Should supporter loyalty be unconditional?

I love sports! Always have, always will. For me following sports is about friends and family, a sense of community, tribalism as it has been stated above. Back in New Jersey, where I come from, there are three types of sports fans. In southern Jersey they follow the Philadelphia teams: Eagles, Flyers, 76ers and Phillies. In the norther part of the state we are divided into two camps: Old New York and New New York. The first group, usually having longer, deeper family ties to the country and the area support THe Yankees, The Rangers, The Knicks and the Giants. The others support the Mets, Jets, Nets and Islanders or Devils. There is no mixing, no cross pollination. You definitely belong to one of these groups, whole heartedly, for better or worse, til death. It is that simple, it is that black and white. Me, I'm from the Yankees, Rangers, Giants, Knicks tradition. Why, because my dad was, and his dad was, so was his. Same thing on my mom's side of the family (when it comes to NY sports, "mixed marriages" just don't work). In 2002 I moved to Melbourne, as a good local citizen and passionate sports fan, I dove right in to the local sports. I confess that I still don't understand Cricket properly, but I bought memberships to the Melbourne Storm (the only rugby option in town, yes, I just got my Rebel membership) and the Hawthorn Hawks (I settled in Hawthorn). With both of these teams I feel I hit the jackpot! My affiliation with these two clubs has given me more tangible benefits than any of the teams I grew up with! Both the Hawks and the Storm are very fan friendly. Both hold fan events throughout the year that are easily affordable and give the fans ready access to the players. The Hawks have weekly dinners each Thursday night at the Tower in Hawthorn where during the season you can meet and interact with current players and coaches and in the off season with past players and coaches. Over the past eight years, I have met and enjoyed genuine conversations with many players form both teams. In America you NEVER get that kind of access to the athletes, usually only getting up close for 5 seconds at an autograph show where you paid big money to get in and then pay again to get their autograph or a photo with them. I hope Australians truly appreciate how good they have it with their sports down here and how accessible the teams and players are. Maybe it is because the pro codes here are still new in the grand scheme of things and only a generation removed from being amateur clubs, so they still have that down to earth approach, I don't know, but I know I love it. I don't follow the north American sports closely anymore because even with the internet it is too difficult. I'll always be a Yankees/Rangers/Giants/Knicks fan because I couldn't stop doing that anymore than I could stop being Polish/German, it is in my blood. I can however embrace my local sports scene and follow a team from each code and cheer them on in person or on the radio or television each week, wear my colors proudly, and enjoy heated debates with other teams fans. In a funny aside, even though AFL is basically a secular religion in Victoria, you have not experienced true sports passion until you have been in the room with two NY Yankees fans going at it in a heated debate about the Yankees! Two fans (usually brothers) of the SAME TEAM, arguing about various aspects of THAT TEAM! It is hilarious, sometimes scary, but truly impressive to watch. Switching loyalty for me, even as a Gen Xer (born in 1970) has never been an option. It wouldn't matter if a relative played for another team, I still couldn't switch allegiances, in fact there are certain teams that a family member could work for that would get them disowned by the rest of the family. I understand the intense hatred everyone has for Manly and Collingwood, I get it. Its not something I am a part of, because I didn't grow up here, it hasn't been ingrained in me since birth, for instance like hating those other 8 team I mentioned above (as well as the Montreal Canadiennes and the Boston Red Sox). As a good Hawthorn supporter I have trained myself to hate Essendon and will actively cheer for who ever is playing against them each week (even if the win would hurt the Hawks, again this is passion, it has nothing to do with logic or common sense). As a Storm fan I do hate Manly, but only a little more than I hate the rest of the NRL teams (except the Warriors) because as a Melbourne Storm fan you really do feel that it is us against everyone else in the league-the other teams as well as the administration. I love that feeling! It is similar with the Yankees, either you are a Yankees fan or you absolutely hate the Yankees. It is brilliant, and this irrationalism, this passion as well as this tribalism is what makes being a sports fan worth while! Win or lose I'll always love the Hawks, Storm and Rebels. If the Storm fold, I'll stop watching league. I go for the Storm because they are my local team, I've met the players, coaches and staff at the club over the years and they have been wonderful to me, generous with their time, so I have a real connection there on a personal emotional level as well. I'm sorry the Hawks don't train at Glenferrie Oval anymore (but I still run laps around it each morning), I understand the move to Waverly-new state of the art facilities, better for the players and admin staff, and they still have the family day at Glenferrie. I do like the fact that they play some home games in Launceston each season. That rickey old stadium has the feeling of a local club ground like Glenferrie, which is a much nicer atmosphere than the MCG or (whatever it is called this week)Dome. AND it gives me the perfect excuse to spend four long weekends each year in Tassie, which is a beautiful destination. I mentioned earlier about getting my Rebels membership, but until recently I have been a Chiefs fan. I'll fly over for fewer Chiefs games now for sure. I do love NZ and I stay with friends locally when I am there who are Chiefs members. I will definitely fly over for any Chiefs Rebels games. But I live in Melbourne, I went to the Rebels games when they trialed them down here a few years ago, and I will be able to follow them closely here, going to every home game, going to club functions, being a part of the home town crowd. I guess to sum it up for me, being a passionate sports fan is about a sense of family, tribalism if you will, pride of place, or community and a sense of belonging. I am a Melbournian, I hate all things Sydney, and I stick proudly by my local teams.

