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Long Lost 8:18 Wed Aug 11
Are you a lifer?

I’d be amazed if anyone on here wasn’t. Sky sports reckon only a third of fans support one team only and will stick with them

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.skysports.com/amp/football/news/11095/12378024/football-fandom-in-2021-lifer-statto-how-uk-football-fan-culture-is-changing

Country, dogs…

Billy Blagg 5:08 Fri Aug 13
Re: Are you a lifer?

A THIRD? Who are these people. Let's weed them out.

Bungo 3:06 Fri Aug 13
Re: Are you a lifer?

Retain a fondness for Hampton and Richmond FC since Dev was the manager and we had that pre-season game there.

I remember lots of southern Liverpool fans many years back due to their success at the time. I actually don't remember anyone switching allegiance even when we were kids.

pdbis 2:43 Fri Aug 13
Re: Are you a lifer?

True football fans are lifers. I remember back in the seventies some kids changed their teams weekly depending who was top of the first division.

davese16 11:44 Fri Aug 13
Re: Are you a lifer?

my step granfad was proper hardcore west ham, if anyone remembers the old annual footbal book SHOOT he was featured under the heading trouble, he took offence when someone badly injured malcom allison and went onto the pitch, george was a tough east end docker, my dad was west ham through and through, took me to my first game as a 5 year old v spuds in the west stand, i took my eldest son to games as a teenager, we both now have season tickets, he took his 4 year old son to the wba cup game last year, and last week for the atlanta game my grandson now 5 and my grandaughter also 5 went (her first game), they are both already singing bubbles, my grandson sings the ludo song, when its family tradition id say yes we are lifers.

onsideman 11:30 Fri Aug 13
Re: Are you a lifer?

Family on both sides from Barking and East Ham and all staunch hammers. Mum's uncle played for us in the early 1900s. Never been any option for me (or my kids to be frank). Absolute lifer

Chigwell 11:16 Fri Aug 13
Re: Are you a lifer?

Started being a West ham fan around 1964 (FA Cup win plus my Dad had taught Ronnie Boyce at school). Dad had previously taken me to Spurs after they had twice won the Division 1 title, but then I was a bit too young to be really keen. Thanks to my Dad then for a lifetime of anxiety, combined with being easily pleased at moderate success.

Balto 10:48 Thu Aug 12
Re: Are you a lifer?

Yes, I started supporting West Ham the day after they won the World Cup in 1966.

No history of football supporters in the family. We lived in Salisbury, Wilts.

I nagged my Dad to take me to Upton Park which he did. 140 mile round trip.

Live in California now. My youngest son (18) is a die hard Hammer. He plays "soccer" at a high level here. He loved the spirit in the team last season.

Jasnik 10:47 Thu Aug 12
Re: Are you a lifer?

No I decided at a young age I would go with a team who let me down, build me up to just kick me in the teeth .
Claw defeat from the hands of victory.
Promise me everything and give me nothing .

so with us nearly getting in to Champions league and now Europe I really need to start to think about where my loyalties lie as this is not something I signed up for.

The Mercernary 10:31 Thu Aug 12
Re: Are you a lifer?

Scrap this rule about not having a second club - Portsmouth it is, after their rendition of Bubbles v Millwall!

https://fanbanter.co.uk/west-ham-fans-will-proper-love-what-pompey-supporters-did-at-millwall/

Texas Iron 10:26 Thu Aug 12
Re: Are you a lifer?

Yes…since 1957…

southbankbornnbred 10:17 Thu Aug 12
Re: Are you a lifer?

I'm amazed to discover that, apparently, there are other football clubs. Fuck that. Choice is over-rated.

The Mercernary 10:11 Thu Aug 12
Re: Are you a lifer?

This has reminded me that my dad had 2 teams - Bolton and Liverpool. His idol was Nat Lofthouse and he went to loads of their games, so it always baffled me as to how he could like Liverpool too. I seem to remember it was because he enjoyed watching them doing well in Europe in the 70s, so perhaps it was just a genuine soft spot for them.

Thankfully I saw pictures of Bobby Moore everywhere I went and I was hooked from then on. What a combination - Moore the icon and the beautiful claret and blue!

gph 9:44 Thu Aug 12
Re: Are you a lifer?

E⚒eter?

norwaytips 7:03 Thu Aug 12
Re: Are you a lifer?

My great grandfather worked for Thames Ironworks, my grandfather lived his life in West Ham, my Dad grew up there and so did I.
Played for West Ham schoolboys and Clapton, before moving out so Suffolk.
I couldn’t be anything else but West Ham, as are my kids and grandchildren. So far, we are 6 generations of Hammers.

