Cruel Geography? what's that supposed to mean?
I'm not going to come out and call every Man Utd/Barcelona/New York Yankees/whoever fan a gloryhunter, I'm sure there's a lot of them that have very valid reasons for supporting their team, whether it's living nearby or some kind of family connection, or one of many other potential reasons. But this blog isn't for those people
This is for those people who, for the very same reasons, for the most noble of intentions, have ended up supporting a team or teams that give them nothing but heartbreak. Those held hostage by the economics of a small population and supporter base, or by greedy and/or incompetent ownership and management. Those who keep going through thin and thin with only the occasional minor triumph to sustain them, ignoring the siren call of the those big, popular, successful, easy to follow teams. Those who accept the hand that fate and geography (huh? huh? cruel geography. geddit?)have dealt them and stick with it, because it's just the right thing to do.
I'm not exactly sure which direction this blog will end up taking, at least at the start it's going to have a wierd blend of subjects. Toronto FC, as the only live sport I see nowadays will feature heavily, with a bit of the Toronto Maple Leafs and other North American sport here and there if and when it piques my interest. The other focus will be on the lower divisions of the English Football League, as a Darlington fan, they, and League Two and the Blue Square Premier will probably be overproportionally represented, but I guess we'll see where it ends up.
So thanks for reading, feel free to comment, please come back.
About the author.
Life was so much easier as a kid. When I was about 6 or 7, living out in the English countryside far away from any proper team, and just getting into football (Any North American's reading this, it's pretty safe to assume whenever you see the word football, I'm referring to soccer.) I needed a team to support, I looked at the top of the table and that was it, I was a Liverpool fan. A few simple years followed full of vicarious triumph, trophies, fun, playground camaraderie and way too much tacky merchandise . My Grandad regularly used to try and convince me to support Leeds, where I was born, where most of my family lived, and the club my parents supported. I looked at him as if he had two heads, after all Leeds were in the second division! Eeeeww.
It all went wrong in September of 1987, out of nowhere, a friend suggested a trip to watch Darlington play Grimsby. While Darlington were my local team, (it was a good 30 miles, 45 minute drive away which by British standards was huge) they had never even remotely crossed my radar as a team to follow, but I thought why not, I'll go see a football game. As luck would have it, it was a really good game, Darlo coming back from 4-2 down with two late goals to draw 4-4 on aggregate and go through on away goals. Standing on the terraces in the tin shed in a proper cup tie atmosphere was a whole different experience to watching Liverpool on tv, I enjoyed it enough to go back many times that season. By the time the 88/89 season came along, I was hooked and going to most home games and even the closer away games as well, and Liverpool were swiftly becoming an afterthought. I'd become a real supporter, following my local team, like I should have been all along, nothing but good could come of that decision.
How did that season end? That's right, I spent the last 30 minutes of our relegation clinching 5-1 defeat at Scunthorpe crying (I was 13, is that still young enough to get sympathy rather than mockery? I'm not quite sure) and singing "we'll support you ever more".
To be fair, that was followed up by two really good championship winning years, so it's not all doom and gloom, but relegation immediately followed before unrelenting mediocrity set in.
In 1996, I moved to Canada, and initially lived in Toronto, so not really knowing anything about the North American sports scene, I wanted to get interested and the best way to do that is to have a team to support, and you've got to support the local team right? So Toronto it was, and after a bit of research it seemed fate and geography had dealt me a good hand, the Blue Jays were very recent winners of the world series and still thought of as possible contenders, the Leafs hadn't won the Stanley cup in a while but were a lot better than they had been in years, so surely on the way up, good times ahead it seemed.
Well, anyone familiar with Toronto sports knows how that went. While it would be churlish to blame the BlueJays for not being able to keep up with the big spending yankees and red sox, they've been thoroughly average since I came to town. The Leafs? Well they had a few good years, without ever looking like they were going to win, but they, along with the NBA's Raptors, fell into the clutches of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment(MLSE). Great at making money, but either unwilling or incompetently unable to put together a winning team, they cast a large and dispiriting shadow over Toronto's sports scene, an organisation that's really easy to hate, but that you can't turn your back on, because hey, you've got to support the local team right.
I almost made it out of their grasp, I didn't have a real committment to the Leafs, and when talk of a second team coming to Toronto surfaced, i was more than ready to jump on that. That never happened, instead I switched to a different sport, back to football when in 2007 Toronto FC started, unfortunately also run by MLSE (fair play to them, no-one else was putting up the money to start the team, so I shouldn't complain too much).
It didn't happen right away, after all I already had a football team, and I really hadn't been impressed with MLS, with it's cheerleaders and goal music, American style family entertainment and all that. But I was pleasantly surprised to find they'd gone against all that, in favour of promoting an "authentic football experience". The team was crap, but the atmosphere was great, and after going to a few games the first year, then a few more in year 2, I was hooked and moved into season ticket ownership. The bastards had got me.
Now we're coming towards the end of the teams 4th season, and well, after throwing away a playoff spot in year 3 with a 5-0 loss in their last game of the season in New York (I was there, not as bad as 5-1 at Scunthorpe, but still) they're still crap, looking unlikely to even attain the 8th spot out of 16 teams that would mean a first ever playoff place.
In the meantime, how are Darlington doing? Last year we got relegated to non-league status. So it goes.
