Thursday 28 August 2008

How To Be A Postmodern Football Fan #

Already bored of the fake theatre of the new season in the English Premiership?
Do you have any concern where on earth Dimitar Berbatov might end up?
Is it really true that Liverpool are focusing on the Premiership rather than the Champions League?
And, if it is true (we think it is), should it really have any consequence on our lives?
And, what about Ronaldo?
It doesn't matter, see...
...when you think about it.

Gary Imlach is right.
It is not possible to passionately support a PLC.
And, in that case, it is totally im-fucking-possible to support the business entity of an oligarch or a human rights abuser.

Chelsea aren't Chelsea anymore.
Manchester City aren't Citeh anymore.
And, as for Portsmouth...

The Manchester United fans got it right with the creation of FC United Of Manchester.
If the rules allow for the leveraged buyout of your club by a bunch of neo-capitalist philistines from Texas or wherever, then your leisure time is best spent elsewhere.
Like Buxton, where FCUoM won a thrilling and Real football match 1-0 at the weekend.

Anyone fancy helping set up a FC Celtic Of Glasgow?
It is not possible to passionately support chairman John Reid.
Or owner Dermot Desmond...

Or better still.
With the end of football-as-we-knew-it in Britain, why not simply pick a team off the global conveyor belt?
And rather than choosing teams for spurious reasons like "the plane stopped off at their airport for refuelling" or "their away kit looks a bit like the Arsenal shirt", lets choose a proper reason for supporting a football team.
Politics.

Below we explore the range of options for the discerning post-Marxist, postmodernist, class conscious football fan.
If you are of a more fascistic persuasion, you will probably find that the neighbours of the sides listed below will offer you your required daily dose of neo-nuttiness.

We have kept away from the major rivalries in British and Six Counties football - Celtic/Rangers, Liverpool/Everton, Villa/Birmingham, Arsenal/Spurs, Linfield/Cliftonville, United/City - as such club animosities have been historically based on religion primarily, although, in a non-meritocratic tiered society like Britain, religion usually defines class.

* Boca Juniors (Argentina) - If you are after a big team to replace ManLiverArseSki, Boca is the only option. Maradona would be reason enough, and then Carlos Tevez came along.
Living in La Boca, next to the Bombonera stadium, Tevez refused to move once he became a favourite Boca player. He simply had a tunnel built from his run-down home to the stadium so that he could avoid all the adulation on match-day.
Boca have a totally Real history including the tango and class warfare. The masses who support Boca have always struggled to cope with economic hardship and solace has been found in the solidarity that is Boca Juniors.
La Bombonera is the best venue to watch football and being a Boca fan is even more long-lasting than the Citeh-til-I-die type of longevity in that there is a line of coffins available for dead Boca fans (or living River Plate one's, one assumes), as well as an official Boca cemetary (once again, not to be confused with the numerous unofficial examples that litter Buenos Aires).
Proper footballers, proper fans, proper history.

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