sunderland in the EFL

[TheBrownBottle]

Just now, pinkeye said:

 

Holy shit, can only be true in this case!

 

He swears down that it is true.  He's shown me charts showing how gravy sales dip east of Bensham.  I always trust men who have shit taches, a mullet and a fading Indian ink 'SAFC' tatt on their knuckles

[madras]

31 minutes ago, pinkeye said:

I cannot think of a single reason why it matters where you live when related to which football team you support.

There are many reasons why someone from outside of the area might choose to support Newcastle or Sunderland...  is it like you must be born within the sound of Bow Bells to be a proper Cockney? So therefore you must be born in the centre circle at ST James' to qualify to be a Newcastle supporter?

 

It's pretty basic, the majority of people support where they're from, they don't HAVE to but the majority do, even if it's just the nearest major club but then it comes as little surprise that when people don't do that they don't have a random approach as to who to support, they go for the successful ones.

 

Edit FWIW I know some great people who support "other clubs" than where they're from for some great reasons, some have really interesting g personal reasons for doing it and no issue with that. However I grew up with lots of Liverpool and Leeds (early mid 70s) fans who's support was purely "I want the success and bragging that goes with that" 

 

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by madras

[OpenC]

7 minutes ago, madras said:

It's pretty basic, the majority of people support where they're from, they don't HAVE to but the majority do, even if it's just the nearest major club but then it comes as little surprise that when people don't do that they don't have a random approach as to who to support, they go for the successful ones.

 

 

This is exactly it, really.  Ultimately you get the number of fans that you deserve.  The randoms and hangers on aren't doing it with a gun to their head

[TheBrownBottle]

10 minutes ago, madras said:

FWIW I know some great people who support "other clubs" than where they're from for some great reasons, some have really interesting g personal reasons for doing it and no issue with that. However I grew up with lots of Liverpool and Leeds (early mid 70s) fans who's support was purely "I want the success and bragging that goes with that" 

 

 

 

Yep, 'support as penis extension' has a long history.  It just has an international flavour these days.  Let's face it, Dublin's Torquay United fanbase, Mumbai's Rushden and Diamonds ultras and Singapore's hardcore Port Vale support could fit into a single toilet cubicle

[madras]

1 minute ago, OpenC said:

 

This is exactly it, really.  Ultimately you get the number of fans that you deserve.  The randoms and hangers on aren't doing it with a gun to their head

Hmm not so sure on "deserve". Did we deserve more fans than Brentford or Bournemouth 2yrs ago ? But I think I see what you're getting st.

 

[madras]

1 minute ago, TheBrownBottle said:

Yep, 'support as penis extension' has a long history.  It just has an international flavour these days.  Let's face it, Dublin's Torquay United fanbase, Mumbai's Rushden and Diamonds ultras and Singapore's hardcore Port Vale support could fit into a single toilet cubicle

I've always thought it when people talk of teams they support in other countries, It's nearly always Real Madrid/Barcelona, rarely Tenerife or Mallorca which are probably places they have more of a connection to.

[madras]

13 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

A Liverpool-supporting Geordie mate of mine once got really upset at the notion that I thought that Manny Pacquiao would beat Ricky Hatton.  Not that I wanted Pacquiao to win; just that I thought he would - and as an Englishman I should want English people to win.  When a couple of us pointed out the irony of a Liverpool-supporting Geordie telling someone they should back the sportsman from the same place as them, he took a right huff.

 

I do find it odd that national teams don't attract quite the same type of international support - if you're from China and support Man Utd at club level, why not support Brazil at international level?  There's no difference to me.

I've had very similar experiences.

[HawK]

I was born in Grays, Thurrock and grew up near Chelmsford in Essex. I've since lived all over the country and spent a few years in Dublin, living near Leeds now for the past 10 years. None of my family were into football, but my friends were. With no 'big' local clubs around, the closest being Southend United, who no-one supported because it was a 'rival town', most kids supported a mix of teams. A few supported West Ham, some Spurs, an Arsenal and a Liverpool fan, loads of Man Utd fans. No-one supported a club that wasn't in the top couple of divisions.

