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Ben Knight
06-06-2009, 09:58 AM
Symapthetic thoughts on TFC fan anger.

http://onwardsoccer.com/2009/06/06/better-red-than-dead/ (http://bit.ly/AfULi)

Beach_Red
06-06-2009, 10:03 AM
Good read, thanks.

Yohan
06-06-2009, 10:22 AM
You want to know why I could never, ever be a Manchester United fan? It’s too easy. Certainly, it’s a dazzling prospect to give perhaps the greatest manager in history almost unlimited funds and an all-world player-development system. Eleven English titles in seventeen seasons will always remain one of soccer’s greatest success sprees.


But that ain’t life. All of sport is a metaphor for the ups and downs of existence. We bond emotionally with our teams because their seasons are symbolic of our years. When a team you love does something astonishing, the contact high is out of this world. When they have a week like Toronto FC just did, there’s a crash.


This endless world-wide horde of Manchester United bandwagon jumpers wouldn’t know a crash if you put the Hindenburg disaster in their morning corn flakes. All the reward with none of the risk. To me, that is not an authentic emotional journey.


Most TFC fans have long been fans of bigger, older clubs. They’ve certainly been through some emotional ringers. But the BMO Field experience is so much deeper, brighter and more vivid. Many supporters are feeling soccer pain today at a strange and distorting new level.
what he said

Hooligan69
06-06-2009, 10:25 AM
A very good read indeed.

Wagner
06-06-2009, 10:31 AM
Ben, great work as always.

OneLoveOneEric
06-06-2009, 10:34 AM
Ben, your comments about United expose you as someone who clearly started watching football in the last decade.

Ben Knight
06-06-2009, 10:37 AM
Eric, your comment about when I started watching football exposes you as someone who clearly started reading me today.

OneLoveOneEric
06-06-2009, 10:38 AM
Correct.
And the use of an air crash metaphor with United was brilliant too :(

Jack
06-06-2009, 10:40 AM
Thanks Ben.

Good perspective there.

ExiledRed
06-06-2009, 10:47 AM
Correct.
And the use of an air crash metaphor with United was brilliant too :(

I had to admit, that didn't seem to have too much thought behind it, did it?

Also, I can think of a painful 22 year stretch for Manchester Utd. fans. Those of Ben's age might be able to tell him about it.

OneLoveOneEric
06-06-2009, 10:48 AM
^^^Both are precisely what I was alluding too.

Bobo
06-06-2009, 10:54 AM
Better red than wed, a lot of fucking hot broads on matchday.


Really good article. Misery loves company.

Pachuco
06-06-2009, 11:06 AM
amm...yes the LA Galaxy are in town. But this is TFC we are talking about. One day we can beat Chivas and the next we are losing to Dallas FC. So, let's wait until after the game to see if we are possibly in 2nd place or 2nd last place.

rocker
06-06-2009, 11:13 AM
Also, I can think of a painful 22 year stretch for Manchester Utd. fans. Those of Ben's age might be able to tell him about it.

Most of my Man U bandwagon jumper friends were just little kids when that stretch ended. They don't know of it.. they just know first place.

Anyhow, TFC could learn from the older Man U fans then... a painful 22 years is much more than 2.5 seasons.

Cristiano14
06-06-2009, 11:25 AM
Ben, your a great writer, but adding an air disaster to your United argument was a very bad idea.

Cashcleaner
06-06-2009, 11:34 AM
You want to know why I could never, ever be a Manchester United fan? It’s too easy. Certainly, it’s a dazzling prospect to give perhaps the greatest manager in history almost unlimited funds and an all-world player-development system. Eleven English titles in seventeen seasons will always remain one of soccer’s greatest success sprees.

But that ain’t life. All of sport is a metaphor for the ups and downs of existence. We bond emotionally with our teams because their seasons are symbolic of our years. When a team you love does something astonishing, the contact high is out of this world. When they have a week like Toronto FC just did, there’s a crash.

This endless world-wide horde of Manchester United bandwagon jumpers wouldn’t know a crash if you put the Hindenburg disaster in their morning corn flakes. All the reward with none of the risk. To me, that is not an authentic emotional journey.

Oh wow. Would you look at that? Someone's vain attempt to deride MUFC fans in an argument about the nature of soccer support. That never happens. :rolleyes:

Commie Red
06-06-2009, 11:36 AM
Great read as always Ben. Although, as many of your readers are probably also Maple Leaf fans, I imagine they know all too well the “agony of defeat”. What I sense from TFC supporters right now is not necessarily the sting and humiliation of loosing but the fear that with MLSE in charge nothing much will be done to correct the situation. We know they don’t really care about football. As long as the stands are full, supporters can go stuff themselves (as Leaf fans have since 1967). Right now, MLSE doesn't think they need us at all -- because we need them so badly.

Ben Knight
06-06-2009, 12:14 PM
Excellent point about the air disaster. Sorry. no conscious intention to do that. I shall change it immediately.

The scorn is all aimed at the Man United late arrivers. I hope that's clear.

ilikemusic
06-06-2009, 12:29 PM
Excellent read.

Those same sentiments have long been my belief about all of sports.

Its the reason I have never decided to 'become' a fan of Man U, or Chelsea, or Milan, or anybody for that matter.

