Plastic Fans

I've never, ever, ever had an urge at any time in my life to "support" Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Barcelona etc. So I don't get foreign supporters becoming Uber fans of PL clubs thousands of miles away.

Saw it after the 6-1 defeat to Chelsea - social media was awash with Africans gloating over Chelsea's win. It was extremely bizarre.

But plastic fans aren't just foreigners. "Supporting" a team just because they are "big" and win things is pretty sad. My son is surrounded by them at school, plastic Man City fans, absolutely no ties at all to the club, know f*ck all about the club or it's history. But he rocks in his Boro / County kits, big FU to the plastics.....
👍

Personally, just can't take plastic fans seriously. Have a lot of mates who are in their 40/50s lifelong Man City / Utd fans, who I know will be there (are there) when the glory days end. The rest......🙄
 
We are very lucky to live in a country with one of the best leagues in the world, guess if you live elsewhere in the world with rubbish league and see a constant feed of Prem footy it's more natural to support a team you only ever see on TV, similar with a lot of the non local English supporters of big teams, I've met many over the years and most tend to be people who never had a footy supporting older person around when growing up, so they just picked a team who they saw on TV
 
Teesside's plastic scousers are my favourite. A vile and arrogant club forever associated with the deaths at Heysel, all airbrushed away so they can enjoy the success of Merseyside's second club.

Think Klopp has been told to move on based on medical advice. His rabid touchline antics and inability to cope with the wind blowing against him occasionally will have his blood pressure off the chart.

Like all the clubs with a large plastic following they attract the weaker in society without backbone. The ups and downs of sport are not for them, they are special, special needs, and are such high flyers they can only associate with high levels of success. Enjoy the tinpot quadruple....oops.
 
BeanBeany said:
........so they just picked a team who they saw on TV
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Who, by an amazing twist of fate, just happened to be one of the biggest clubs, winning trophies every season.

Gosh, imagine if they'd have "picked" Palace, Wolves etc.......🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

I think these fans have very low self esteem, unable to handle the pain of defeat, scared people will take the p*ss that their team "lost a game". Weak individuals.

Boro fans on the other hand........😁😁
 
h_m_boro said:
Who, by an amazing twist of fate, just happened to be one of the biggest clubs, winning trophies every season.

Gosh, imagine if they'd have "picked" Palace, Wolves etc.......🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

I think these fans have very low self esteem, unable to handle the pain of defeat, scared people will take the p*ss that their team "lost a game". Weak individuals.

Boro fans on the other hand........😁😁
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Loads of people in Scandinavia follow Liverpool and Manchester United because their league games were televised there. If Coventry or Leicester or Charlton matches had been shown instead then I dare say you’d have loads of people following those times instead.

The difference now is that clubs and leagues openly target those audiences to generate further revenue. The author of that piece only fleetingly mentions exploitation but top-level football is just so saturated now. It’s only going to become more saturated. In the past you had one or two games per week on TV and obviously clubs will pick up followers because of that.

I’ve always thought football mirrors society anyway tbh. What you have now is the obscenely wealthy chasing even further wealth to the detriment of the game as a whole. Everything disappears upwards and the rest of us are left scratching around for scraps. Governing bodies fix prize money and revenue to ensure they can sell the broadcasting rights based on the most famous clubs being involved in their competitions. There has never been so much talent sitting on so few substitutes’ benches as there is now.

I think the root of all of this is money and television. Do we really need so much football on telly? Do we really need another competition, even more group games, more internationals and expanded tournaments? We clearly don’t. But a lot of these modern-day ‘plastic’ fans are just a by-product of the way the governing bodies and club owners run their businesses.
 
I used to rip into my mate for supporting Man U when I lived in Kazakhstan, he used to defend himself by saying it was one of the few teams he saw regularly on Kazakh TV when he was a kid growing up.

Now living in Thailand and most fans support one of the ‘big’ European clubs, it’s depressing but inevitable when they’re all over the TV and knockoff kits are cheap. The local leagues aren’t the best standard but they don’t stand a chance against the prem etc. I have seen a handful of Boro tops around on Thai people, but I’m pretty sure it was more to do with an expat husband/dad!
 
Smoggle said:
I used to rip into my mate for supporting Man U when I lived in Kazakhstan, he used to defend himself by saying it was one of the few teams he saw regularly on Kazakh TV when he was a kid growing up.

Now living in Thailand and most fans support one of the ‘big’ European clubs, it’s depressing but inevitable when they’re all over the TV and knockoff kits are cheap. The local leagues aren’t the best standard but they don’t stand a chance against the prem etc. I have seen a handful of Boro tops around on Thai people, but I’m pretty sure it was more to do with an expat husband/dad!
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That’s another problem as well. For example, the big European clubs hoover up all the best young talent from every corner of the world. You have people in Ghana or Uruguay or Nigeria who never, ever get to see the best players from those nations play football on home soil, save for a handful of internationals each year. Domestic leagues in those nations are deprived of their best talent, making it more difficult to generate interest in it. It’s just a massive shame.

All the eyes are directed towards Man United, Real Madrid, etc, but in my opinion - and this may be controversial - their games are almost always incredibly boring. I find watching Man City stroll to another 2-0 win over Newcastle, Copenhagen or Leipzig just aggressively tedious.

I think people may eventually grow bored with football though tbh. I think there will be a drop off at some point in the not too distant future. I think TV deals will gradually start to reduce.
 