 

I started supporting Newcastle United when I was 8 years old when I got my first sticker album around 92, 93. I read the info pages on that sticker album of all the clubs and decided I wanted to pick one. I liked being the antagonist in my circle of friends, and realised no-one supported Newcastle United. I also liked the picture of the tower on the badge and the black and white stripes. From that day on I became a die-hard Newcastle United fan. I was on Ceefax every day looking at the table, the news and the top scorers. A presiding memory of my childhoost is going on to the Ceefax page 324 and seeing us 3rd in the table. 323 showed Andy Cole at the top of the top scorers charts.

 

It's hard to describe what it's like being a football fan from that part of the country. You don't get absorbed into a local club, and with no football-following family members you just sort of pick one. You don't get the affinity for the city that comes with supporting a club that you were born and raised in the proximity of. I may fit the definition of a 'plastic mag' or whatever the makems call supporters like me, but I've supported how I could in my own way - as a kid with having Newcastle Utd wallpaper, a desk lamp and duvet set. Getting my parents to buy me a new top every year. I'd sit my 10 year old arse on my sofa to watch us play on Sky, decked out in my full kit, scarf, shin pads and boots as well (had to put newspaper down on the carpet or my mum would go nuts).

 

I think proximity to a club makes it almost obligatory to support them. I don't see why the viewpoint that you're only a 'proper supporter' if you're from the area holds so much weight. You're born into it, it requires not much effort to participate. Your family has a high chance of introducing it to you from a young age. The door's been opened and you can choose to go that way or not be interested. Supporters that have to choose a club have it much harder from fans of other clubs. The banter is fun, but it feels like you have to try harder than most to prove your 'worthiness' of supporting such a club and not being seen to be a 'glory-hunter'.

 

Nowadays more than ever, clubs are global. Fans and supporters can be from all over the world. Fans from other countries are lauded on most forums for having 'picked their team' to support. Yet fans from other parts of the country are still often derrided.

 

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by HawK

[OpenC]

40 minutes ago, madras said:

Hmm not so sure on "deserve". Did we deserve more fans than Brentford or Bournemouth 2yrs ago ? But I think I see what you're getting st.

 

I've always just thought that you get the local fans you deserve for being a decent team, you get the out of area fans, hangers on and glory hunters you deserve for whatever reason - marketing, footballing success, family history, whatever.  Like I say, nobody is doing it with a gun to their head so you have to work on the basis that the club deserves the support it gets.  The hundreds of billions of fake Manchester United fans all around the world really want to associate themselves with supporting Manchester United, or they just wouldn't do it.  If Tromso Rovers were as well marketed, same would probably apply to them.

 

The reason Sunderland aren't getting many glory hunters and hangers on is that they've been shite for decades.  The reason we don't have many is that we also have been shite for decades

 

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by OpenC

[TheBrownBottle]

10 minutes ago, HawK said:

I was born in Grays, Thurrock and grew up near Chelmsford in Essex. I've since lived all over the country and spent a few years in Dublin, living near Leeds now for the past 10 years. None of my family were into football, but my friends were. With no 'big' local clubs around, the closest being Southend United, who no-one supported because it was a 'rival town', most kids supported a mix of teams. A few supported West Ham, some Spurs, an Arsenal and a Liverpool fan, loads of Man Utd fans. No-one supported a club that wasn't in the top couple of divisions.

 

I started supporting Newcastle United when I was 8 years old when I got my first sticker album around 92, 93. I read the info pages on that sticker album of all the clubs and decided I wanted to pick one. I liked being the antagonist in my circle of friends, and realised no-one supported Newcastle United. I also liked the picture of the tower on the badge and the black and white stripes. From that day on I became a die-hard Newcastle United fan. I was on Ceefax every day looking at the table, the news and the top scorers. A presiding memory of my childhoost is going on to the Ceefax page 324 and seeing us 3rd in the table. 323 showed Andy Cole at the top of the top scorers charts.

