> American picks a Premiership club to support, interesting article

Remove all ads!

Interesting article about an American picking a Premiership club to support.

I can't help but think that the reasons he states for him turning to football are actually happening to football in this country at this time. You only have to look at the World Cup to see how commercialised it's getting.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060719

 

It's funny how people outside of a country choose local teams to support. My personal examples:

I chose to support Aston Villa in the 1980s because they had a funny name and they had won the FA Cup 3 times.

I chose to support the Kansas City Chiefs because I was a fan of The Wizard of Oz at the time.

I chose to support the San Jose Sharks because that is where I lived for a few months and I went to one of their games.

I chose to support the Orlando Magic because I went to a Magic game whilst on a Contiki tour of USA.

 

As a long time Bill Simmons fan and a soccer fan I enjoyed the article. However, I was disappointed with his choice. I am jumping on the Liverpool bandwagon.

 

The ICF is not going to like what he says about West Ham there. Bill Gardner is not going to be amused either.

 

I read the article with some interest (although the references to American sports teams went completely over my head, for the most part), as I've always felt a bit of an outsider watching the Premiership, even as an Englishman. Yeovil born, you could call the Glovers my first team; but as a kid it was the Premiership on TV and I'd back Spurs because they had players like Gazza and Lineker and they have the same ethos as Yeovil: perennial nearly-men concentrating on fancy, passing football. So I can see exactly where this guy's coming from, as football isn't really top dog in the Westcountry either, where we've traditionally cared more about our Cricket and Rugby teams.

But at least he made a solid choice. Although if he comes to any matches he'd better not admit to having "who has the best jerseys" as a criterion.

A couple of things, though. Firstly, West Ham nowadays are hardly what I'd call a hooligan club. Back in the '70s or 80s, sure, but not now. Green Street (A.K.A. Frodo goes to football ) just isn't a reliable source, I'm afraid. Also, it seems a bit contradictory to rule out the top 4 teams as having "too much bandwagon potential" and to then immediately plump for the #5 team.

He did get one thing bang on: Martin Jol is awesome, built like a miniature giant (if you see what I mean... ) and probably the best manager in the league at the moment apart from Wenger. Although Spurs are still more likely to flatter to deceive than actually acheive. But that's all part of the joy/pain isn't it? (Strange how you can never really separate those words in football, isn't it?)

 

Spurs ('the Spurs' he sayd they should be called?) are my Premiership team, simply because of one thing. They are always wlling to take risks on young English players, which is something the other big teams never seem to want to do...

*hides from Pac man for liking Spurs *

 

Nah, Spurs is okay...at least it's not Millwall.