I dont believe he has dumped them Red but hey I fully endorse your fervour. I often sense the old blood is thicker than H20 virtue has been softened somewhat over the years - sadly and that's the tribalism I allude to that seems to be more of a cliche than anything else these days and also why i become so incensed when the AFL allow such expedience on the part of Footscray towards this footy community I hail from. It's all connected you realise. Good luck v the Saints mate. Yours certainly have the wood on us lately, so I would think you must be feeling quietly confident? Me, I only hope for a good spectacle since I have no tribal fervour to draw on anymore. Cheers

Has little to do with jealousy - contempt more apt. I find Connolly's words repulsive - its OK to respect and admire another team but to adopt the pure filth forget it. Would never dump the Bombers.

I whole heartedly agree with Rohans sentiments Red. They are a club we love to hate and as an old Saints supporter whose family historically supported the Bombers, Blues and Shinboners on my da's side and the Saints on my ma's, I am no exception however they have maintained a great tribalism rare into today's plastic sporting culture. As a Mick myself, I never quite understood why my father disliked the Pies more than any other team in the League, besides an ingrained jealousy perhaps but I somehow felt his anti Collingwood sentiments were more a secret coveting of all they stood for and that they really were our tribe when you got down to it. Most of the Christain Bros school I attended supported the Pies so I do hold a somewhat conflicting affinity for them and will have mixed feelings if they do win the flag this season. They are great for our game of that there is little doubt and we would be more the worse with out them. Go the Pies!

Chris, there's a few on the regular Manly supporters forums. But of course the rivalry will continue in 2013, hard to see even the most one eyed Manly fan not welcoming that.

redb - the words that describe how you are feeling will not get past moderation :) Rohan even put on that smelly black & white top for the photo op. The smell can't be washed off :)

Melbcro - you're so hardcore :) Looks like some some of my mates who went to see the Knights, Sth Melb, Heidelberg play in the old NSL don't think like you. They still support their teams in the VPL but they might only attend the odd game. Now they attend A-League games and they will all be supporting Melbourne Heart. Do you attend A-League games??

get a load of this article in the AGE by Rohan ( i luv Collingwood) Connolly (supposed Essendon fan). http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/stars-in-the-stripes-win-a-new-fan-20100729-10xzn.html#comments Words cannot describe the abject contempt I feel for this bloke!

BigAl Do more people go per capita? Not sure that they do.

That's a fair call however, you could also argue that buy hosting all games at the MCG and Etihad, it suits only those teams that get a large turnout at games. I know the AFL has talked about it recently but it makes sense to do up one of the old smaller venues so that they can host the games that don't draw big crowds. The crowd for North Melbourne vs West Coast in round 3 at Etihad looked sparse but there were 18000 people in attendance. It would be a much different atmosphere in a 30,000 capacity stadium.

Lorry - sure you'll hear people talking about 'the good old days' of suburban home grounds and taking eskies of grog to the ground etc. but the bottom line is that it's far better going to the footie now than it was in those times, This is clearly evidenced by the fact that far more people now go !

