Okay, before anyone accuses me of starting a thread on semantics, that is precisely what this is meant to be: a thread on semantics. The season and all the dramas are over for the time being, so plenty of time now for us keyboard wordsmiths to sharpen our debating skills with a helpful clarification on something that for many seems to be an essential criterion for our 'R-ness': the apparent obligation to HATE Chelsea. We even had a thread out this week (Queenslander's 'Fess Up') addressing Rs like me who don't hate Chelsea. (I didn't respond to it, not because I was loathe to swim against the current but because I couldn't find the words or the time to do so concisely.) As I've said before, my problem is that I simply lack the capacity for hate - not just in the case of silly football clubs but even so far as the bloke who ****ed up my business one time and in response to my natural opposition, tried to get me shot(!)... The guy's an arse but certainly not worth the brooding time. I can do dislike. I can do nauseated - but once it gets any further than that, the subject seems to disappear off my radar and out of my consciousness. My inner being seems to reject detestation or intense dislike as being an unnecessary waste of precious energy resource. I'd rather just get on with something else. So does my systematic inability to conjour up the absolute in the case of Chelsea, somehow compromise decades of support for Rangers in your view? Does it mean I'm a closet Scum? I promise you, I've tried to hate Chelsea but the best I can manage as a norm, is the vague indifference I've felt for Chelsea since I first discovered the 3rd Division goings-on at Loftus Road back in the day. Sure I've come across contemptuous Chelsea fans on my travels, and then there's the more odious elements like John Terry for instance. Neither of these come anywhere near the more serious encounters I had with local thugs (criminal and political) over the years - and even these jokers ain't been worth much more than my pity... So to repeat the question, does my evident disability, my failure to hate Chelsea, mean I'm not a proper R in YOUR book? If so perhaps you could see your way to rescuing the situation by enlightening me as to the benefits of hating - and teach me how to do it?! Go for it you real Rs, it's a (close season) challenge!
There you go Brix, applying common sense and perspective to football supporters! Of course you are right, I'd guess 'hate' is a very inadequate shorthand for a schadenfreude wish for anything Chelsea related. To truly hate I think you have to let it define your character and be prepared to act on it. I would be very worried about myself if I allowed anything, let alone a football club, define me in this way. Unfortunately some people do let football get to them in this way - the idiots threatening Anton for example - but they have obviously got much bigger personal problems to deal with. I won't speak for anyone else on this board but would be very disappointed if the word 'hate' was used as anything other than lazy English. I have a very general interest in football as the beautiful game, a very specific interest in QPR and everything else, club rivalries etc is just spice. Nobody's ever tried to have me shot ( as far as I know) so don't know how I would react in extreme circumstances..... Of course you are a proper Rs fan! I have similar discussions with my daughter about the word 'awesome', which for me should be reserved for truly awe generating events, positive or negative, rather than a new dress.
Good post, Brix. To hate Chelsea FC, its players and its fans is pretty dumb when you think about it. It's possibly another form of indoctrination and bigotry. Down on the South Coast, where I have some experience, there are Saints and Pompey fans who hate each other for no other reason than to 'fit in' with their families and mates. The origins of the antipathy - naval and merchant shipyards, strike-breakers and all that, blah, blah, blah - are pretty well known. But all that happened bloody years ago. And yet they still hate each other with a passion. It's ridiculous, isn't it? How were the fans of today affected by those events of yesteryear? The answer is, of course, that they weren't. But they hate all the same. QPR fans that hate Chelsea need to ask themselves why exactly. And then ask themselves whether that's a good enough reason to hate.
Great post Brix. I don't feel obligated to hate them at all. I hate Terry, Drogba, Cole and some others from down the years for much the same reason any football fan might. They just happen to play for Chelsea. As a jew I really don't like their historic links with far right organisations and the way they often take it too far with the 'banter' with Spurs. As much as the club and its fanbase has changed there's still a greater minority there than with just about any other club bar probably Millwall. Like all the big clubs they've attracted a lot of gloryhunters but the Chelsea-supporting gloryhunters seem to be the worst based purely on people I know personally. Fans I know aged only 21 or 22 claim to have been there through thick and thin when they've always been at least a decent Prem side in that time.
Phew! That's a relief. Thanks Stan. Can't do schadenfreude either - well not consciously. Take your point about trying to rationise the irrational too. That's me all over sometimes I'm afraid, flawed - a bit like Barton but nothing like as 'loaded'!! So there's two types of hate then, e.g. passively hating Eastenders or soaps in general; and hating in the active fundamentalist killer sense? Okay, so maybe I can do the passive version - although I'd take a free ticket into the Bridge (which I get offered from time to time and find a bit boring at worst) over being force fed Eastenders for the evening which is nothing short of cultural abomination!
