Great read about being a Football fan and a club..
The fabric of a football club will long outlive demand for instant success
That's a good read. Thanks for sharing it.
That really is an excellent read. This passage particularly
A football club is not a stadium, or a kit or a badge. It is not a set of colours or a place. It is not a list of trophies won or managers employed or players signed. It is not the team, because the team always changes, every year, every month, every week. It is not the players, either: it is always strange to me to see one individual -- and there is no better example of this than John Terry, at this point in time -- win the loyalty of the crowd above the club itself. Players are transitory. They come and go, even legends. They must always say goodbye.
A club is not today. Today can be good, bad or indifferent. Today can bring glory and rich promise, or it can be full of frustration and fear. Fans are not consumers: they do not have the option of abandoning their club for a better, more successful option. They cannot abandon it because it is too expensive, or because its standards have slipped. Like your family, you are, essentially, stuck with it.
A club is more than all of those things. A club is a collective memory, passed down from fathers to sons, mothers to daughters, over years and decades and centuries. It is that memory that nourishes you when today offers little, and that inspires you when it promises much. A club is history and lore and often myth, not quite a religion but certainly a faith, unique to you but shared by others.
