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Have You Ever Changed your Football Team?

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Let me explain why I’m asking.

I started supporting Celtic when i was about 8 or 9. I was a Celtic fan for a very simple reason – my elder brother was one, and that made it all but inevitable. This route (parent/sibling brainwashing) is surely the most noble way to become a club’s fan.

I suppose I should say that I’ve supported Celtic through thick and thin, but let’s be honest, when you’re an Old Firm fan, it’s usually thick. And for Celtic fans it’s never been thicker, as they have just won their 14th title in 15 seasons. Basically, there were army teams in the Warsaw Pact countries that had it harder than Celtic have had it of late (domestically at least).

I left the UK almost 30 years ago. My own experience of being a long distance football fan is that absence doesn’t really make the heart grow fonder. There are probably two kinds of expats: those who try to live the lifestyle of their home country wherever they’re living, and those who try to settle into the lifestyle of wherever they are. I was 12 years in Italy, and there are few better countries to follow football: great clubs, great league, great fans and everything turned up to 11. They take it far too seriously. It’s great. This led me to caring less and less about what Celtic did. I stopped looking for their scores on Saturday afternoons. There were other signs that I was losing the faith. A few years ago, Celtic played Hibs in a League Cup final. One of my best friends at college was a Hibs fan and we used to go and watch them. I found myself hoping that Hibs would win. After all, it would have meant much more to them, but still – hoping your team loses?

If you follow football, you can probably guess what’s coming next. This season has seen the first serious challenge for the Scottish title by team outside of the Old Firm since the early 90s. Hearts led the table for most of the season, and along the way I found to my surprise that I wanted them to win. It’s not that I’m particularly fond of Hearts (see “Hibs” above), but I just thought it would have been good for the game. Celtic won in the end, with an apparently dodgy penalty (haven’t seen it) in their second last game probably being decisive. Celtic beat Hearts in the last game and the game had to finish early as Celtic fans invaded the pitch.

So I’ve come to ask myself the question: can you change your football team? I probably would have thought this heretical a few years ago, but now I’m not so sure. After all, we’re all adults, right? And if your team gets taken over by an unpleasant regime/hedge fund, don’t you have the right to withdraw your support? And if the feeling’s gone and you just can’t get it back, then why not just move on?

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Comments

  2. It’s like religion I guess, only more important than that. You’re born into a geographically-based belief that the team you worship is better than any other, which builds within you a mild antipathy toward people who think different. Changing teams is a betrayal of everyone who helped make you what you are. However.

    In 1972 Leeds United were the biggest team in the land. I was seven. They wore white. Sprake or Harvey, the two Grays, Reany, Madeley, Jackie, Norman Bitesyerlegs, Billy Bunter, Peter Lorimer, Sniffer Clarke. Might have forgotten a few.

    I was born in the Midlands and was living in the South and couldn’t accurately point out Leeds on a map so my worship was entirely based on them winning the Cup and being likely to win things in future (spoiler; they didn’t.) Years later I learned what a nasty bunch of thugs that team was. So yes, I ditched them, and picked the nearest big team to my home, Brighton.

    I couldn’t name their current first team, but about 10 years ago they sounded like the nicknames for the lads on the keeper’s stag do; Ryan, Bruno, Bong, Dunk, Duffy, Propper, Gross.

    • In the mid seventies – everyone on our corner supported Leeds so, for a bit of spice, we all decided to support a different team for a season. My brother went for Coventry as he liked their kit. I chose QPR as they looked great on the previous night’s MotD. This was the year QPR finished just behind Liverpool in the league. It was a great season! Didn’t last though and we all fell back in love with Leeds Leeds Leeds.

    • Couple of points there, chiz: I think being FIrst Division champions twice after that Cup win counts a tiny bit as “winning.”

      And I could point you to how in the 60’s the FA (yes, the sport’s governing body) altered a report detailing cards and sendings off to include Leeds’ youth team (and nobody else’s) to massage the data a bit. This “dirty Leeds” trope has since become fact after endless repetition whereas they were about the same amount of thugs as every other team.

