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Aye, but who do you really support?


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1 hour ago, RubyTuesday said:

I was in Majorca last week. Got talking to a couple of Glasgow fellas while watching the Euros final. 

"Who do you support then?"

"Edinburgh City" 

<Laughter>
 

"C'mon, who do you REALLY support?" 

<cue 5 minutes of explanation> 

On another point, what is it about Rangers and Celtic fans that feel compelled to wear their tops on the plane to and from Spain, on a big night out etc? Do these guys never have a day off ?

Like anyone on holiday cares what team you support, wearing it on the plane is rotten stuff as well. Absolute tribalism. 

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3 hours ago, RubyTuesday said:

On another point, what is it about Rangers and Celtic fans that feel compelled to wear their tops on the plane to and from Spain, on a big night out etc? Do these guys never have a day off ?

This makes me laugh as well. Absolute roaster behaviour. The old firm towels over the balcony the full holiday usually tops it off, too!

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Living in Edinburgh it was a different "gruesome twosome" that tended to dominate footballing conversations. In the late 70s in the playground folk used to ask you "Hearts or Hibs?". The wrong answer got you a slap. Not coming from a footballing family I didn't have any idea who they were so I answered "Antchester United". This was a comic strip in the Beezer about an insect football team:

AntchesterUnitedsTalentScout.thumb.jpg.babe10c1782df8fc24df4e9a7bb6acfa.jpg

That used to confuse people anyway. (I'm sure Martin Buchan was better than Mantis Buchan)

Later on as a Meadowbank fan I used to get asked "Why don't you support Hibs or Hearts". To which the reply was usually "because they're cnuts".

It was even worse later on "Why don't you support Livingston?"

"Because the Chairman and Board told us to f*ck off and that kind of put us off a little bit" was the diplomatic answer. 

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4 hours ago, SLClyde said:

Like anyone on holiday cares what team you support, wearing it on the plane is rotten stuff as well. Absolute tribalism. 

It absolutely is, 100% where they're both concerned. I wear plenty of football shirts out and about, from 90s Serie A to today's MLS and everything in between, purely as leisure/casualwear- been stopped milions of times by people over them and never once aggressively or physically intimidatory. Unlike that pair.

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14 hours ago, Uncle Albert said:

A quick question, which may just be Glasgow-centric (it may not)

Has anyone ever been asked who they support and upon giving the answer (in my case Clyde) been met with the retort, "aye but who do you really support?" (meaning Celtic or Rangers.)

This is a real bug bear of mine, it's as if the whole of Scottish football is just the Old-Firm and no one else matters, with Old Firm fans not having the concept that you don't have to support one the so called "Big Two."

It used to be funny on Old Firm Day in my local, with Celtic supporters at one side of the pub, Rangers fans at the other and the neutrals (Clyde, Queens Park, Thistle, Hamilton etc etc) standing in the middle at the bar.

 

Just a thought!!!

 

The correct answer to this, Andy, is....

 

 

Who do you support when Clyde play Thistle? Ayr play Killie? Morton-St.Mirren?

 

The papers to-ing and fro-ing about this 'rivalry' makes me puke. They celebrate "mixed friends/families" and promote them like they're going genetically extinct, all the while making it look like if these big enemies can be pals then world peace is only round the corner. I know damn near every lower league supporter, and most non-city Premier supporter has experienced being the only one in a workplace or social setting surrounded only by the sound of dragged knuckles- that's an experience i've yet to hear broadcast, how they come together to bully a response. 

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Not strictly a "aye, but who do you REALLY support" situation, but as a Stranraer fan living in Aberdeen, I'm usually just met with a shrug or a pitied look when I tell someone who I support.

Apart from in Peterhead that is. I remember having a drink in a Peterhead boozer before a midweek game a few years back, and one of the locals got chatting to us. Tbf he'd seen the blue scarves and assumed we were Peterhead fans. He was almost outraged that we could be from Aberdeen and support Stranraer, whilst not taking kindly to me pointing out that he was wearing a Rangers polo shirt drinking in a Peterhead boozer on a Tuesday evening. 

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27 minutes ago, blue_1870 said:

Not strictly a "aye, but who do you REALLY support" situation, but as a Stranraer fan living in Aberdeen, I'm usually just met with a shrug or a pitied look when I tell someone who I support.

Apart from in Peterhead that is. I remember having a drink in a Peterhead boozer before a midweek game a few years back, and one of the locals got chatting to us. Tbf he'd seen the blue scarves and assumed we were Peterhead fans. He was almost outraged that we could be from Aberdeen and support Stranraer, whilst not taking kindly to me pointing out that he was wearing a Rangers polo shirt drinking in a Peterhead boozer on a Tuesday evening. 

I remember when we played Arbroath at Gayfield about 20+ years ago and there was some guy in the home end behind the goals wearing that orange NTL rangers away top.

They're everywhere and they’re absolutely deluded.

