Why do they hate us?

On Sunday the 9th of January 2011, was my mothers birthday, apart from this important occasion it also marked yet another meeting of English footballs two greats, Manchester United vs Liverpool FC (the most successful club in England) in the FA Cup. Now like you already know, my team is the red one... the real REDS, we're going through a tough patch as my previous post stated. The reason for this blog post is, on the morning of that Sunday, a good twitter friend of mine that hails from the Cape and who supports Manchester United tweeted and I quote: " I have a question... Why is it that nuetrals always support the team Man Utd is playing? "


Now, where do I start?

[please note I will refer to them as "fan" instead of "supporter", yes there is a difference]

Arrogance- Now dont get me wrong, when your team is winning left right and center, the fan has every right to be be arrogant, but some fans tend to take it to the next level. How you may ask? well for one, if things are not going right for them, the world is against them. Secondly they always have to be right, no number of facts proving otherwise is factual besides what they believe. They'll then turn to pesky name calling (fine there is a fair bit of name calling in footy but these guys just get pathetic at it) then digging up past info to hurl at you for not agreeing with them then insist you are jealous. I could go on about the arrogance level of the fan, but that would just amount to a series of paragraphs explaining the low mentality of these of people.

How do they come about? Well ever since 1999 ( the year of the Devil as some call it ) when Manchester United famously clenched the treble by beating Bayern Munich in a thrilling final which saw them win it in the dying seconds of the game, its almost as if a heavy cloud carrying thousands if not millions of United supporters burst over the earth. Littering countries (and especially ours) with these "Glory Hunters". Strong word to call someone, but thats essentially what they are, couldnt name a starting 11 if their life depended on it. Only thing that was important to them was: Fergie, Beckham, Scholes, Giggs, Solskjaer and the most annoying chant you ever heard in your life "Glory Glory Man United"  *wipes away puke*. They'd get up on a Sunday morning (as most games in the league are played on Saturday) see if United have won, whip out that Jersey (real or fake) wear it with pride through out the day, pointing out to anyone that "their team won". Fine some do watch the games, they did so halfheartedly, get annoyed if they didnt see a goal being scored by their team in the ages that they've been sitting in front of the TV (15 minutes) then get excited when one of the few players they do know get the ball but confused as to why they passed it to another lesser known player on the pitch. Now as they years went on from 99, United kept a steady form going by winning the league and various other Cup competitions, so these glory hunters were fed with success, favourtie players changed from Beckham to Ronaldo but that old crock Fergie still remained, good thing too as most of them would be left baffled if he ever left or died.

"OMG! Justin Timberlake is wearing a ManU beanie, Im like sooo supporting that team"

If you ever confronted a glory hunter and told them there are that, they claim they are "passionate", right, refer to the paragraph on arrogant, theres a fine line between passion and being a dimwit. for example, shortly after the game on Sunday, a friend posted something on my facebook wall and by no instigation by myself, so after trying to explain a point a small argument followed.

click to enlargen

Now you see what I said, stubborn, arrogant and resorted to name calling. I wonder if he even read what I typed? I eventually lost hope in trying to educate him so I left it, but of course they always have to have the last say. Its the United way.

Now you see the bad thing with these glory hunters, is that them seem to infect the other true supporters of the said team with the vile they seem is right, hence we tend to get this mixture of arrogant fools all over the place now-a-days. Sure like I said they have a reason to be so but they divulging into the ways of filth that flood us.

Apart from being a supporter of Liverpool football club, I am a fan of the game, so I'll watch any football that is on, especially if its English. So it grates me when these fans of United claim to have knowledge of abundance but in actual fact know diddly squat, but as you can see from that insert, you try to explain that to them. So hence when another team thats playing United defeats them, the footballing world rejoices because most glory hunters go into hiding and we dont need to hear from them till the next time United win, not when they play because they know they are vulnerable to defeat, so its best to come out of hiding once victory is achieved, then they can come out and educate the world on the greatness that is "Sir Alex Ferguson and his team of men"

There are other points I'd like to raise but Im saving them for my next post as this one served just to answer the question that was tweeted. So look out for part 2.