about events specific to their team, keeping
abreast of local, national and international developments in football politics
and commenting on the play during matches. A minority of very dedicated fans
browse such sites for up to 6 or 7 hours a day. In many ways, the fans' use of
the Internet is an extension of their activities in the stadium. Online fans
constitute fan families — groups of people with close personal relationships
that are as strong at home or work in front of a desk as they are at the games
themselves. Older fans, however, are not only less likely to access the Internet
for these reasons than younger age groups, many see it as inconsistent with
being a 'real' fan.
Conclusion
While much of the European media coverage of football fans has, since the
late 1960s, focused on the negative — on hooliganism and violence — our research
reveals a much more positive side to football and its passionate supporters. Our
work, one of the most extensive pieces of research done on European football
fans in recent years, highlights the passions and emotions that are associated
with the game and the positive role that being a true fan plays in the lives of
millions of Europeans. While there are strong rivalries between fans at local
and national levels, the striking feature of the research is the high degree to
which football unites people from varied backgrounds across the whole of Europe,
and undoubtedly beyond.
Fan Vs Supporter - What's The Difference?
I'm not saying that one is better than the other, just that there is an
important difference.
What is the difference between the two?
Well, it's in the words. A fan likes something, a supporter actively supports
it. A regular fan wouldn't drive 5 hours to support the FC Bayern Amateure in
the cold March rain.
What do Supporters do differently?
Passion. Dedication. Loyalty.
Take a club like Bayern Munich for example. We have by far the most fans in
Germany, but only a small group of true Supporters. The fans buy lots of
merchandise and visit the home matches, and usually refer to the team, not the
club. The fan idolizes players, but often knows little about the club's history.
When a club doesn't do well, more and more seats will be empty, whereas the
section of the Supporters is as full as ever.
The Mindest
A Supporter loves the club, not the team and its players. Those are
mercenaries who do not identify with the club and will transfer as soon as more
money is offered.
To a Supporter, it's all about the club, not the team.
A fan sees this as a hobby or casual entertainment. But Supporters take it
seriously. No matter where or when the club plays, or how important the match
is, the Supporter is there. A lot of times this means sacrificing other aspects
of his life - work, school, family, friends. That's because words like loyalty
and honor still have meaning. A Supporter will defend the club's name if
necessary, without getting it into trouble.
To the Supporter the club is
a lifestyle.
The Supporter supports the team throughout the entire match, regardless of
the score or the performance. Because the team needs the support the most when
things are not going well. That is not to say that displeasure can't be voiced.
But the support of the team always comes first.
Simply singing or shouting is not enough. Every word uttered and every song
sung has to be filled with all of the Supporter's energy and passion. Even if
the players on the field don't care, it is done for the club's honor and for all
of the Supporter's honor.
Sing until your lungs burn and you are ready to puke.
Supporters looks at everything the club does objectively and is not afraid to
be critical. It is up them to protect the club's values and integrity and to
carry them on with their actions.
Should a decision of the club clashes with the Supporter's believes, but
benefits the club in the long run, the Supporter has to put his own interest
aside.
Everything the Supporter does has to be in the club's best
interest.
All of these traits are vital. I have known people who went to every FC
Bayern match, but didn't support. There were those who sang passionately, but
only cherry-picked a few matches a year. Not to mention the ones that were too
drunk to even make it into the stadium, or those who only want to fight.
Unfortunately there seems to be a war going on against the Supporters/Ultras
across Germany. The clubs want to replace us with customers who will shell out
money without asking questions or criticizing. The clubs' identities are slowly
taken away. But this is for another article.
