Football fans get the most out of the game by sticking with the same team...
I've never been a fan of the notion that you have to support your so-called 'home club'. It's absurd to set such a limitation. People become smitten with lots of different clubs for different reasons, and sometimes supporting the 'home club' just isn't practical, or fun. Anyone can support whoever they like. It's a free country after all.
And people are more than welcome to chop and change as they see fit. Arsenal not looking like winning anything this year? Change your allegiance to Man United. Supporting Everton not working out for you? Liverpool could be the answer. Again, it's a free country. You can profess to be a fan of any club in the world.
But people who do swap clubs like trading cards ought to realise that there's no way they'll enjoy the ups and downs of supporting a football team more than someone who sticks with a club for the whole of their life, no matter how many trophies they see their adopted side(s) win. I can understand that certain people aren't into football enough to want to make the effort, but for those of us who can, we must stay loyal, and here's why.
Football is all about peaks and troughs. One year you could be sailing to an FA Cup win, the next you could be going through financial choppy waters that decimate the club entirely. No-one denies that there can be some pretty tough moments for fans who devote themselves to one side, but it's these desperate times that lead to the most satisfying of victories.
Any fan can say "I support Man United now", watch them win a couple of trophies and claim to have enjoyed themselves over it. But it's nonsense. Deep down they'll feel totally vapid about the success and try to feign the noises they think football fans are supposed to make when they're elated. The reason for this is they've never understood anything but success at this point, and this makes an achievement such as league title a pretty empty victory for the 'tag-along' fans.
Compare that with loyalty. If a man turns up at his chosen team's ground for ten years, has to watch horrible football and mighty struggles on and off the field, and then something happens and the team wins a division or a trophy, the success will mean a million times more to him then the glory hunter. It's not just about the winning, it's about what you go through beforehand that makes it so much more meaningful.
I'm not trying to differentiate between the traditionally successful clubs and the so-called 'little' clubs, because both have very loyal fans, each worthy of any success that comes their way. It is admittedly different for Man United fans who have grown up knowing nothing but the Ferguson helm, yet there will be a time when the team struggles, and their potential to stick through it will be tested. This is when the real fans will show themselves, and once the cycle is complete and the club becomes triumphant, they will be the most rewarded.
Somebody raised an interesting point on a messageboard the other day. They said that during the time somebody supports a club, the players will change, the manager will change, the owners will change, the stadium might even change... what is it that we are supporting?
The answer to this is that as fans, we are a community intrinsically linked with the club and everything it symbolises. Every memory of those great players, great moments and great games is part of the community, and though the club can become an entirely different creature, it will always represent that great wealth of nostalgia, and the droves of fans that understand its culture.
It's not immediately clear why we enjoy supporting a club so much with such a vigorous loyalty, but when you stare the possibility of losing the very team you grew up with in the face, and then have that team achieve a victory beyond your wildest dreams that takes them to a historic high, you understand then. When Portsmouth beat Tottenham in the FA Cup Semi-Final last year, I understood then what it meant. You can lose every week, but that one victory, that rights an injustice or garners an irresistibly satisfying revenge, makes every painful moment worth it.