WHU(Exeter) 6:47 Thu Aug 12
Re: Are you a lifer?

Supported for 45 years now and would never have switched.

If my Dad hadn't had a job working Saturday's he'd have taken me to Exeter City games as a nipper, but all my early footbal! watching as a kid was on the box. As a kid a quote I read years later was true to me "in those years all the other teams were playing in black and white, West Ham were playing in colour" that was it for me.

There were a lot of West Ham fans in Exeter, local park was covered in crossed hammers grafitti. MOST of the West Ham fans I knew actually bothered going to games for years unlike fans of other clubs.

Northern Sold 5:43 Thu Aug 12
Re: Are you a lifer?

Old man dragged me over UP at 4 years old… standing on a c&b painted stool in the NB… Barking born and bred we had no choice… Mum was looked after by Mrs Moore…. whole family c&b… during the 70’s I did have a bit of a dabble with LFC… my Auntie was a STH at both WHU and LFC… took us to a couple of games at Merseyside… Man U and Norwich… really enjoyed it… and even probably still the greatest footballing team I have still came back home… loved my time at UP… Mates… family… even the missus… great memories… that the modern shit hole can never tarnish…. Irons x

Lily Hammer 4:03 Thu Aug 12
Re: Are you a lifer?

I can’t get into this two teams business, but I can handle it more from others when the second team are generally shit. So I don’t mind Irvin Welsh, for example, having us as his second team after Hibs, because he relates to our traditional fan base. He actually regularly comes (or at least came) to games and drank with proper Hammers, not just watched us on TV. Nobody can call him a glory hunter, that’s for sure.

I never follow other clubs, but will nearly always root for any David vs any Goliath.

arsene york-hunt 3:47 Thu Aug 12
Re: Are you a lifer?

Southerner who support Man utd or the scouse scum should be culled. In the words of WS Gilbert "They'd none of them be missed."

Grumpster 3:37 Thu Aug 12
Re: Are you a lifer?

Were the local team in Hornchurch (within reason) and literally every cunt at both Langtons and Emerson Park in the 80's were West Ham with the odd Liverpool fan and a couple of yids.

Literally didn't have a friend who supported anyone other than those clubs until I left school, as before TV took over football, the majority supported their local team and Liverpool was normally passed down from previous glory hunting siblings as they won fucking everything for years and years.

The yid(s) were Ian Hendon and a chap called Tony Grimley who became a DJ!

Thankfully don't know anyone odd enough to change their team.

El Scorchio 3:26 Thu Aug 12
Re: Are you a lifer?

Yup I'm a WHU lifer. Have supported us as long as I can remember, and will do until I or the club are no more.

An ex of mine's sister's now husband was an odd one. He was from and 'supported' Hull but had Arsenal as his 'London team'. Proper weird. How can you 'support' two teams? I couldn't take him seriously. He said that if Hull played Arsenal he'd probably want Hull to win....

I think it's just symptomatic of what people are like these days. Partly to 'fit in' and partly to support someone who wins things occasionally.

Arsenal seem the London club of choice for weak willed people who want to jump on a football club. I know so many 'nouveau' Arsenal fans- it's a strategic choice. Not successful enough you'll be called a glory hunter (Chelsea) but not cunty enough to be labelled a cunt for supporting them (Spurs). But definitely successful enough you'll be able to get enough reflected glory when they do win. Of course it's all gone down the shitter for them last 5 years so most have given up on their 'hobby'.

They are still slightly a cut above the southern Man U and Liverpool fans though.

chim chim cha boo 1:10 Thu Aug 12
Re: Are you a lifer?

One of my oldest friends, Dee Dee turned up with a sweaty who purported to support Chelsea.

She doesn't really like or understand football (she's Canadian) so I said to her that you can tell a lot about a person by the team they support.

She said that it was bollocks so I said to her no-mark new boyfriend 'okay, is anything I am about to say bollocks?'

'You might support Chelsea in England because you live here but you are rabidly anti-Catholic and REALLY support Rangers'?

She then said that they'd been walking down the road in South Kensington and he'd refused to have a nose around a Catholic church.

There's a hidden undercurrent in football supporters and always has been.

I think one of the things I love most about West Ham is that we're not part of that religious bollocks although some try and make out that we're a team that leans towards Catholicism because of Ann Bolyn and St Johns Catholic school being on the site of Upton Park.

I think that supporting TWO teams that lose so often would finish me off so fuck that.

Some of my pals kids (middle class) say 'my English team is Man City and I also support Barcelona' or something similar. I count to ten in my head when they say that and swerve the little cunts from then on. You can tell that they are going to be wankers in charge of companies in Surrey that nobody likes in the future.

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