I actually feel a little bit sorry for plastic fans. They'll never know the feeling of following an unfashionable club that represents the town/area you grew up in (or had close family ties to), and seeing that team win a trophy for the first time in its history. Plastics can celebrate "their" teams EPL or CL wins, but I refuse to believe the ecstasy of it all is anywhere near on par with what we did in 2004, simply because a crucial element is missing and is something they can't recreate - that is the bond between an area, the team that represents that area, and the people who have a natural emotional connection to that area that they're from. There's nothing forced or manufactured in the latter. It just is.

The only thing that irks me about plastics is their use of the words 'we' and 'our' when talking about the club they've attached themselves to.

In saying that, I also can't understand how anyone who has no affiliation to Teesside (for example) but who decides to support a club like Boro. It takes a special kind of person to do that - and I mean that in a good way!
 
GazBoro said:
In saying that, I also can't understand how anyone who has no affiliation to Teesside (for example) but who decides to support a club like Boro. It takes a special kind of person to do that - and I mean that in a good way!
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Me.😁😁

And my kids are even further detached, born and bred in Stockport to a dad from Easington (Co. Durham) who are all "proper" Boro fans.

Yeah......my daughter does have a bit of explaining to do quite often.......
 
GazBoro said:
I actually feel a little bit sorry for plastic fans. They'll never know the feeling of following an unfashionable club that represents the town/area you grew up in (or had close family ties to), and seeing that team win a trophy for the first time in its history. Plastics can celebrate "their" teams EPL or CL wins, but I refuse to believe the ecstasy of it all is anywhere near on par with what we did in 2004, simply because a crucial element is missing and is something they can't recreate - that is the bond between an area, the team that represents that area, and the people who have a natural emotional connection to that area that they're from. There's nothing forced or manufactured in the latter. It just is.

The only thing that irks me about plastics is their use of the words 'we' and 'our' when talking about the club they've attached themselves to.

In saying that, I also can't understand how anyone who has no affiliation to Teesside (for example) but who decides to support a club like Boro. It takes a special kind of person to do that - and I mean that in a good way!
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I can think of one special kind of person who hails from London.
 
If you're not going to matches then you're generally not a "proper" fan in my eyes. (Of course there are exceptions if you moved or work away, finances etc). This aimed at big club plastics really.

If you're going to the pub in your strip rather than the match then you're just cosplaying at being a fan. You're no different from the people who dress up as a character from warcraft and go to a convention. That's fine, but don't pretend you're a real fan and "it means more".
 
I dislike the term 'plastic'. We are all just people who follow a team. I caught the bug under Big Jack, so I'm a glory supporter really. Boro aren't my nearest team though so does that make me a 'plastic' to fans of Norton and Stockton Ancients?

I'm also a football 'tourist' despite having a season card at the Boro. I like to ground hop but should I be looked down upon for rocking up at a La Liga game?
 
I find the whole plastic fan thing a bit trite, it's another way of saying "I'm a better fan than you are". A bit like people who can't wait to bump threads or calling people bed wetters any time there is criticism.

Lot of people probably have lower league local football clubs a lot closer to where they live than the Riverside, yet aren't supporting those clubs instead, I see that as no different.

I follow the nfl but I don't follow the Teesside uni team or Teesside steelers or any of that jazz. Doubt any other nfl fans on here grew up around their team of choice either yet are happy to support their team and cheer them on.
 
How many times have you struck up a conversation at a wedding or bbq and you ask which team they support and the reply is Liverpool, Chelsea or Man United. I just switch off as it's boring and unimaginative. (met with oh I had a soft spot for boro when they had Juninho) Invariably they started supporting their (their' loosest sense of the word' team ) at school and followed the crowd. Strike up a conversation with a Barnsley, West Brom, Luton, Halifax fan for example and it provides much more conversation and common ground.
 
h_m_boro said:
I've never, ever, ever had an urge at any time in my life to "support" Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Barcelona etc. So I don't get foreign supporters becoming Uber fans of PL clubs thousands of miles away.

Saw it after the 6-1 defeat to Chelsea - social media was awash with Africans gloating over Chelsea's win. It was extremely bizarre.

But plastic fans aren't just foreigners. "Supporting" a team just because they are "big" and win things is pretty sad. My son is surrounded by them at school, plastic Man City fans, absolutely no ties at all to the club, know f*ck all about the club or it's history. But he rocks in his Boro / County kits, big FU to the plastics.....
👍

Personally, just can't take plastic fans seriously. Have a lot of mates who are in their 40/50s lifelong Man City / Utd fans, who I know will be there (are there) when the glory days end. The rest......🙄
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I get it with kids. Most people end up supporting a lower profile club because their family guide them down that route. My son is a Boro fan but some of his friends parents aren't into football so it makes sense that they end up "supporting" higher profile teams. It's a shame because they'll never get that real bond, but there you go. It's especially prevelant in areas that aren't football strongholds of particular clubs.
 
Jackieemu said:
How many times have you struck up a conversation at a wedding or bbq and you ask which team they support and the reply is Liverpool, Chelsea or Man United. I just switch off as it's boring and unimaginative. (met with oh I had a soft spot for boro when they had Juninho) Invariably they started supporting their (their' loosest sense of the word' team ) at school and followed the crowd. Strike up a conversation with a Barnsley, West Brom, Luton, Halifax fan for example and it provides much more conversation and common ground.
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The thing that I've never understood is when Man Utd and Liverpool fans say they support them because "my Dad supports them, he's from there". Was there a mass exodus from the NW cities in the 60s and 70s or something, or are they just talking ****?
 
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