Im a generations Y'er and grew up playing and supporting Union... I only feel a level of passion for the wallabies and the waratahs. Although I sometimes watch a bit of club rugby (e.g. Randwick), unless you played for a Sydney rugby club, I don't know if you can really call yourself a tribal supporter... League and AFL have always been more tribal. I don't really follow these sports, but I feel they've probably lost alot of real tribalism since they moved from suburban grounds years ago and teams were amalgamated. When I was in Melbourne at the MCG watching Hawthorn and (another Melbourne team - can't remember!), I was stunned when the Hawks supporter next to me said: "this is our home game"! Obviously it's a great stadium but home ground advantage is defunct there, I would imagine. I've always liked this clip "That's the thing about football" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeJNFKdQUe8 that aired in the late-80s. I mean, I've heard the grounds were crap, cold, took hours to get in, you got soaked if it rained but it seems kind of special... Actually there was an interesting article in The Age recently. It basically said that, despite being more sterile, overall things are better at the football now than they were when you could take alcohol to the ground. Does anyone old enough to remember the days when you could take alcohol into the ground remember what it was like? I'd be interested to hear some stories/thoughts

"When the old NSL ended, some clubs ceased to exist while others continued on in name only in the state leagues, barely substitute for the elite status they once held. Most supporters of NSL clubs went on to support an A-League team – hardly an act of turncoat-ism but a reflection that the landscape for the round-ball code had changed and the supporters had changed with the time." Really? I still support the Melbourne Knights, and my club still very much exists. And the existence is more than in just name only. I have no problem calling any former Knights fan that has substiuted the Knights for an A-League club a traitor and a turncoat.

Michael C I miss not supporting 'the club' and that is why I simply support the code. I think you are splitting hairs a bit in respect of pvt versus community. Who's to say Russell Crowe, Andrew Denton or Elton John were not primarily driven by an honest passion for their respective clubs. I believe the Rabbitos story was a very positive one since their codes governing body were not at all supportive of that club being mainatined. Clubs on the margins i.e. North and the Doggies who are hanging on for dear life while the AFL play Pontius Pilot in the passively detached and pragmatic way they go about their business. The recent example of Foot es cray, who are in obvious need of a commercial boost, could easily have been given a financial incentive to mainatin a presence in the ACT by the AFL rather than have them take their business off shore to NZ. Instead the AFL gave them their blessing, quite literally washing their hands of any reponsibility to the their duty of care to the game, stating that it was not their role to influence club dealings in this respect - bollocks! Who knows Michael, teams i.e your's could well benefit from a Russell Crowe or two if only to maintain their geographic identity beyond becoming a generic brand that wonders aimlessly from place to place. Cheers

As a couple of other posters have already said, I doubt Manly picked up one disgruntled Bears fan. But that introduces a new category - the "merged club." The Northern Eagles merger was doomed from the beginning because it was unlikely that either set of fans could bring themselves to accept that they were one happy family. The end of the merger was the best thing to happen in rugby league in the NRL era, especially if it eventually means the re-introduction of the Bears in 2013. As for following a "second" club - that has given me issues. I'm a Sheffield Wednesday fan by virtue of a long-ago family connection, and was lucky enough to play for them too (thought the two points are unrelated). But the first English team I remember seeing was Leeds United and have supported them ever since. When the two clubs meet, I'm torn...

the distinction that Joel draws is one I share and is probably more unique to the AFL fraternity where clubs tend to be member based and not privately owned. Personally - - I feel no desire to support clubs owned by Clive Palmer or Russell Crowe or News Ltd or some other wealthy band of individuals. Sure, let them put their money on the table - - but, do so as a wealthy 'supporter' rather than an ego driven owner. I do reckon though - - that's perhaps all well and good at the 'club first' perspective. i.e. I choose to support the club entity primarily and want to feel good about it and feel valued and part of a club community. However, those people who support the 'code' as a matter of principle - - then, the particulars of the structure of a club per se may not be so important. i.e. a soccer fan who is just happy to have a game to watch and signs up to MVFC and is primarily supporting the 'code' and only now with the choice of Hearts is forced to confront their own motivation.

Joel. I appreciate the distinction you make between private and community however 'Clubs' i.e the Shinboners have little choice but to yeild to the corporate demands of modern day sporting outcomes and that is the bottom line for both models so in that respect your analogy is bordering on semantics - perhaps. So North will go a roving again, this time to Tassie for commercial gains integral to their survival as they did with the ACT. It would seem these once proud but now struggling clubs/businesses have little choice if they are to be sustainable in the 'big league' however this does compromise the loyalty and passion of many supoorters and members - to be sure. I don't support any clubs at the elite level these days for this very reason and certainly hold the same sentiment as aussiegnome in this respect. These sporting brands simply don't offer any substance for me since any connection to my community or the tribe they try to manufacture is an illusion of the corporate machine.

I think a distinction needs to be made between privately owned and community owned clubs even though they may all appear to be run like ruthless corporations. There is no way I would be as loyal to my club if it was privately owned. I don't mind giving my money to my club because I know it exists for itself and not to serve profit or some business objective.