All forms of true religion and philosophy involve a thesis and an antithesis. QPR is Heaven on Earth, the Garden of Eden, Mecca, The Promised Land and a juicy pussy. Its followers are highly intelligent, charming witty and handsome and are the Chosen Race. Chelsea is the complete opposite. Its ground is a stinking ****hole, riddled with disease and is the physical embodiment of Hell on Earth and purgatory. It is rotten to the core and no man should venture into that rancorous cesspit for fear of contracting gonorrhea. Its followers are ugly, arrogant, fat balding gimps who have sold their soul to the devil in a Faustian pact. As Descartes profoundly stated 'I hate Chelsea, therefore I am`...
Ah, Inherited hate! 'My dad hated, therefore I hate'. The self-perpetuating vendetta factor that leads to generations of mindless strife for all concerned and needs a real hero to say, 'you killed my brother but for the sake of sanity and peace, I will not kill your's'. Nice points made Uber. As you suggest, we really need to think about that 'H' word. So destructive.
In light of some of last night's posts, perhaps this is as good a time to try and communicate to those more modern day R's what us older R's see as the 'bridge' that can't be crossed. After moving from Marylebone at a young age I grew up in Brixton which had a large number of Chelsea fans, as Chelsea is in SW London. At school being the only one supporting a 3rd division club wasn't easy especially as Chelsea were putting together their best side in that era. We had a good few years at that time as well, but I was always an 'outsider' when it came to football in my schooldays and I remember the sh*t I got after we lost 8-1 at Old Trafford. Another memorable defeat was the 4-2 cup defeat to Chelsea in 1970, my last year at school, and the sneering scum fans really letting me have it. I also had some family who were Chelsea supporters including an Irish uncle who really got on my tits. A watershed for me was in 74 when I went with my Irish uncle to Stamford Bridge and we took them apart, 3-0 but it could have been a lot more. He disappeared to the toilets at half time and didn't come back after we took the lead, and I made sure he never lived that one down. For the next 20 years we were in the ascendancy for long periods and we were able to give their 'fans' as good as we got. However, our relegation in 96 followed by all the money that went into Chelsea before and after Roman arrived made the gap unbridgeable and everything that is wrong with football in this country now can be traced to Roman's largesse. The old Chelsea fans, ones that I was at school with have the same 'hate' of us as before 96. The plastics and prawn-munchers probably didn't even know where we came from until 23rd Oct 11. Unless you've experienced a good kicking at the feet of some of these neanderthals you probably think it's all a bit overhyped, but it stays in the blood. I'm not a violent person, most people say I'm the most laid-back person they know and as long as I'm not directly provoked I'm happy to live and let live, but don't ask me to say well done for last night or any other of their successes. I wish I could show your indifference Brix but I'll choose to really enjoy the moments when we do have our rare successes against them and the schadenfreude when their wheels come off...
Nice post Brix and not a little brave on this board. I reserve hate for rather weightier issues that football rivalry. I hate injustice, mindless violence, violation of people's rights whether by individuals or The State, rudeness, bullies, kids dying of hunger while we serve portions enough for six of them etc etc. I prefer to savour our victory over Chelsea last season and look forward to many more battles to come as QPR's ascendancy continues. Chelsea and Man City may feels that 'Blue is the colour' and 'Blue moon rising'. We know that there are bands of white in the blue of the future!
Me I don't hate Chelsea or anybody/anything else. It is counter productive and a waste of energy. As I have said before I do feel, what goes around comes around and if I impart alot of my energy/karma into negative energies they will only come back and haunt me. So I never wished Bolton to lose, but Stoke to win. So what do I feel about Chelsea? Well actually practically nothing! To those supporters who follow/support Chelsea like I feel I support QPR....all well and good, it is their right and I respect that. To the 86 year old father of a friend of mine who has followed Chelsea since the 30s, enjoy the moment you deserve it.. To the glory hunters who have had the "roller coaster ups and downs of the last few years" with Chelsea....get a life, you will not actually really appreciate the moments from last night. To individuals in the Chelsea team, such as Terry and Cole I feel distain and with Terry in particular disgust and I am really glad they are not in MY team (although it will appear they will be for the Euro's), but hey I feel that about Joey too. I don't hate them....Hate is too big an emotion to waste on them. So from this "hippy environment" in which I live, I don't really care what this forum think about my thoughts on Chelsea, they are mine...lump it. But I have always appreciated the friendship and comradeness of you lot on here. Hate is too big a word to use in this context...reserve that word for someone who really does something to you personally to deserve it
Hate is a strong word. I prefer to call it an intense rivalry that for me started at an early age at northolt primary school and has haunted me ever since. Jealousy? Maybe. I now reside in Sheffield, britains greenest city torn down the middle by owls and blades. You think the rangers / Chelsea thing is bad this is epic. They're in each others pockets down the pub, at school, at work and it's disproportionate to everyday life. I don't so much hate Chelsea its just that I passionately wish them to fail perpetually on all levels. I don't feel that about arsenal or spurs. It's just been in me since me and my dad were jeered in our cortina at the lights on the north circ by the welsh harp by some Chelsea lads when I was very young in my hoops top and it's burned within me ever since. Always will My kids will never know that feeling.