      You were right about the kit though 😎

  3. For me personally I wouldn’t ever change the team I supported however I can envisage a time when I don’t go to football games at all and that is when the passion will like stop.
    It is not football per se – for example I rarely watch live games on tv and only occasionally watch highlights. I am not even sure I will watch much of the World Cup – the corporate greed on display is vomit inducing. It goes against the spirit of the World Cup, I didn’t think anyone could be worse than Blatter but Infantino seems to be proving me wrong.

    • I think following a club and watching the World Cup are different beasts. With the club, I think there’s an element of what Bingo refers to on his thread as duty. It’s quotidian. The World Cup on the other hand is like the Christmas holidays. The genius of FIFA is that they’ve made the Christmas holidays rubbish.

      • I perhaps didn’t explain myself particularly well. My love of football isn’t actually a love of football but rather a love of my club Birmingham City. Should they ever cease to exist I cannot imagine having the same passion for any other club.
        The comments about the World Cup were an adjunct to this to highlight that my interest outside of Birmingham City is very small indeed.

    • I spent seven years in Birmingham. I saw Everton at City, Villa, West Brom, Wolves, Coventry, Leicester, Forrest.

      After a while, I started going to matches when Everton weren’t playing. I’m especially fond of City who flirted with relegation regularly at the time. One season, they seemed doomed but crawled their way out with a series of 1-0 wins with the goal always coming in the last ten minutes. The football was dire but the tension was superb and the crowd so phlegmatic. I loved WBA because of the three degrees who were amazing and, Villa won the league and then the European Cup.

      I wouldn’t say I became a supporter of any of them but I really enjoyed watching all three and experiencing the different atmospheres in the grounds. The whole thing made me fall in love with football itself rather than just my team.

      Chuffed for Villa tonight. Much nicer famous fans than Arsenal, such as Tom Banks & Prince William. Let’s skirt over David Cameron.

  4. It wouldn’t occur to me to do so. I spent my earliest years in Partick and it has always been Partick Thistle for me (even though the name is historical and Firhill is short distance east of Partick). As an unintended bonus it helps avoid the Old Firm factionalism. Less welcome is the fact that the Jags are the Scottish equivalent of an English team like Ipswich: in and out of the top division like a cuckoo clock, rarely thought of as serious contenders and a side that other fans pity more than fear.

    That said I’ve only ever been a casual fan at best. I keep an eye on the the table and of course will do the Championship play off finals tomorrow and Monday, but I couldn’t recite the team line up and the communal experience which Bingo wrote so well about in a recent post is alien to me. If they get promoted it will put a smile on my face for a day and if they don’t I will shrug, but they’ll still be ‘my’ team either way.

  5. I seriously considered abandoning Ipswich Town after 52 years when they seemingly endorsed Farage a few weeks ago. Still not happy about it, but it seemed to be the owner acting alone and he didn’t think anyone would mind. He (sort of) apologised and I don’t think they’ll do it again.

  8. I gave up on football about 15 years ago when my team folded. I’d followed Rushden & Diamonds for about 15 years or so, having watched all of the local teams as a child. I went to about 10 home games a season and any interesting away games (at least three a year).

    In case you don’t remember them (and why would you) R&D were bankrolled by Millionaire Max Griggs (not his actual name), who was the owner of Doc Martens. The team went from the Beazer Homes league to the conference and then to the heights of league 1, before nestling back in the conference. They survived a few seasons after Griggs retired, but we ended up going under. Although there is a phoenix club I have never had any interest in watching them as after the club died so did my interest in football. Around the same time I became a father and my priorities (time, money) shifted somewhat, so that was football. It has sort of helped that the last few world cups have been in places that it’s easy to dislike, so I haven’t watched any of those games. The EPL appears to be a bit ridiculous with it’s VAR and it’s “false 9s.” I don’t remember the last time I actually watched a men’s game of football on the TV (I watched some of the England’s Women last summer).

    Occasionally I think about going and watching a local non-league team, I do live within shouting distance of a league 2 club (and a PREM rugby team), but none of those options really appeal. Last weekend I was in the pub when someone started talking at me about the game he’d been to at great length. I suspect that he’d been taking cocaine and he was quite a bore, which reminded me of all the reasons that I don’t like football any more.

