The Dangers Of Fair Weathered Fans

Vital Manchester City received the following article from Ireland based and City fan, mcfcirish.

So, as the title of the article may suggest, this piece is dedicated to the most un-wanted menace to ever attach itself to the game of football. Yes I know FIFA and UEFA may also spring to mind but that's another argument for another day.

Anyway, let me explain exactly why I'm bringing this to your attention.

I have recently returned to an adult learning course - my local town runs a mini bus in which about six people travel. There are three football fans, me (City fan), a Liverpool and a Manchester United supporter.

HOWEVER there is one chap, who I noticed on the bus ride down on Monday was wearing a Celtic jersey Fine, fair enough. Celtic are after all pretty much any Irish football fans' second team.

The following day the same chap who was wearing the Celtic top ended up wearing a Real Madrid t-shirt. Fine I said to myself, maybe he's been there on holidays.

Stay with me folks...

On Wednesday the same chap wore an Arsenal shirt, which I thought was odd after seeing both the Real Madrid and Celtic shirts. It was yesterday (Thursday) though when he appeared wearing a Liverpool shirt and training pants. When he got off the bus I says to the United guy, 'Jesus I could have sworn I saw your man wearing an Arsenal shirt yesterday?' The bloke replied, 'he was, sure he's one of them fair weather fans.'

Now, for those of you who don't know what a fair weather fan is, please let me explain?

A fan of a sports team who only shows support when the team is doing well. During hard times they usually bandwagon other teams. They basically have no real loyalty to the team, but still manage to get better seats than you or I at the game. Strangely, they mysteriously vanish at the first sign of trouble.

Now I'm not anti free speech but this kind of carry on really gets up my nose. For example...

I support my local lads Cork City and go to see them whenever I can. Turners Cross, the ground has a 10,000 capacity, but there are fewer than 2,000 regular supporters for home games. The trouble is, while I support a local and foreign team (Man City), a lot of my fellow countrymen, don't bother with our local League Of Ireland teams but prefer the likes of ManUre, Arsenal, Liverpool or Celtic.

Now the Celtic thing is also a strange one as any football person over here in Ireland will tell you Hibernian are the Scottish club with 'real' Irish connections, but there we go.

As for my friends at Turners Cross - funnily enough a lot of their songs are very similar to Man City songs 'Super City' etc. but there are also songs which were most recently heard when Ipswich Town and Celtic came to visit, including such classics as 'Where the f*** in Ireland is Glasgow', 'Whets it like to have a Queen?' and 'Do you know the way to Turners Cross?'

Now those three in fairness are all in good fun and lots of the hardcore Cork City fans support their local team and at the same time, an English club. However there is one song that is pretty self explanatory.

'Support your local team, and its short and sweet, support your local team support your local team, we all do, so should you, support your local team.'

The message is obviously clear. Stick with the team which is close by. The club you love, the club who you have been through great highs and great lows with. Supporting a team abroad or indeed locally, when times are good may be a short high but lets face it, its soulless!

So if I may finish off by saying...

Give me a few thousand loyal fans over a hundred thousand fair weathered fans any day.

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