Good reading chaps. It's an interesting subject. I love football and love my team but I've never related to this hate thing. I live in the middle of all that Pompey/ Southampton nonsense and it gets ridiculous at times. It renders discussing football rationally impossible. In fact rationality is what gets lost first in the midst of hatred. Our village is making a big deal of the Jubilee and I'm trying to ignore it. For too many people 'I love my country' means 'I hate other countries' and I simply fail to understand that. Same with blinkered 'football' fans. I guess this gives a sense of identity? Don't know. Rebel? I take it you were joking? Feel relieved that I'm far from the only one who has better ways of using precious emotions that hating other football teams.
Never liked them and didn't want them to win last night. But not because they are near neighbours. Or so I thought. Clearly my dislike of them was not sufficient in itself to prevent me being pleased they won because their team performance deserved a reward especially Drogba's. If he is on his way out a move down the road might mean he does not have to shell out to estate agents. How about it? Summer signing? If you want a soundbite instead. What does it mean? Why it's the meaning of life (for some of our brethren), the ultimate question to which the answer is twelve and/or the spiritual purpose for which we were put on this earth and in the london Borough of Hammersmith. District, if you're following this, congratulations mate.
You've got to break things down. In a rational society there's room for tribalism its just a fine line into irrational intent. I've got a good book somewhere by Desmond Morris on male tribalism, very interesting
Interesting take Wats. Gets to the nub of the hate thing for me. Starts and ends in nasty places, particularly for 'minorities' and people of conscience. A beast that loses control easily with resultant mayhem as oft witnessed throughout time. When I first went to games, racism, intolerance and hatred was rife. Stabbings on the terraces were not uncommon. Rangers was as bad as anywhere else. Always big fights up and down South Africa road between opposing fans. Once into my 20s and free of the 'skin'ead' mentality, I used to sit on a wall and watch the numpties going for it. Saw it for the bravado it was, to the extent that when some marauder or other came for me, I'd just go 'grrr!' and they'd invariably run off!! See what you're saying about Chelsea's continuing right wing links. Same for West Ham and Millwall but none of these are half as bad as the Glasgow clubs where post-troubles sectarianism is the causal factor. As for the Tottenham thing, it seems cool to refer to 'yids'. I challenged a thread head on here last summer that included the 'Y' word - only to find that Spurs fans and Jewish ones at that, lauded the word almost as a positive identifier??! That really doesn't help and leaves the door open when it comes to abuse from Chelsea dinosaurs. As I implied above. The only way to prevent passive / fun 'hate' from becoming hideously active is to refuse to buy into it at any level. Clinical and unsexy, I know - but conscious, intelligent and progressive certainly.
To hate chelsea or not. Hum, ive known manay proper chelsea fans that have been priced out of going. Fans tha would have been in the old shed end years ago.......It those chelsea fans I feel sorry for. the new ones, the glory hunters in Roman Illbuythechampionsleaguefinal...treat those fans with the contempt they deserve. When I think of chelsea...which isn't often I thik of th magical gamnes we have had against them....one nil win at home, 6 nil Easter victory, a 4-2 home victory and a coupke of memorable 2-0 wins at the bridge. we have bought players like Stevie Wicks, Mick Fillery (great passer slower than a snail), John Spencer from them and had players like Maccine and one or two youngsters on loan. Dont think I hate chelsea - they are just our local rivals and I do love it when they lose
I agree to an extent but I think Spurs only started doing it to take the sting out of others doing it, a bit like Cardiff singing 'sheepshaggers'. Even when not in a footballing context it's not a particularly offensive word nowadays. I think even the thickest of football fans knows there is a line and hissing at Spurs fans crosses it.
That's one of my problems Reb, I don't believe in absolutes, just shades of gray. In other words, Rangers for me is no more a blue sky dream than Chelsea is the antithesis. Nice useful contribution though, typically styllistic and well appreciated.
Joking aside. I value the poetic tribalism of football and dont want to see it purged. I have spent decades wanting the Germans to lose on penalties and the one time i want them to win they blow it. Part of the drama and banter of last night was Tottenham fans also wanting Chelsea to get stuffed, even against the dreaded Hun. Obsessive love for your club even transcends patriotism and gets you out of going shopping on saturday with her indoors. Some of my best friends are Chelsea supporters and they are donuts the lot of them and seeing them miserable when Chelsea lose is almost better than sex. Beating them and staying up have been David and Goliath and Road to Damascus experiences. I was dropped on my head by my grandfather scrambling down the mud bank on South Africa Road in 1958 and i have never been the same since.. Both my daughters hate Chelsea too and i have not indoctrinated them in any way so it must be a genetic God given gift.
That's all the roots of rivalry though Sooper, with close personal experiences tied in. I lived all that too (although living in Kilburn at the time and schooled in Wembley / Kingsbury). Well remember having to live the 8-1 down - and attended the 2-4 cup match (and the 0-4 D1 game the year before). You're not a hater though are you Soops? Doesn't come across in your posts. You just want to see Rangers out-do the neighbours again. So do I but that ain't hate though. That's just levelling the playing field mate!