  9. I chose Tottenham Hotspur when I was eight or nine. The fact that they were based in London several hundred miles and across the Irish Sea from where I lived was unimportant.; Jimmy Greaves, Pat Jennings, Alan Gilzean and Dave Mackay, plus the fact that at that time they were one of the most glamorous and successful teams of the time were all more relevant to me.

    And despite this year’s shambles, last night’s woeful display, and despite the utter unlikability of top level football these days, that isn’t going to change; I’m saddled with them. However the lack of geographical proximity for much of my life does mean I have often had a local team who I have gone along to support; a ‘second team’ if you will. Altrincham have been almost as dreadful (relatively speaking) as Spurs this season but I have still attended religiously all season and enjoyed it thoroughly.

  10. Full disclosure.
    Despite living in S Manchester in the late seventies I followed the most successful club in England at the time, Liverpool. Every year my dad would take us to…Maine Road where they would thump City usually 3 or 4-0. I remember a particularly impressive performance from Souness in the early eighties.
    As music, and theatre, took a grip of my teenage imagination football, though never completely absent, took very much a back seat. As in the days before Sky and endless content it could. At University someone asked where I was from and what team I supported. United – definitely not that was my brother (now a Brentford season ticket holder), Liverpool – well not them either. City and Maine Road it was. Cue twenty years of low comedy, the year of 5 managers, etc etc. As the nineties progressed I went to see City away regularly – at London clubs, then the west midlands. I remember we were at Villa the day after the takeover in 2008 and got beaten 3-1.
    So yes I would say that anyone is allowed a free pass out of a glory hunting childhood decision, and my brother would say that shifting allegiance to your local club is also allowed.
    What myself and best friend do do is go and see lower league football – leagues one and two only – a visit to somewhere accessible by train, a trip round the local museum, pie and pint, followed by say Cheltenham vs Gillingham and then the train home.

      • well funny you should say that my brother supported one of the other Manchester Teams, but my dad grew up in Southend and so one of the teams I look out for on a Saturday is indeed the Shrimpers. If they make it back to the league we look forward to a Lower League Odyssey out to Roots Hall.

        (compulsory united joke) There was a time earlier this year when switching from Manchester United to Brentford he might have been falling foul of the ‘trading up’ rule below.

        • Heh. Good to hear. Apologies, you made the context clear which one you meant, but after dropping most of the stupid football hatreds one accumulates, the attempted co-opting by that club of the ‘U’ suffix is one the things that still makes me fume.

  12. I’ve mentioned on here before about changing from West Ham to non-league Hampton & Richmond Borough but it wasn’t something that happened overnight. From 77 to about 1993 my Dad and I traveled from south west London to Upton Park reasonably regularly, but once I discovered Hampton in 1980 we kind of supported both. West Ham have always done their best to alienate supporters (the bond scheme, sacking John Lyall, the Brady, Sullivan and Gold “ineptitude” years, leaving Upton Park for the wholly unsuitable London Stadium, not to mention the constant, almost wilful underachievement etc) but in truth it was more that Hampton was nearer, cheaper, and more fun. I’ll always hold a slight, distant candle for the Hammers, even if things like the news about local rate payers having to stump up more to cover Stadium payments if they end up being relegated suggests the club have had a moral vacuum of such gargantuan proportions that they don’t deserve any success of any kind ever again.

  13. I don’t know if it counts for the purposes of the OP, but I stopped supporting England about a decade ago.

    My attitude towards the national team is now somewhere between indifference and outright disdain, which would have been completely unimaginable growing up.

    • I know what you mean about England. They represented all that was hideous about a particular kind of entitled nationalism as well as constant overpromise and subsequent underachievement. The slightly more thoughtful Southgate years helped restore some hope but my interest dwindled to say the least.