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17 hours ago, RubyTuesday said:

On another point, what is it about Rangers and Celtic fans that feel compelled to wear their tops on the plane to and from Spain, on a big night out etc? Do these guys never have a day off ?

It gives you a quick visual indicator that said individual is a c**t and best avoided.

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On 20/07/2024 at 10:08, EdinburghBlue said:

Often… and my reply would be 1 Stranraer, 41= Celtic/(old/new) Rangers  

Ah so presumably you like Celtic and Rangers more than every non-league club in the country? Big teams found...

21 hours ago, btb said:

I've always considered the question irrelevant as OF fans have already divided the rest of us into closet followers on the basis of which team we "pretend" to support and don't accept the two cheeks argument.

OF fans do this at two levels. First is individual; the school you went to. Second is collective; wher the place you're from or the club you support rates on the Staunchometer.

From growing up among Celtic fans I know they generally think everyone in Scotland that's a fan of any other club apart from Hibs and maybe Aberdeen is sympathetic towards Rangers, although that's changed in recent times.

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On 20/07/2024 at 09:05, Uncle Albert said:

A quick question, which may just be Glasgow-centric (it may not)

Has anyone ever been asked who they support and upon giving the answer (in my case Clyde) been met with the retort, "aye but who do you really support?" (meaning Celtic or Rangers.)

This is a real bug bear of mine, it's as if the whole of Scottish football is just the Old-Firm and no one else matters, with Old Firm fans not having the concept that you don't have to support one the so called "Big Two."

It used to be funny on Old Firm Day in my local, with Celtic supporters at one side of the pub, Rangers fans at the other and the neutrals (Clyde, Queens Park, Thistle, Hamilton etc etc) standing in the middle at the bar.

 

Just a thought!!!

 

Football fans I tend to find to be quite tribal and actually rather small-minded. Rarely able to possess any further than what they see right in front of them.

When they ask I just give them a stock answer because I can't be arsed explaining to people.

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I remember a former colleague of mine was set up on a blind date, he ended up marrying the girl. He’s from Dundee and she was from Larkhall. Her father asked her what team her new boyfriend supports and she replied “Dundee” to which he responded “aye but what team does he really support?” She maintained Dundee, which was true, so much so he was the nephew of a Dundee legend. I have to say I do not know what brand of Christianity my colleague followed, if either, as I do not care about that (I’m from a mixed family).

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It's actually similar in The Netherlands, where many fans of smaller clubs would be asked "who do you really support?", meaning who out of the "big 3" (Ajax/Feyenoord/PSV). When I tell them I support Excelsior Rotterdam and don't care about the big clubs people are often surprised. If I have to choose, I'd choose PSV without any doubt as I can't stand Ajax or Feyenoord and don't care either way about PSV.

With Lochee United we get people automatically assuming we've either got Celtic connections due to the Irish history of Lochee or Rangers connections due to playing in blue and Lochee Harp playing in green (and having Harp in their name) so then we must be the "Rangers" aligned team and they the Celtic aligned one. Reality is that the vast majority of Lochee United fans have either Dundee or Dundee United as their favourite professional side with just a handful of people supporting anyone else, and these are generally people from elsewhere who at some point moved to Lochee and started following us (that also counts for the Rangers fans I know at Lochee, 3 in total, who are actually all originally Glaswegians).

Edited by Marten
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I was surprised to see in Germany many years ago (and they still do it) people with half & half scarves where both clubs were German e.g. Werder Bremen and Nuremberg. A bit odd I thought as usually that sort of thing is with teams from different countries to avoid the obvious query around why you would sport the colours of a rival.

However, maybe it is a solution for all of us. Half and half scarves with one of the cheeks and that should reduce the number of questions asked on that subject!

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23 minutes ago, SouthLanarkshireWhite said:

I was surprised to see in Germany many years ago (and they still do it) people with half & half scarves where both clubs were German e.g. Werder Bremen and Nuremberg. A bit odd I thought as usually that sort of thing is with teams from different countries to avoid the obvious query around why you would sport the colours of a rival.

However, maybe it is a solution for all of us. Half and half scarves with one of the cheeks and that should reduce the number of questions asked on that subject!

No, third, third and third to really piss them off.

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On 20/07/2024 at 11:47, BullyWeeStonehouse said:

I got the “Are you Rangers or Celtic?” question from a couple of Australian boys over in Germany while I was there for the Euros. You can forgive guys from outwith Scotland or the UK asking that, though. 
 

When I told him Clyde and we were in the 4th tier he looked shocked. I don’t think many fans go to A League games over there never mind lower league games.

I do think we’re really quite fortunate in terms of geography for this. The distances between clubs for the most part aren’t that far, sparing your Elgins, Countys, Peterheads etc which for most fans those sorts of travels are only a couple of times a season. 
 

I do on average have longer treks for my away days than fans based in the central belt, but even then it’s not as long as a lot of fans in other countries make/would have to make to follow their side on the road

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