is there anyone who is a fan of the English premier league?judging by the number of yanks, i doubt it!im a Liverpool fan and i am so frustrated with our current form/
I’m a Palace fan, so I’m delighted by Liverpool’s current form. They can improve now, though, for all I care.
I am an Arsenal fan and therefore laugh at the liverpool fan and shake the palace fan’s hand.
Another Arsenal fan, I follow on Fox Sports World over here in the States.
I watch quite a few of the games at the English pub here in Dallas, but being a Yank I haven’t decided which team is my favorite. I usually end up rooting (quietly) for the other team than the one the local Brits are pulling for. If the favorite loses I don’t have to listen to the Brits loud drunken bravado and singing for hours afterwards. 
minega – there are plenty of people on these boards who are interested in the Beautiful Game and although my screen name will probably tell you that I’m not unhappy with Liverpool’s current form either, I’m sure you can expect some comments that aren’t just jokes at their expense.
I’ve noticed certain Dopers claiming to support Spurs and Leeds, for example, as well as Oldham, Coventry, Wolves and Leicester from outside the Premiership (and I’m sure I’ve forgotten some more). There are also fans of Scottish, Irish and European teams that will be attracted by your thread title and might have some comments to make. Most of the comments from the USA have been negative ones from people who don’t “get” our sport, but that’s by no means universal – you can certainly expect some contributions from Americans who are interested.
Growing up where I did, if you didn’t have any interest in football, music or politics you’d be left out of 90% of the conversations and I’m part of the third generation in my family to support Everton. Naturally it’s much easier for me to get to matches here than if I lived in Rwanda, so I’d like to ask you:
[ul][li]How do you keep in touch with the English Premiership and do you have a local team to support as well?[/li]How did you first become interested in football and why pick the English league as opposed to the Italian, Spanish or French, for example?[/ul]rsa – supporting the underdog is generally a good idea if you don’t already have a favourite team in a game, that’s what I usually do if I don’t have an axe to grind. You’re a brave man calling yourself a Yank in Texas too aren’t you?
Problem with being a fan, is that when your club does stupid stuff, logic says walk away, but reality is you can’t.
>sigh<
soccer???
it’s called football…
Royal Berk wrote:
are you looking forward to sunday?!
I’m a Leeds United fan and was at selhurst the last time we played you in the cup 6 years ago. it was a cracking game which you almost won - it finished 2-2 after nigel martyn saved a penalty in the 90th minute!
Cetainly am, I have lots of kind words to pass on to that very honest Mr.Venables.
A football match may occur whilst we’re doing that.
make him squirm!
I’m a Sunderland fan, don’t want to talk about football now!
it isnt hard to keep track…its on the pay channels and u can watch it in any bar in town. alternatively there is BBC sportsworld if u cant get to ascreen or the net. I am not calling for Houlliers head yet as many are but im tired of our cautious tactics adn the continuing tampering with the forward line; hard to belive that OWen is firing blanks.
How did i get to support Liverpool? cant really trace the moment i fell in love with them and likewise for why i love the premiership. it is so popular here that its incredible. I enjoy the Italian and Spanish leagues too though but not as much as the permier league.
Cool to see many soccer-oops football-fans here.
Oh, boo hoo, cry me a river. I’m a Sheffield Wednesday fan. We would kill to be in your position right now.
Howard Wilkinson was actually good when he was managing us, oh so long ago…
(That didn’t sound right… there should’ve been a winky smiley there somewhere. Anyway, hope both our teams can stay up.)
Comiserations sc913, all the Wednesday fans I know are very depressed about their current predicament (and Blades fans understandably amused) but I haven’t been able to get a coherent explanation for it. What’s your theory? It can’t all be about carrying too big a wage bill into the First Division.
Slow, horrible decline, with a boardroom taking the easy way out all the time. It all started in 97, with Richards firing Big Ron, to take revenge… That’s a very long story. A lot of the problems do stem from carrying too big a wage bill down from the premiership. Especially a couple of Scots signed from Celtic (Donnelly and O’Donnell), who are always crocked, on 15k a season. Things are improving in that respect though. Wednesday seem to be in better shape financially than clubs like Ipswich and Leicester (who needed a last minute rescue), and even though we can’t afford to sign anybody, at least there’s no immediate danger of going under. That might change with relegation, though.
Anyway, for this season, Yorath should’ve never got a contract after keeping us up last time. The club needed a complete regime change. With Yorath, the same problems as last season were just continued. He kept us up, but he wasn’t good enough to do anything more. His signings were terrible (Kuqi is a horrible striker, even if his goals did keep us up last season), he played all his favourites while ignoring some good young talent (a lot of which has gone downhill). There haven’t been any good young players coming through the ranks either.
The appointment of Turner has been a step in the right direction. He’s Wednesday through and through, and he’s been doing a lot of things right. He’s got in good players on loan and free transfers, though our highest earner and best player (and also least consistent, the kind of player usually described as enigmatic), Gerald Sibon, had to be sold to make those possible. A lot of the useless gits who got assured places under Yorath have thankfully been dropped, and we’ve got some good results. I think that he’s good enough to take us higher up the table next season, maybe even the playoffs, IF we can stay up. Especially since the last of the high wage earners will be off the tab next season, and Turner’s done well enough to suggest he can find cheap, decent replacements, on lower salaries.
I can’t even imagine what will happen if we go down. 
Did that post make sense? Sorry about all the parantheses. I think this story’s best told and heard after a few pints. Bloody depressing stuff. The premiership is a hazy memory, a long long way away.
Sheffield Wednesdays woes are all too common for relegated clubs despite the golden parachute that was supposed to let them down easy.
Couple of other clubs that fit the bill,
Bradford
Barnsley
Huddersfield - they will be there next season unfortunately.
It looks like the price of failure is getting more serious all the time, and when desperate clubs gamble it rarely pays off and just exacerabates things the following seaon.
I imagine that the best option is to make your decisions around Christmas, decide that you are going down and then start to cash in on your assets and reduce your wage bill, maybe you will then only go down one division and maybe the threat of bankruptcy will dissappear.
Can’t see the fans gpoing for that though, we are all way too short term folk.
This coming from a Leed fan.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by everton *
**
[list][li]How do you keep in touch with the English Premiership and do you have a local team to support as well?[/li][li]How did you first become interested in football and why pick the English league as opposed to the Italian, Spanish or French, for example?[/list **[/li][/QUOTE]
I am an Arsenal supporter and have been since 1987. PL games is on pay-TV(Canal+ or Sky Sports) in Norway so I have to go to pubs to watch the games but the FA-cup (like ManU-Arsenal today) are on national channels. I have a local team but they are in the lower divisions in Norway so I can’t watch them when I’m not home.
English football was on the Norwegian state channel(NRK) from the 60’s and many Norwegians got a favourite English team growing up and watching English football in the winter. Which explains why for example Notts County has a Norwegian fan-club.
They were our revenge for Regi Blinker.
(Donnelly’s better when he’s crocked, anyway. It means you don’t have to actually play him.)
Oldham Athletic fan here, with a fairly lengthy history of watching Farnborough Town too.