The experience and reasoning behind FC is different for everyone these days and the Glazer takeover was just the catalyst for this. Back in 2005 that was certainly the reason I became a founding member, it was purely a thing of principle - I would not be used to pay off the debt put in place by parasite businessmen with no interest in anything other than making a profit for themselves. But all that has been gone over many times elsewhere. I didn't know what I'd do if the Glazers jumped ship. Would I go back to Old Trafford?
But these days for me (and I in no way speak for the few thousand that go to watch FC), it's about being able to be a part of something that top flight football can't offer – an affordable match day, a true connection as a supporter of a club rather than being a customer and (maybe the contentious thing that I get out of it) a more dignified sport on the pitch. What I mean by this is there is less diving and cheating, the players are clearly more grounded individuals. Yeah, of course the standard is way below the skill levels of the Premier League, but the passion is there in spades.
I think the big turning point for me was the 2010 World Cup when you had Rooney slagging off the people who had paid thousands of pounds to follow England to South Africa and quite rightly felt they were in a position to let the team know what they thought of their performance. This same player has been rewarded with massive pay rises for quite cnutish behaviour in games of financial chicken with Man United TWICE in the past few years. You see the money doing filthy things at the top level and the people who run the game are even more corrupt. It's a grimey sport that for me leaves a bad taste in the mouth and of course that is even more relevant at the moment with that arsehole Suarez doing his best to taint the best World Cup in over a decade.
I've become completely disenfranchised by the game at the top (I've even stopped my Sky Sports subscription) and all the time I've been a part of a club where I'm helping to build a stadium, who is effecting real change in it's immediate community. To me it's the difference between growing your own potatoes and buying shrink wrapped genetically enhanced jacket spuds from the harshly lit, musac piping super markets. My potatoes might be smaller and come in weird shapes, but they taste better and they are good for the soul. That's right, I'm using metaphorical potatoes to explain what FC means to me on a Friday night. ROCK AND feckING ROLL.
People have said to me that they can't understand it... 'you can't leave your football club' they say. Well I say I didn't leave MY football club. MY club was the one I followed from before Fergie came to United and right through the glorious 90's into the '00s. The product and money making machine that I no longer go and see, no longer give my money is foreign to me.
As I say, other FC fans might say that's all a load of bollocks. But that's the joy of FC, there's no marketing machine to tell me I'm wrong.
thanks for the reply mate, only just been able to get on so havent been able to read it til now. Yeah i expected a reply like that, I suppose after following them for almost 10 years that they will become your club rather than a symbol of protest. I agree on your Rooney point and it does make you feel less in love with the game when someone who was always show as a player who plays how he would in the park, would play for free, just for the love of football and all this other shit that the media have always said about, turns around and starts demanding money from the club
like the part about the potatoes
haha I get what you mean, I might buy a few shirts and attend a few games but I know that whether Im a united fan or not my £500 or so that i've spent on the club in my lifetime means absolutely nothing, whereas knowing you as a person and fan have made a difference, that your valued where as fans at Clubs like United and other top clubs are just used as a customer and if your not there someone will take your place. I do love the club but thats the part of football I think we all hate.
Thing is with me being younger I dont have that pre fergie or 90s knowledge to fall back on, I have brief memories of the 90s but most of my footballing memories come from 2003 onwards, so the years of big money, sponsorship , the Glazers are all I know. So although I don't like them as owners because of the debt issue I can't say the club is now hugely different from the club I originally loved. Plus the club for me isnt any person,owner manager or even any fan, its a collecting of these things, that pass on through generation to generation, its why Old Traffords name shouldn't be changed because its the one constant, the one thing that could say it is always part of the club. Renaming it or the clubs name or changing coulors are the only ways I would say the club has changed enough.
I do follow FC from afar though, check up results now and again and hope you all do well, i've love you to get into the Football League, I would like attend a game sometime. I've considered going when you play Nantwich as they're local to me but have never got round to it.