  14. I’ve supported Norwich since 1985, and Scotland since I could walk.

    I’m not sure I can see the circumstances in which I would stop, absent some kind of huge issue on the part of Norwich – signing Mason Greenwood, for example

  16. This is heretical, but I support my local team where ever I live at the time. As a kid in the 70s I was a Cardiff supporter. I was a regular when they had a good FA cup run and almost got into the old First Division. Had a decade or so of wandering through various locales, but when I met my wife I settled in Birmingham through the late 80s and early 90s. Thanks to her family connections I became a regular at the Villa and even went to the FA final they lost to Liverpool. When I moved to Sheffield in the 90s I more often went to Wednesday, but had a few trips to the Blades – mostly when Villa were there. I gradually went off Premiership/Championship footie as it just doesn’t feel connected to anywhere local. So now, as mentioned in an earlier post, when I can, I watch Hallam FC who play in Northern Premier League Division One East. I enjoy games there much more than what’s on TV.

    That said, I am off to the pub tonight. Up the Villa. Given the resources he has on offer compared to the likes of Man City, surely Unai Emery is up there for Manager of the Season?

  18. I don’t actually have a team and I’ve never been to a football match other than Macclesfield Town in the final of the Northern Premier League in about 1970 v Telford and we won. However my best mate is a lifelong Man Utd fan and I’d say I follow them rather than support them. It’s been an interesting season though

    I dislike Arsenal who are local to me, mainly due to not liking Wenger with his whinging and excuses (I remember Gary Linaker commenting that the Arse gave away a free kick “a tackle so late even Arsene Wenger saw it” which I thought was funny.) Henry and Pires were big on taking the moral high ground on cynical play whilst enthusiastically practicing it, but they probably all do that.

    My other local Premier League team is Spurs who my BiL supports but when I suggested I might start supporting them he said I shouldn’t bother.

    Back to Man U, Harry Maguire has a massive head you know.

  19. As a West Ham fan if ever there was a time to change this is likely to be it, but I followed them for over 50 years so it’s too deeply ingrained now. Oddly enough my dad was a Millwall fan, and my first games were at the Den, but luckily for me it didn’t stick. A mate of mine decided to support West Ham given England’s win in 66 was mostly down to them, and like a good if rather easily led buddy, I followed suit. He tells me all he watches now is tennis – lightweight.

    My interest levels have varied – from 6 years as a regular at Upton Park including 2 as a season ticket holder (we were relegated during the first of those years), to intermittently checking the results in the days before Sky and the internet.

    I was lucky enough to get along to a few games in the Moore/Brooking/Bonds era but I’m an outlier here in finding games more enjoyable now. Apart from the always present possibility of violence on the terraces back then, the crushes in the crowds and the surges down the terraces every few minutes, when I watch the Big Match re runs on ITV4 now mostly what I see is dismal pitches, a lot of back passes and on pitch thuggery routinely doled out to anyone with a hint of talent and refs just waiving the game on.

  20. I can’t envisage the idea of supporting another club – it’s like saying I think I’ll give my child away and adopt another one instead – then again there are days……
    This coming after nearly 60 years of supporting Rotherham United where success is avoiding relegation. But it’s my club and always will be. I do have seasons (this last one being an example) where my enthusiasm becomes almost non existent but that’s part and parcel of the fun (isn’t it ?) 🤔

  21. I haven’t followed football since I was a kid at school. I’m from the North East so following Newcastle (or Sunderland. How? 🫢😜) is ingrained. You HAVE to.

    I don’t know who plays for them now and I don’t check the results or the league table. My interest is purely a remnant of that early infatuation and the intense atmosphere that surrounds the Black and White stripes. However I do like it when they win.

    As a kid my toon supporting pals decided to choose a ‘second, team to follow too. I chose Arsenal. Purely because I liked the team badge. A cannon, for Gods sake. Cool AF. That soft spot for Arsenal has remained. Again all the above terms and conditions apply – no idea who plays for them etc.

    But even now in my football-indifferent state I could never countenance switching my main allegiance. From Newcastle? I’d have to call Saul Goodman to be spirited away to live in a shack in Montana if I did.

  22. When I was around 10 I said to my Dad that I was going to support Manchester United. ‘We support Spurs in this family’. We won the double the next year, the FA Cup in 1962, the Cup Winners Cup in 1963….happy days!

