The "most important" fans of the club
- Thread starter RedBanker
- Start date
Who is shitting on foreigners that go to games? Nobody in this thread, as far as I can see. The opposite, if anything.
The Radcliffe comments are just an appeal to what a hell of a lot of people think matters in a football club. And that’s its historic roots to the community in which it is based. And I can’t see anything wrong with that. A club can be rooted in a community and welcoming to fans from overseas at the same time. In fact, that’s historically been very much the case at Manchester United.
Nice analysis.
The guy from Cork will spend maybe 1/2 nights in a hotel and go on a bender for 2 days therefore he’s bringing more into Manchester than local guy who goes to game and fecks off home after no ?
That I agree with. It's highly subjective and there isn't a lot of genuinely bad answers.
If we’re judging them by how much money they spend in the local Manchester economy each year then there’s only one winner and it’s not the guy from Cork.
What kind of insecure child even thinks about shit like this?
My post clearly mentioned where the OP comes from, it comes a post from one of the other threads.
This is fair.
Also, fans' own circumstances and lives impact how they'd view new ownership too. If you are a LGBTQ United fan for example then some of the baggage this state-backed bid carries is going to land a lot closer to home. As is the nastier side of the discussion it has brought, by which I mean a lot of the homophobic abuse you see directed at the likes of Rainbow Reds or that journalist Adam Crafton for being critical.
I think looking at importance in terms of what revenue each fan brings in to the club isn’t the way to do it either.
It would be much easier to understand a reference to a specific post if you quoted the post in question. Otherwise it looks like you’re discussing the general themes in this thread.
Yeah absolutely
Name and shame this person.
Its tripe, everyone is equally as important, people travel from all over the UK every week to see United. People also travel from all over the world to come see United. So the idea that people that live within 20 minutes of the stadium are more important is absolute hogwash.
Here you have the original posts.
Also as an aside, it's a bit naive to think that Ratcliffe comments are innocent. Manchester United never left Manchester, suggesting otherwise is a typical tactic used by a certain type of politicians.
How can you read that post and the post he is referring to (where putting the Manchester into Manchester United is apparently xenophobia) and think it supports your claims?
So now the Utd fans who love taking the piss out of City fans for their small minded " you don''t even live in Manchester" chants are basically jumping on the same bandwagon.
For about a year now I've been coming to Manchester 3 days a month for work so I reckon I'm now 10% more of a fan than before. Can I have some official Manchester Top Red to validate this please?
For about a year now I've been coming to Manchester 3 days a month for work so I reckon I'm now 10% more of a fan than before. Can I have some official Manchester Top Red to validate this please?
Strange thread. Bit of a dick measuring contest. My wife’s from America and she has mates there asking me to sort cup final tickets or Barca tickets and they’ll fly over. Likewise she has cousins in Pakistan who dream of one day coming to Old Trafford. My good friend moved to China and when I’ve gone to visit the United fans over there go crazy at the pub during united games as much as the Stretford End.
My Dad (who’s um a Liverpool fan) has been football mad all his life too. He’s from East Africa, moved to Manchester in his 20s. Funnily enough he moved here following his mate who chose to move to Manchester because he was a massive United fan. Doesn’t go to games but watches every minute of every game.
Their support is the same as my support as a local ST holder.
Historically the support started by being local. The global fame grew over the decades.
One thing many people don’t realise though. The local fans aren’t BREXIT Fans. There’s a massive diversity. Arguably 10/20% are immigrants/ children of immigrants. A lot of this fan base don’t give a shit that Sir Jim is white and local.
My Dad (who’s um a Liverpool fan) has been football mad all his life too. He’s from East Africa, moved to Manchester in his 20s. Funnily enough he moved here following his mate who chose to move to Manchester because he was a massive United fan. Doesn’t go to games but watches every minute of every game.
Their support is the same as my support as a local ST holder.
Historically the support started by being local. The global fame grew over the decades.
One thing many people don’t realise though. The local fans aren’t BREXIT Fans. There’s a massive diversity. Arguably 10/20% are immigrants/ children of immigrants. A lot of this fan base don’t give a shit that Sir Jim is white and local.
