Picking which club to support is a decision you only take once and you stick with it for the rest of your life. There are very few things in life that never change, even a bit. We may change our school, our field of studies, our work, our girlfriend/boyfriend, our wife/husband, our house, the country we live in, our friends and acquaintances, even ourselves up to a point. But the team we have been supporting since our childhood is something that stays the same forever. No matter whether our team plays well or not, whether there are trophies won or humiliating defeats, we never switch our favorite club to another. Not only that, but we do everything in our power to demonstrate our love for the team. We will have coffee or tea in a mug bearing our favorite club’s emblem rather than an ordinary mug. We will use pens and papers with our favorite club’s logo on them. We will go to our favorite pub and order the beer brand that is the official partner of our favorite team instead of any other beer. We will even take our ipad to go online and sign in to the best online casino ipad only to play certain football-themed slot games that are related to our favorite club rather than any other game.
Have we ever considered how many other things that may disappoint or delude us we will go on loving unconditionally without ever doubting our devotion to them, the way we do with the team we are for? Have we thought why, regardless whether we are champions or have just been relegated, we will go to our club’s boutique to buy the jersey the club will be wearing next season? Not only that, but we are willing to buy anything bearing the colors and/or the emblem of the club. From T-shirts and scarfs to baby clothes, from keyholders to bottles and glasses, from cellphone cases and power banks to Covid masks, the list of such items we purchase and wear or use with pride is endless.
The affection for our favorite team is a story as old as the day sports teams were created. The only thing that has changed over the years is the plethora of different ways available nowadays to show our love and support for the club. There was a time when buying a ticket and going to watch our team’s game as spectators was the only way we could follow the team as fans. But not anymore; in modern times, thanks to cutting-edge technology, we are able to constantly enjoy our team anytime without leaving the comfort of our home. Television was the first device that started to enable us to do that some decades ago but we have so much more at our service now. As often as we wish, we can use our cellphone to learn the latest news or our laptop to discuss with a friend far away or our ipad to have fun on ipad casinos, but with the same ease we can use these devices to watch our favorite team’s games or even stay up to date about everything concerning it. And we are never alone when it comes to following our club.
It is a proven fact that supporting a club can unite people from completely different cultural, social, financial or ethnic backgrounds. The common purpose of supporting the same club and watching it compete will make us come closer than we would ever think possible with other people that we would probably not know whether they existed or not and vice versa. And yet, this intense participation joins us in a brotherly kind of way.
According to an Oxford University research, painful losses or big wins can be so intensely felt that they are perceived as ‘self-shaping’ experiences, becoming embedded in our psyche as team supporters to the extent where our own personal identity fuses with that of the club. We all know that as fans we have experienced beauty, joy, sadness, pain, drama, and even tragedy. We are also ready to experience these emotions again during our lifetime as loyal supporters of our team. Moreover, we want to share them with fellow fans, always with the pride of being part of the same group that will forever have the club at heart. Can you really think of anything else that can define the life of an individual as much as our favorite club does?