  24. Not quite what Hawkfall asked, but as an Evertonian since the age of around five (my mate Ian, whose dad was a season ticket holder introduced me to the pleasure and pain of supporting The Toffees, there being little parental influence other than, as Scottish Catholics, having a loose affinity for Celtic) I was so disgusted with the appointment of Rafa Benitez as manager I decided to go elsewhere.

    I couldn’t possibly contemplate switching football teams, but I could switch code. So I started supporting Saracens, my local rugby union team.

    There has been much joy in following a successful team, albeit the last couple of seasons haven’t been what I would hope.

    Nonetheless seeing the likes of Ben Earl, Maro Itoje, the Vunipola brothers, Jamie George, Owen Farrell, Brad Barritt and others at the top of their game has been a pleasure.

    Some of those names have retired, moved on or are past their peak, but there is a new generation coming through: the likes of Charlie Bracken, Olly Hartley and of course our incandescently rising superstar Noah Caluori all giving immense hope for the future.

    And we have Tomos Williams joining for next season, though I am extremely sad to see Theo MacFarland is moving to France in the summer.

    Everton remain in the blood, but are no longer the sole target for my affections.

    I do know people who have switched clubs – from Fulham to Arsenal; from Leeds to Tottenham and from Tottenham to Fulham (!) among the switcheroos.

  25. I have, a few times. Not a problem. If I fell in love with a team for the way they played the game, and five years later none of those guys are in the club anymore and there’s a new manager with very different ideas of what kind of football the club should play, and I dislike the new style of playing, why should I keep supporting them?

    And in this stage of my life I’ve long supported my three (sometimes four) local teams, who are deadly rivals, of course. I don’t care, if they play against a team from the rest of the country I want them to win, in a derby I have a loose ranking that I mostly stick to, but if my preferred team play like rubbish on the day and the other team play great, I’ll switch my sympathies for the day.
    Because for me the game has always been the star, not the team. I’ll always cheer for the team with the best game – unless they aren’t from Stockholm and is playing against one of the Stockholm clubs, of course… (although it has happened, mid-game, if my team was unbelievably useless, that I’ve cheered for the “enemy” to win that game, as a punishment and hopefully a lesson for my team to do better next time!)

  26. On another matter, any irrational dislike of football clubs that have never done you or your own club any harm?
    Really dislike Birmingham, can’t stand Liverpool and as for Crystal Palace, they should start each season with a 20 point deduction .
    No reasons whatsoever for this unless there’s something buried deep within my football-mad childhood memories….

  27. Irrational dislike , yes. Not outright hatred though which is daft.

    I’m not too keen on Birmingham too, couldn’t tell you why. And Chelsea.

    Obviously Norwich too but that’s not irrational!

    • Say it quietly, but I don’t mind Ipswich especially in the Sheepshank/Robson days – that’s how a club should run. Mind you, your chairman leading the obscene chant about the Sainted Delia really was beyond the pale!

  28. Yes, I have decided to become an Aston Villa fan ….

    (Actually I think they are the closest Premier League team to my hometown with Swansea no longer up there)

  29. There’s no ‘rule’ with this, but, as a guiding principle, I don’t think you can scale up. If you support Watford, for example, you can’t change to support Chelsea when they start doing well. It’s called ‘doing a Lovejoy’, in reference to the berkish former Soccer AM host, who did exactly that.

    I grew up a mad fan of a Premier League team; I’m now a regular at a League 1 struggler. I don’t have specific teams in any other countries, with the exception of Scotland, where the mighty Raith Rovers have my heart.

    • I think this is a very good point and I agree, you can’t scale up. But I think we can agree if you scale down and then the other team ends up being better than your old team that’s ok. I bet when Chiz swapped Leeds for Brighton he never thought the Seagulls would end up one day being the better team. I lived in Brighton in the 90s when they played in the old 3rd division with those silly stripey shorts. It’s amazing to think where they are now.

  31. Born in Wolverhampton and lived a few miles away until I left for College. Never to return. Still a Wolf, as was practically everybody else I grew up with, and as a supporter have endured the plummet down the divisions in the 80’s and the relative success of our recent Premier League days.
    Even the relegation this season (nailed on since early Autumn) hasn’t really upset me too much as I know I’ll still follow them regardless of which division we play in. At least next season we won’t have to endure VAR and might win a few games.
    Living in London and Belfast I have been to see games as a neutral in both cities, but the joy of Football has definitely dwindled as far as I’m concerned.