How can you not? At which point do you think that reducing an international fan to someone looking for ding dongs?
To be clear, the moment you use pejorative terms, your intention is obvious.
Ah yes. Hardcore fans those.
Wish people would fk off with this elitism. It really makes my blood boil.
I once was visiting a massive cave structure in Vietnam. The caretaker of these caves lived in a literal smaller cave with his family. It was not really caveman style. They had chairs and rugs etc but it was a cave. As I passed I saw this family sat around a beat up tv attached to a satellite dish and somehow watching a Man United game. I couldn't believe it. 3 generations. Little kids to old grandmas. Most sat in beat up old Man United shirts they got from who knows where. As I was outside staring they found out I was a United supporter and invited me in. So I missed the cave tour and sat with this family watching United.
I have also been in a shanty town in Kenya. They have literally fk all. But they put together a pub out of scrap metal and they play the games. The whole shanty town comes around on matchday again in their beat up old Manchester United tops and support Manchester United.
I was also in Thailand and was set upon by some scousers who were threatening to knife me for no other reason than I was a United supporter. I thought I was done for but then a few local Man United supporters stepped in and helped me for no other reason than we are brothers.
These stories are repeated all over the world from India to Africa to South America. They are as fervent and loyal and Man United crazy as any fan.
I'm not having that any united supporter is less than because they cant afford to get to a game or they don't buy enough shirts. A United fan is a united fan full stop.
I once was visiting a massive cave structure in Vietnam. The caretaker of these caves lived in a literal smaller cave with his family. It was not really caveman style. They had chairs and rugs etc but it was a cave. As I passed I saw this family sat around a beat up tv attached to a satellite dish and somehow watching a Man United game. I couldn't believe it. 3 generations. Little kids to old grandmas. Most sat in beat up old Man United shirts they got from who knows where. As I was outside staring they found out I was a United supporter and invited me in. So I missed the cave tour and sat with this family watching United.
I have also been in a shanty town in Kenya. They have literally fk all. But they put together a pub out of scrap metal and they play the games. The whole shanty town comes around on matchday again in their beat up old Manchester United tops and support Manchester United.
I was also in Thailand and was set upon by some scousers who were threatening to knife me for no other reason than I was a United supporter. I thought I was done for but then a few local Man United supporters stepped in and helped me for no other reason than we are brothers.
These stories are repeated all over the world from India to Africa to South America. They are as fervent and loyal and Man United crazy as any fan.
I'm not having that any united supporter is less than because they cant afford to get to a game or they don't buy enough shirts. A United fan is a united fan full stop.
It's Eamonn Holmes.
That.. is not what was said at all? I can’t even imagine how you can get that from the post unless you are looking for an insult.
Think this is pretty much spot on, but must have hit a nerve so (having followed the Caf for years) I'm going to break my newbie duck. So...
What about fans who come from a family of Utd supporters - who grew up going to OT together in the 70s?
What about length of service (45 yrs+) and not even thinking of giving up, even when we were a bit shit?
What about knowing the history of your club?
Surely these have got to count for something (3 to 4, duffer - seriously!?). Just asking for a friend of course...
Oh no. They've decided I'm not an important Manchester United fan. My life is over.
So the post didn't show contempt toward international fans?
Exactly. If you cannot be bother upping sticks and moving to Manchester to watch Utd every week then thats on you.
Dont dare try to call yourself a fan. In fact stop talking and get off this thread now
Well the original posts don’t mention nationality either. Just mentions fans based in Manchester. Which has always been a melting pot, hence the local match-going fans have always been diverse. I don’t think you need to jump from that to implicit xenophobia. And I don’t have any problem with people getting pissed off at the idea that the fact this is a Manchester based club, created by and for the people of Manchester, is no longer relevant or important.
I just don’t get why foreign fans (the category I belong to) are so sensitive about this stuff. We support a Manchester football club. The clue is in the name. So our relationship with it is different to people who are from Manchester. We really need to accept this.
Not at all. It’s just saying the most important fans are the ones in the locality of the club. And that is a sentiment that is blindingly obvious.