 

It's hard to describe what it's like being a football fan from that part of the country. You don't get absorbed into a local club, and with no football-following family members you just sort of pick one. You don't get the affinity for the city that comes with supporting a club that you were born and raised in the proximity of. I may fit the definition of a 'plastic mag' or whatever the makems call supporters like me, but I've supported how I could in my own way - as a kid with having Newcastle Utd wallpaper, a desk lamp and duvet set. Getting my parents to buy me a new top every year. I'd sit my 10 year old arse on my sofa to watch us play on Sky, decked out in my full kit, scarf, shin pads and boots as well (had to put newspaper down on the carpet or my mum would go nuts).

 

I think proximity to a club makes it almost obligatory to support them. I don't see why the viewpoint that you're only a 'proper supporter' if you're from the area holds so much weight. You're born into it, it requires not much effort to participate. Your family has a high chance of introducing it to you from a young age. The door's been opened and you can choose to go that way or not be interested. Supporters that have to choose a club have it much harder from fans of other clubs. The banter is fun, but it feels like you have to try harder than most to prove your 'worthiness' of supporting such a club and not being seen to be a 'glory-hunter'.

 

Nowadays more than ever, clubs are global. Fans and supporters can be from all over the world. Fans from other countries are lauded on most forums for having 'picked their team' to support. Yet fans from other parts of the country are still often derrided.

 

 

 

I do sympathise, though ultimately a lot of it has to do with football being tribal (this is a mackem pisstake thread, after all), and the notion that this localism / tribalism is why the football pyramid exists at all.  Without people supporting their local side, English football ceases to exist in its current form, and would start to look more like a franchise-type league.  The football club is seen as an expression of a city / region's identity, which is why so many will get defensive.

 

I genuinely don't think any of this really matters, ultimately who a person supports shouldn't really be of any consequence to anyone but themselves.  If it means something to you, that should be enough - it isn't for anyone else to decide whether or not you're 'worthy'.

[Wandy]

1 hour ago, TheBrownBottle said:

It was more that the guy was ranting about a lad on our coach for an away game who was from Hexham, and he was banging on about how he wasn't from Newcastle and therefore was a glory-seeker.  I otherwise wouldn't have worried at all about the distinction

 

edit: Wallsend isn't a suburb of Newcastle, mind.  It is a town separate to Newcastle, and always has been.  Parliamentary constituencies aren't how a city's limits are marked

 

double edit: Gateshead isn't either - you might class them as commuter towns, but they are most definitely not suburbs of Newcastle

 

 

 

 

They may be separate towns, but basically Gateshead, North & South Tyneside and the parts of Northumberland just north of Newcastle, ie Blyth, Morpeth etc are all part of an unofficial "Greater Newcastle". Basically, any area which has an NE postcode is greater Newcastle and those are the areas that NUFC represents. You can also add significant parts of West Durham to that too.

[TheBrownBottle]

1 minute ago, Wandy said:

 

They may be separate towns, but basically Gateshead, North & South Tyneside and the parts of Northumberland just north of Newcastle, ie Blyth, Morpeth etc are all part of an unofficial "Greater Newcastle". Basically, any area which has an NE postcode is greater Newcastle and those are the areas that NUFC represents. You can also add significant parts of West Durham to that too.

Agreed mate - I'm not arguing that this isn't the case.  

 

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by TheBrownBottle

[HawK]

My post almost feels like a 'coming out' post now

[TheBrownBottle]

Just now, HawK said:

My post almost feels like a 'coming out' post now

'I first realised I was a Newcastle supporter when I was ten ...'

