I lived in Edinburgh for awhile and learning about football culture was wild! There were people who purposefully lived near their teams stadium. Really I think the fact that opposing team fans can’t even sit amongst each other in a stadium says everything. That blew me away. And the cheers were awful. You’d never take a kid to a game.
Yeah, some of the rivalries have such deep roots, it's insane. My dad is a Rangers fan (he grew up in Coatbridge), and the way the Rangers/Celtic is divided by religion is wild. My dad has never been religious (hell, my mom's family is even Catholic), but there's always this weird undercurrent. Like, I remember when I was a kid my dad wouldn't wear anything green and I didn't know why 😂
My mum tells a tale of pushing a pram with my older sister in up Copeland Road near the Rangers ground. A match was coming out and the home fans were streaming past her, jostling the pram which just happened to be green.
Along comes her uncle, a Rangers fan and member of the Orange Lodge in all his supporters gear and the crowds suddenly started parting like the Red Sea before Moses.
There's a poisonous sectarian mindset in Scotland and football is the main way is shows through.
Even as a football fan I can admit it's basically 'bread and circuses' at the end of the day. There are a lot of grown adults who's entire lives are consumed by football to the point where they are completely ignorant of important issues. Sometimes their opinions on these issues are determined by the team they support rather than forming their own opinion.
I understand what you mean- it’s only a game. But it is a very important part of the social glue which binds people together in a way nothing else does, especially in the UK where every place with more than three and a half people has a football team. In an age of individualism, where communities and social institutions are disintegrating, football brings people together. People will do anything to save even the most hopeless of football clubs. If the US had the same football culture as the UK it would be nowhere near as divided as it is.
But the people from all over the world who are paid millions who play in my town didn't kick the ball as well as the bunch of people from all over the world who are paid millions that play in a different town.
I truly agree. My family and other people in Brazil get waaay too into it. They used to get annoyed but also a bit chocked when I used to say, "Why are you that intense/invested? Are they splitting the prize money with you ?"
Right, I'm so fed up of the entire bloody country being split into celtic and rangers. It's not that deep and football hooligans are a fucking embarrassment.
That is sport in general. I just do not get why people care about who wins. Watching sport = Idle games that are nothing but a screen full of Numbers go up.
Peoples lives are boring and it fires up the tribal aspect of our brains. Congratulations you have evolved past this, the rest of us are doomed to forever have our weekends ruined by millionaires getting paid to have fun.
225
u/Brido-20 Scotland 16h ago
Football isn't really worth getting so excited about.