The club is based in Manchester. The stadium is in Manchester. The training ground is in Greater Manchester. The players live in the surrounding Greater Manchester area and any investment or significant change to any of these things will primarily affect the people who live in and near Manchester more than any of the rest of us. Football isn’t like American sporting franchises where picking the club up and moving it somewhere is no biggie. It’s embedded in the culture of the area… literally.
Furthermore regular match going fans (who may not exclusively be from Manchester, incidentally) who travel not just to OT every other weekend, but across the country ever other, to European and domestic cup comps in the week, and basically organise their entire life around physically following the club and supporting the players in person, are the life blood of the team, and football in general, and absolutely the most important fans.
It’s not some kind of weird inverse Daily Mail strawman where everyone in Manchester just plops out and is given a free seat at OT that some far more deserving foreigner would kill for! The idea local matchgoers are simply “lucky” be be born near, rather than it being part of their cultural heritage is such a weird, myopic way of looking at it.
I am none of these things btw (I’m I Londoner who goes to a decent but declining amount of games) but I think you’ve gotta be pretty insecure about your support to argue it’s not the case. No, we aren’t as important. It’s not your fault you live half the world away, but tough. You don’t get to play for Brazil either or be James Bond. Who cares? I’ve genuinely no idea why people are so weird about it!
It’s interesting that people can watch things like Welcome to Wrexham and see and even champion how important the football club is for the local community and then conclude that Manchester United is now so big that it need no longer apply AT ALL… Should all Mancunians support City then? Or just not have a club at all? It does genuinely feel like some online fans would rather the club lose its Manc/UK roots entirely so they’d feel better about/closer to it… which strikes me as a kind of weird form of cultural appropriation.
Non-locals can be brilliant fans, but we should surely always be respectful of the fact we support a club in Manchester:.. and those who aren’t (and there are loads online) are far more disrespectful than British fans who’re a bit sniffy at them IMO
Nah this is wishy washy bullshit.
What is the intent behind this " international fans flying in just for a ding dong "?
I didn't make anything of it in the original thread because I don't care enough, but lets not be silly, you know exactly what he was doing.
And btw Manchester > Manchester United
I genuinely think the point he was making is the people who fought for the club and got involved in a “ding dong” and literally stopped a premier league game from happening were the locals who were furious over the way the club was treated. The point being the actual fans at games, boots on the ground are involved in the “ding dongs”. That is slang for fighting by the way.
Which part is whichy whashy?
In order to be as big and successful as it is Manchester United needs money and local support. Money is mainly down to international viewers and people that don't go to the stadium, local support is from locals.
Fair enough.
Local doesn’t mean stadium going, and non -Manchester often does. So I think the question about being from Manchester should be answered with different rationale.
There is a post on the first page that says match day income is worth around 30% of all commercial income. So those 80,000 there on matchday certainly contribute more per person by a huge margin.
I am disappointed in this forum. The stance this forum takes on other matters is a breath of fresh air. I have always seen members come out in protest against elitism and xenophobia but I think in this particular matter, we are having a brain fart. I never thought I will read so many opinions on a single thread with which I disagree wholeheartedly.
No fan is more important than others. Period.
You are not more important purely because you live in close proximity to a global football club. You are not more special because you choose to spend on match tickets. You are in no position to lock others out of the “special fan” status because United is established in Manchester.
It is the same as protectionism. It is the same as saying that despite globalism, my people are more important so should get special status for jobs. My businesses are more important so should be getting subsidies. No one is allowed to compete with them because some time ago, our markets were closed and then it only belonged to us.
No fan is more important than others. Period.
You are not more important purely because you live in close proximity to a global football club. You are not more special because you choose to spend on match tickets. You are in no position to lock others out of the “special fan” status because United is established in Manchester.
It is the same as protectionism. It is the same as saying that despite globalism, my people are more important so should get special status for jobs. My businesses are more important so should be getting subsidies. No one is allowed to compete with them because some time ago, our markets were closed and then it only belonged to us.
Collectively, but not individually.
Anyone with a season ticket is putting more into United's bank account than someone who subscribes to the TV channels we are shown on. Then many with season tickets will also subscribe anyway so they can watch away games, plus other football matches in general as they're big fans of the sport.
If you want to go with a per person hierarchy of fans, go ahead. I won't though.