[Sima]

 

Good point.  Start the trophy count from then as well as there were only about 15 teams in the league. 

[madras]

2 minutes ago, Wandy said:

 

They may be separate towns, but basically Gateshead, North & South Tyneside and the parts of Northumberland just north of Newcastle, ie Blyth, Morpeth etc are all part of an unofficial "Greater Newcastle". Basically, any area which has an NE postcode is greater Newcastle and those are the areas that NUFC represents. You can also add significant parts of West Durham to that too.

And it gets murkier with the spread of new estates, work from home and tge relative ease of commuting to years ago. I've got mates who support Sunderland who work in Newcastle so they've moved to the West End and Tyne Valley. I've got a mate who moved to some little Village in Durham from Cramlington because he works at Nissan. It's all mixing a lot more than it was.

[madras]

28 minutes ago, HawK said:

My post almost feels like a 'coming out' post now

My favourite story was when we were going to Watford some years back (John Anderson scored)There's  a group of 7 or 8 lads with decidedly southern accents but in with the Newcastle fans in the pub. Turns out they went to school in a Grays type area, a basically footballing wasteland with an exiled Geordie who one day aged 14 or so dragged them to see Newcastle at Luton or Reading or somewhere like that and they loved the experience and got hooked.

 

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by madras

[Tsunami]

It must take some effort to support an unsuccessful club you have no connection to, live miles from and do so, with a passion, over a lifetime. I’m not sure I could do it. 
 

I see a few ST holders who’ve been going for years and years who are from down South. One of them has now moved up here as her children are now grown up and she felt able to move. It’s mad.

 

Doesn’t matter where a true supporter comes from or whether they can attend any match. It’s either in your heart or it isn’t. It either affects your daily mood or it doesn’t. Be it Newcastle, Torquay, Man U, Sunderland or whoever, if you’ve found a team that means that much to you then, you’re a proper supporter. I’ll not knock casual or glory hunters simply because win, lose or draw, deep down, they’re not affected by what happens. They will never know the absolute joy something like (for example) David Kelly’s goal against Pompey caused. 

[Hanshithispantz]

In fairness to the glory suporters, it’s literally a decision the vast majority make when they’re like 8 or something, it’s not like they’re 26 and going “I’m going to support Man City now”.

 

It’s the unfortunate, often socially debilitating choice they made as a thick, spoiled bairn.

 

People like Hawk are lucky, I’d not bat an eyelid talking to an Everton fan from Brighton but if they turned round and told me they supported Liverpool I’d instantly assume they were a total whopper. It’s completely daft on my part but I suppose there has to be some handicap to supporting a successful club 

[TheBrownBottle]

11 minutes ago, Sima said:

 

Good point.  Start the trophy count from then as well as there were only about 15 teams in the league. 

Gan on then, I'll bite.  Of the 96 seasons post-WWI, sunderland has had the higher attendances ... 19 times.  For further context, sunderland were in a division above NUFC on 8 of those occasions.  Equally hilariously, in 7 of the 15 seasons where the mackems were a division above NUFC, NUFC still had the higher attendances.

[madras]

I'll often ask why people from outside the area support us, it's not in a checking if they're legit way and the fact we've hardly been successful gets rid of the "glory hunter" idea, but some of the stories are great, family histories, pure flukes and are more interesting than "it's my hometown club and the family have for years".

[madras]

4 minutes ago, Hanshithispantz said:

In fairness to the glory suporters, it’s literally a decision the vast majority make when they’re like 8 or something, it’s not like they’re 26 and going “I’m going to support Man City now”.

 

It’s the unfortunate, often socially debilitating choice they made as a thick, spoiled bairn.

 

People like Hawk are lucky, I’d not bat an eyelid talking to an Everton fan from Brighton but if they turned round and told me they supported Liverpool I’d instantly assume they were a total whopper. It’s completely daft on my part but I suppose there has to be some handicap to supporting a successful club 

A lot of the glory hunter(Liverpool, Leeds, Forest) supporters from school ended up following us when they got to the age to go to games with their mates. When it became more than a match, it was a day out with mates, especially when you start doing aways.

