THE NATURE OF SUPPORT

[brighton_rebel]

I've posted Steve Cucumbers excellent programme article about supporting Slough on my blog. Top stuff. http://sloughtownsoapbox.blogspot.com/2011/11/nature-of-support.html

[Edinburgh Rebel]

Interesting article.

 

I have to say that some of it could apply for other clubs. I support Hearts and the level they play at is obviously very different and our average crowd this season is nearly 14,000 (and not too long ago we were selling out every game: 17,000+ capacity).

 

A couple of similarities stood out or me. The point about the extreme reactions you get on the forum after a win or a loss. That can certainly be applied to the Hearts forum. Again, the forum obviously has far more members, but it's definitely something a lot of people have noticed. If we win a match then you go on the forum and everyone's talking about us splitting the Old Firm. If you lose then it's doom and gloom and the forum is best avoided for a couple of days.

 

Forums also give people an easy anonymous place to post their negative views. In the past you'd only talk to fans offline and you'd get your views from people you knew. Now you can logon to a forum and see endless amounts of nonsense being posted. It's a lot easier for people to get their negative views across and they have a much larger audience. I suspect that people are more likely to remember a ridiculously negative post which they'd strongly disagreed with than a few positive ones from people that share their views

 

I don't know if this is common with all clubs but there are also frequent complaints of the atmosphere at Hearts not being what it once was. That's partly due to the nostalgic look at the past days of terracing rather than all-seaters. But it's also that the atmosphere is pretty poor quite often unless we have a big game against Hibs or the Old Firm. The negativity you get at games is incredible. Sometimes you wonder why some people keep going when they seem miserable for the vast majority of the time at the matches.

 

I'll go to some Slough games in the future (I'm hoping to move to England at some point) and I'm very interested in seeing what it's like to follow a non-league team. I've been to a couple of non-league games here but I've never had any affiliation to the club and I find it difficult to get very enthusiastic about matches involves clubs that I don't have any attachment to at all or reason to support.

 

Supporting a non-Old Firm club in Scotland means that you have little to aim for. Since I started going to the games, Hearts have finished second once (2006) and won two Scottish cups (1998 & 2006). Basically we aim for third each season. I appreciate that we're more successful than most clubs but it all becomes a bit stale after a few years of watching Scottish football. I'd never stop going (as long as I lived here) because you feel emotionally tied to the club and it's part of your routine to keep going but you certainly get sick of things at times. The idea of going to games where there's only a few hundred fans and you're dreaming of the club one day rising back up the leagues appeals to me in some ways though I'm sure it's very different when you're actually there supporting the club every week and all the frustrations from being stuck at a low level are there.

 

I think that some days like the 9-0 defeat to Wimbledon are times when the fans can show the spirt of the club. It's comparable to the second leg of the Hearts v Spurs game when we'd already lost 4-0 at home. Obviously it's different since it was a one-off and involved traveling down to London but it was one of the best days in terms of our support. Even though we were already out everyone sang from start to finish. I think it's games like that which make you realise why you support the club.