  32. I plead guilty. Up to eight years-old I followed my Dad in supporting Spurs then, largely because I had a few mates who supported Chelsea I switched to them. Yes, I was a treacherous child. Lost interest in my mid teens largely because the latter lot went downhill and, while still watching plenty of football, didn’t feel a strong allegiance to anyone.

    It changed as I hit twenty, going along to a couple of Spurs games with my Dad and feeling the emotional bond of supporting the same team, and getting excited over the fact they were on the rise under Keith Birkenshaw (that was the Hoddle, Ardiles glory days).

    I’ve stuck with Spurs since then ….. and at the moment that is excrutiatingly painful.

  33. Modern (major) football is a bit crap really isn’t it? VAR, the complete lack of loyalty amongst players, (“relegation clauses” etc… yes I know they can benefit clubs too but it’s the players that got them there)the near impossibility of being able to go to a game on a whim and just turn ticketless, punditry, Sky and TV dictating kick off times, the tediousness of post game interviews and their bland answers, the dullness of premier league games…it’s all why I stick to non-league.

  34. Have to agree modern football at the top level has become an increasingly depressing experience. In addition to above list from Nick L….
    The Southampton punishment shows a laudable attempt to stamp out cheating, but would be more meaningful if other forms of cheating were dealt with so forcibly. From the financial shenanigans that have allowed clubs like Chelsea and Villa to sell their Women’s teams to themselves, not to mention hotels and training grounds, to ever more sophisticated methods of “game management” from the tactical goalie’s injury to the fake head injury to the diving having “initiated contact”. All this before we even mention the joy destroying effect of VAR.
    Maybe I wouldn’t feel so jaundiced about the modern game if Wolves had won more than 3 League games this season, but I’m actually quite looking forward to not being in the top flight next season.

  35. I’m already worried that we wont beat Derby’s “record” of 17 points.

    Of course I’m pleased we got promoted (and did the double over the yellow peril of Sparrow Road…soz Lodes!) but it’s going to be so hard next season. I do enjoy the Championship but I guess that’s only fun if you’re doing well in it.

  36. Born in the early 50’s about 30k south of Glasgow and 6k from Motherwell, I would have been expected to be a supporter of Celtic. However, in the early 60’s, aged 8/9, I had a notion of being a speedy wee right winger. At that time, the main man in that position was Willie Henderson who played for Rangers. So, inspired by him, I decided I was a supporter of Rangers. This confused both my Celtic supporting mates and others I knew who supported Rangers. About a year later, another speedy wee right winger appeared on the scene. His name was Jimmy Johnstone and he played for Celtic. So, I changed my allegiance to Celtic. By 1967, I was in Celtic park when the Lisbon Lions returned with the European cup. For the next couple of years, I attended many Celtic games the most memorable being the 1970 Celtic V Leeds ‘Battle of Britain’ European Cup semi-final attended by 136,000 fans and won 2-1 by Celtic. A couple of years later, I stopped attending games and it was not until about 20 years ago that I eventually started attending the games of my ‘local’ team, Motherwell even though I now live in Dumfries which is about 100k south. Mon the ‘Well!

  37. We scraped into the Premiership a couple of seasons ago via the playoffs but tried to stick with the same squad and Russell Martin tried to stick with same tactics from the Championship.

    We may have got a windfall from the TV money but it was a pretty depressing season. Didn’t look like we’d beat the Derby record for least points until fairly late on.

  39. I couldn’t ever conceive of supporting any other team. And despite suffering the (unique in English football) experience of having my team up and move sticks permanently to another place almost 80 miles away, change its name, change its colours, and stick two fingers up to its small but loyal fan base whilst still trying to pass itself off as ‘the same club’, I still do.
    Wimbledon FC fan from 1972 till 2001 then AFC Wimbledon fan since 2002. We may not be the ‘legal’ continuation in the eyes of the FA but frankly, screw that. We are the heart and the soul of the original club and that’s all that matters.

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