There are very few good reasons to support a specific team and 'because they play an entertaining brand of football/hockey/basketball' is never a good reason.

If were all just going to cheer for the best team then the entire point of competition is meaningless.



But all that said, im still livid about how this team is performing/operating.

CretanBull
06-06-2009, 12:40 PM
The scorn is all aimed at the Man United late arrivers. I hope that's clear.

Feel free to aim scorn at their older supporters too :D

OneLoveOneEric
06-06-2009, 12:52 PM
Excellent point about the air disaster. Sorry. no conscious intention to do that. I shall change it immediately.

The scorn is all aimed at the Man United late arrivers. I hope that's clear.

Thank you, Ben.

Darlofletch
06-06-2009, 01:46 PM
I had to admit, that didn't seem to have too much thought behind it, did it?

Also, I can think of a painful 22 year stretch for Manchester Utd. fans. Those of Ben's age might be able to tell him about it.

And the fact that you think that 22 year stretch, filled with cup runs, cup wins, high league finishes, famous european nights (and yes a relegation)etc etc, is a painful stretch perfectly proves Ben's point about united* fans being deluded.

*Well, all big clubs really if we're being fair. Try watching your team get relegated to the vauxhall conference, and pretty much go bankrupt every 5-10 years, and I'm sure there's clubs/fans a lot worse off than that as well.

Brooker
06-06-2009, 07:07 PM
before the game today i promised i would walk to the back of 112 and dive off if we lost.... much like tfc, i failed to finish.

ExiledRed
06-07-2009, 10:42 PM
And the fact that you think that 22 year stretch, filled with cup runs, cup wins, high league finishes, famous european nights (and yes a relegation)etc etc, is a painful stretch perfectly proves Ben's point about united* fans being deluded.

*Well, all big clubs really if we're being fair. Try watching your team get relegated to the vauxhall conference, and pretty much go bankrupt every 5-10 years, and I'm sure there's clubs/fans a lot worse off than that as well.

It was as painful to them as this last twenty year stretch filled with lesser trophies (and one major, major trophy) has been for me. Not because they weren't winning titles, but because their most bitter rivals were.

Also, you can wax lyrical about blue square teams and the loyalty of their supporters, but at the end of the day, the reason they are going bankrupt every 5-10 years is because their supportership is small. You will also find lots of their supporters attending games in higher divisions.

ExiledRed
06-07-2009, 10:43 PM
Leeds is the exception here, what happened to that team is an aberration.

andyc
06-07-2009, 10:47 PM
Leeds is the exception here, what happened to that team is an aberration.

Oh yeah!

Darlofletch
06-08-2009, 11:11 AM
It was as painful to them as this last twenty year stretch filled with lesser trophies (and one major, major trophy) has been for me. Not because they weren't winning titles, but because their most bitter rivals were.

Also, you can wax lyrical about blue square teams and the loyalty of their supporters, but at the end of the day, the reason they are going bankrupt every 5-10 years is because their supportership is small. You will also find lots of their supporters attending games in higher divisions.

Yep, thanks for that one Captain Obvious. So an individual fan's loyalty is measured by how many other fan's he or she is surrounded by? Interesting.

Not trying to get into any sort of fight/pissing contest here, hopefully most people have a very good reason for supporting whoever it is they support.

I guess pain is relative, a billionaire whose portfolio crashed and now only has a few hundred million probably sees that as painful. Who am I to tell him that he's still got it very very good.

Maple Leaf Red
06-08-2009, 11:20 AM
Great read as always Ben. Although, as many of your readers are probably also Maple Leaf fans, I imagine they know all too well the “agony of defeat”. What I sense from TFC supporters right now is not necessarily the sting and humiliation of loosing but the fear that with MLSE in charge nothing much will be done to correct the situation. We know they don’t really care about football. As long as the stands are full, supporters can go stuff themselves (as Leaf fans have since 1967). Right now, MLSE doesn't think they need us at all -- because we need them so badly.

Not to go too off topic but if you are using MLSE's ownership of the Leafs and Leafs fans as a proxy for how things may go then you have no idea what you are talking about which is par for the course for most Leafs Fan/MLSE bashers on this board.*

*Not excusing MLSE's foibles.

Commie Red
06-08-2009, 12:34 PM
Not to go too off topic but if you are using MLSE's ownership of the Leafs and Leafs fans as a proxy for how things may go then you have no idea what you are talking about which is par for the course for most Leafs Fan/MLSE bashers on this board.*

*Not excusing MLSE's foibles.

Well, if I understand you correctly, I don't think we disagree (which may mean we both don't know what we are talking about :D ).

My point to Ben was simply that Toronto sport's fans do know what it means to love a team that loses. We can and have suffered with the best of the sport Euro-philes.

What is different, and what I think Ben had over-looked, is that MLSE has set a precedent for indifference to owning losing sports teams and treating average (as well as die-hard) fans like shit (while sucking up to corporate fat-cats who could care less about the actual game). This is what I think is at the heart of our collective consternation -- not simply losing. Leaf fans have sat back and allowed MLSE to destroy the team, the game and the atmosphere they loved -- while milking it for every penny they can -- but we ain't gonna take that ... or at least not without a fight!