Just to state my own position on this. Any team that can realistically challenge my team for football honours is a rival. Beyond that I do not feel that the nearby clubs to be greater rivals. Even when I can't bring myself to even say or type L**ds Un*t*d it is still very much tongue in cheek. I can't see where any club has exclusivity on spanners for fans, merely that the more successful a team becomes or once was, the larger the fan base, the percentage ratio of tools to 'ordinary' fan increases. I have friends who through misguided reasons (such as they were born there) support a different team from me. I would never jeopardise any friendship over a football result or rivalry. Could you really hate someone just because they support another team? Rivalry has to exist in a competitive environment. Yet we have professional footballers who for the most part put their career (quite rightly) above such petty things and move about for the money, or simply to play with professional mates or because it is a better place to live and work and succeed (normally the money takes care of the location). They can not afford to carry strong rivalries, not unless they want to seriously cripple their professional aspirations. I say a competitive environment meaning of course the fans too. How far should that fan competition go? Do you feel that banter is usually used by those unskilled at it and is often really just offensive and cowardly?
I hate West Ham, but grew up with West Ham fans. I hate Spurs, but my flatmate is a Spurs fan. I hate Arsenal, but most of my family and a lot of my friends support Arsenal. So No, I couldn't hate someone because they support another team, at the end of the day there are things more important in life than football and who supports who etc.
Don't think it has affected my view on a person, I dislike Fulham/Spuds but have friends who are fans of both. If you live in the area of the team you support, there are bound to be people who support your rivals. BUT I usually don't like United fans, partly because I live in London and I just think it's stupid if you are from here and support United.
I'm not a benign fan. I get affected when the team win or lose. Many a time after a defeat I snap at someone an hour later and realise after that if we had won I would of reacted differently. I'm not a naturally calm and reasoned bear when it comes to football, even though my opening post may make me seem like I'm 'horrified of Royal Tunbridge Wells'. I just don't get the visceral spitting hate I see in many fans when I go to a match.
Growing up away from my birthplace as a Man Utd fan, my rivalry was with Liverpool fans because I knew more of them. It wasn't until I moved back to Manchester as a teen that I started to appreciate and enjoy the local rivalry with City. Now I'm in Prague, and the rivalry is mostly Liverpool and Arsenal with only one Man City guy. So for me, rivalry is local to where you are - who do you have the banter with and who do they support?
Football is a fantasy world us fans can retreat into. It facilitates so many things which the moralizing drones of the everyday world would frown upon, such as singing passionately with a bunch of grown men, having pride in your local area, tribalism and, yes, hatred. I'm proud to say that I hate Manchester United and Chelsea as well as the cities those teams are based in. It doesn't mean I can't have good-natured banter with Mancs and Cockneys or that I hate them all as persons, but as far as football's concerned, I enjoy having an enemy because it creates a great sense of schadenfreude when my team succeeds and trumps theirs. Which is very bloody rarely indeed! I think that harbouring hatred in football simply adds to the passion one feels and means that pleasure can be derived not only from the single source of the successes of one's own team, but also from the failings of another's. In that sense, it makes the fantasy of football an even more enjoyable retreat. For me at least.
That's a cracking response I don't get chewed by opposition fans at the match but I love the rivalry... I enjoy the tribal element but there are extremes esp as I only go to away games nowadays... For me it's £35 - £50 and I want to enjoy the sporting spectacle that is so ridiculously priced, but also get behind my team, get involved with the singing, see the players give 110%, and hopefully see them win...but even if they don't i want them to come to the away end afterwards and clap us and let us show them our appreciation of them and let us let them know that whatever happens we'll always be there. What a ridiculous emotion it stirs, but I love it...I'm off to Stoke in 9 days to see the dawn of yet another new era at Chelsea, and win, lose or draw I can't ****ing wait
Whilst there are several insightful and level headed comments on this thread, clearly none of you have ever been to p*rtsmouth, a city of tattooed drunks who almost ALL want to fight you. And that's just the women. The inhabitants of this primitive settlement have not really evolved since the Roman Invasion. They still like to paint themselves blue, play completely tuneless instruments, and set fire to their own dwellings in bizarre tribal rituals that remain unchanged since their cave dwelling days.
Yes unfortunately I've met the true hate mob. The fans who think you are alien purely for football reasons, who will kick and punch you if your team has beaten theirs. They do exist. They don't poke their heads over the parapet as much as they used to but they haven't gone away, just in hiding. Of course they are people if football never existed would do the same at a water polo match. It ain't the sport there engenders there hate, football rivalry just allows their kind to camouflage themselves into main steam society. You human beings are animals after all and and often yield to those basic instinct which can be easier than maintaining a civilised culture (much cheaper too) whereas polar bears make no pretence at civilisation, we will just eat everything (or kick it at a net if it ball shaped).
