Be More British: Support a Rubbish Team

This was originally written for a blog for international students, but I fear it will be too long, so am putting it here to make myself feel better:

It’s a well-known fact that we Brits are obsessed with football (which is interesting, given that, when it comes to our performances in recent international tournaments, we actually don’t seem to be very good at it.) I have travelled extensively and on more than one occasion, on saying I come from England, I have been met with smiles and enthusiastic cries of “Manchester United!” Many people across the world have adopted a UK team as their own – in my experience usually Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool or Chelsea.
If you really want to blend in with the locals, then, you may find yourself embracing a team you can then vaguely follow – perhaps one of the above, probably London-based if you’re studying here. But if you really want to assimilate then may I suggest a bolder move: support a rubbish team.

Every year at our International Orientation I extol the virtues of my beloved Bradford City to my (bemused) students. I start by explaining that we – a club still riding high on the back of our FA cup victory in 1911 – are in League 2, and they smile politely, nodding enthusiastically and thinking: League 2. Hmm. Presumably that’s the second division, so you’re not far off the top; that sounds pretty good. I then explain that we have a Premiership, then a Championship, then League One, then League Two. I watch them count, then realise that this means my team is in fact in Division Four, and so probably not that good after all. I then tell them that we are skulking in the bottom half of that table, and as such are at risk of dropping out of the league altogether, at which point their expressions can only be described as pity.

For many Brits, Saturday afternoon means only one thing: football. Across the country, men and women of all ages pack out football grounds, and most of them do not support Manchester United or Arsenal. You may think you’ve felt elation after yet another 3-0 win, but you won’t have experienced the euphoria that comes with a last-minute extra-time goal resulting in three points after an extended run of dismal losses. You may think that you will dazzle with your knowledge of John Terry’s misdemeanours and Chelsea’s seemingly constant search for a new manager, but you will win a place in more British hearts if you too have shared the pain of a long, dejected train journey home following two hours standing in the rain in, say, Rotherham, ending in a 1-0 defeat. Your friends may have been to Liverpool, noted for the Beatles and its vibrant history, or Manchester, with its museums, nightlife and impressive pop back catalogue, but support a team like mine and you could find yourself in such glamorous locations as Torquay, the home of Fawlty Towers, Burton, noted for being where Marmite is produced, or Crawley, famous for...um… being quite near Gatwick airport. You could wow your fellow classmates with tales of your trips to Swindon and Southend, Accrington and Aldershot. Instead of clubs who regale themselves with tough nicknames like the Lions (Millwall) or the Tigers (Hull City), designed presumably to intimidate their opponents, you’ll be playing teams that are perfectly happy to be known as the Shrimps (Morecambe) or the Cobblers (Northampton), only effective against those with a phobia of small marine life or shoemakers. My own team are the Bantams: a bantam is a small chicken.

Much as I would love to inspire you to join me and become ardent Bradford City supporters, this is probably a little impractical, not to say expensive, if you’re London-based (I speak from experience.) Fortuitously, though, there are several London clubs floundering in the same division as us who would be thrilled by your support. To start you off and help you decide which one might be for you, here are a few facts:

Barnet: based in North London and known somewhat unimaginatively as the Bees, their mascot is called Mr Bumble, who appears at home games as a man in a giant and slightly creepy bee costume. Their current ground (though not for much longer…) is called Underhill, and is on a slope – when my team was losing at the end of the first half a few years ago I heard someone wryly say “it’ll sort out in the second half: we’ll be playing downhill.”

Dagenham and Redbridge: The result of a relatively recent merger between two local teams, my best friend rather unencouragingly says of the “Daggers”, his team: “this is proper football: people get hurt.” Dagenham unexpectedly went up to the first division last year after winning a play-off against Rotherham, and promptly came down again at the end of the season after losing most of their games. They are now near the bottom of League Two, which means they are below us, despite beating us in their last game.

AFC Wimbledon: You may have heard of Wimbledon, but possibly not this Wimbledon. For reasons best known to those involved in the decision, but a mystery to everyone else, the club relocated to Milton Keynes in 2002, a town almost 60 miles away in a completely different county. Unsurprisingly, their fans were not thrilled about this, what with being largely based in Wimbledon and not Buckinghamshire. So they founded a new club and pinched the name (the club that had moved became the MK Dons) and, 10 years on, they are back in the football league. And, um, currently doing better than we are...

So, I hope that has inspired you to seek out a more authentic – and far cheaper (usually £15-£25 on the gate) – football experience. Be warned, though, football supporters can take it all very seriously: when one of our fans asked on a chat forum for advice as to whether he should attend a match on Valentine’s Day or take his wife out instead, another simply replied: “Mate: you can always change your wife, but you can’t change your team.”