 

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by madras

[TheGuv]

49 minutes ago, HawK said:

I was born in Grays, Thurrock and grew up near Chelmsford in Essex. I've since lived all over the country and spent a few years in Dublin, living near Leeds now for the past 10 years. None of my family were into football, but my friends were. With no 'big' local clubs around, the closest being Southend United, who no-one supported because it was a 'rival town', most kids supported a mix of teams. A few supported West Ham, some Spurs, an Arsenal and a Liverpool fan, loads of Man Utd fans. No-one supported a club that wasn't in the top couple of divisions.

 

I started supporting Newcastle United when I was 8 years old when I got my first sticker album around 92, 93. I read the info pages on that sticker album of all the clubs and decided I wanted to pick one. I liked being the antagonist in my circle of friends, and realised no-one supported Newcastle United. I also liked the picture of the tower on the badge and the black and white stripes. From that day on I became a die-hard Newcastle United fan. I was on Ceefax every day looking at the table, the news and the top scorers. A presiding memory of my childhoost is going on to the Ceefax page 324 and seeing us 3rd in the table. 323 showed Andy Cole at the top of the top scorers charts.

 

It's hard to describe what it's like being a football fan from that part of the country. You don't get absorbed into a local club, and with no football-following family members you just sort of pick one. You don't get the affinity for the city that comes with supporting a club that you were born and raised in the proximity of. I may fit the definition of a 'plastic mag' or whatever the makems call supporters like me, but I've supported how I could in my own way - as a kid with having Newcastle Utd wallpaper, a desk lamp and duvet set. Getting my parents to buy me a new top every year. I'd sit my 10 year old arse on my sofa to watch us play on Sky, decked out in my full kit, scarf, shin pads and boots as well (had to put newspaper down on the carpet or my mum would go nuts).

 

I think proximity to a club makes it almost obligatory to support them. I don't see why the viewpoint that you're only a 'proper supporter' if you're from the area holds so much weight. You're born into it, it requires not much effort to participate. Your family has a high chance of introducing it to you from a young age. The door's been opened and you can choose to go that way or not be interested. Supporters that have to choose a club have it much harder from fans of other clubs. The banter is fun, but it feels like you have to try harder than most to prove your 'worthiness' of supporting such a club and not being seen to be a 'glory-hunter'.

 

Nowadays more than ever, clubs are global. Fans and supporters can be from all over the world. Fans from other countries are lauded on most forums for having 'picked their team' to support. Yet fans from other parts of the country are still often derrided.

 

 

 

 

Nice post. 

 

Ahhh ceefax page 324. I'm 10 years younger than you, but I used to love ceefax in the SBR era. I remember watching ceefax when we beat Leeds away 4-3 in December 2001 and going absolutely nuts.

[Choppy Chop Chop]

13 hours ago, Wolfcastle said:

Grew up in Washington. Sunderland is a 12minute drive away and have never once gone or been dragged there shopping and had one night out (work). Travel has nothing to do with either of those. Its reasonable to conclude similar applies to football.

 

Dad was from Springwell Village, brought up in Wrekenton could have swung the wrong way. Married a Newcastle lass 

[Choppy Chop Chop]

1 hour ago, Wandy said:

 

They may be separate towns, but basically Gateshead, North & South Tyneside and the parts of Northumberland just north of Newcastle, ie Blyth, Morpeth etc are all part of an unofficial "Greater Newcastle". Basically, any area which has an NE postcode is greater Newcastle and those are the areas that NUFC represents. You can also add significant parts of West Durham to that too.

If I were from "Greater Newcastle" I'd be insulted by your post. You're giving the mackums ammunition in the "Geordie Nation" piss take