I suppose we know enough about the psychology of identity to
understand where this team thing comes from, and how in certain cases
it balloons out into extremes.

I'm a football fan. I follow Plymouth Argyle from the stands and Spurs
from the TV screen. I follow Argyle because I live here in Plymouth
(though I wasn't born and brought up here) and I follow Spurs because
I was a student in north London while my girlfriend (later my wife)
was working as a school teacher in Tottenham, and our string of
bedsits and flats was always in the Edmonton, Wood Green, Hornsey,
Crouch End areas. This was in opposition to my Irish uncle and cousins
in London who were always Arsenal fans, and my dad too. My mum
supported Man U - Georgie Best and all that. The thing is once you do
attach yourself, it sticks, and you stick to it, through thick and
thin. It is completely irrational, but very real. If this fan thing
didn't exist then the game would mean next to nothing, then the game
would not exist. Watching a game in neutral has its own appeal, but it
is nothing compared to the living you experience as a fan - winning or
losing.

I know there are plenty of people who don't get it, and/or hate it. I
don't care, that doesn't bother me one bit. I only get bothered when
that awful snobbery comes into it, when people who in their own walk
of life have their own equally irrational pastimes look down on us as
proles. This doesn't happen in Europe, it's an English thing.

A similar thing happens with poetry. I perfectly understand why some
people don't get it and/or hate it, that doesn't bother me one bit. I
only get bothered when that awful inverted snobbery comes into it,
when people who in their own walk of life have their own equally
irrational pastimes look upon what we do as being soft and silly....
And it goes on - life tends to fill itself up with things independent
of us - what was that John Lennon line? life is what happens while
you're busy making other plans - something like that.

Tim A.

On 21 Aug 2011, at 21:42, Jim Andrews wrote:
> It's very interesting to me to read the discussion you are having of
> the riots. It makes me think about the Vancouver riot in a different
> light.
>
> On the one hand, riots happen in Canada after big hockey games,
> often, like I suppose it happens concerning big football matches in
> various countries. Political? Well, yes and no. When it happened
> here, it certainly highlighted the politics of hockey. In the sense
> that here was a situation where there were a hundred thousand or
> more people downtown for a celebration--it's hard to drum up that
> sort of interest for anything, but there they were for the hockey
> game--hockey is hugely popular here. And the values of hockey, as
> promulgated by the NHL, are in many ways quite congruent with
> criminal violence. And there were many rioters wearing Vancouver
> Canucks jerseys. The many images of young people wearing Canucks
> jerseys participating in the riot, of little street-version
> Vancouver Canucks doing violence, were unescapably symbolic. And the
> Canucks's organizational response was very disappointing. "Those
> aren't Vancouver Canucks fans!" they proclaimed. Disavowing all
> responsibility for the riot. And saying nothing they do or stand for
> encourages this sort of thing.
>
> The Canucks' profit soared this season to $45 million dollars. They
> are the most popular entertainment in town. They are so much more
> popular than art that it's ridiculous. And, say what they will, they
> do stand for criminal violence. Thuggery, in a word.
>
> And that was very clear to more or less everybody, I imagine, after
> the riot. After the Canucks lost game 7 in a blowout and the riot
> ensued, the subject of the Canucks themselves simply disappeared.
> People talked about the riot, but the excitement about the Canucks
> themselves went to absolute zero.
>
> I played a lot of hockey as a kid and I've been a hockey fan all my
> life, but seeing the riot up close has changed my attitude. The
> Canucks do good things for kids' hospitals and similar causes, but
> the culture they're all about is revolting.
>
> ja