No time for Glory HUNters (There ought to be a law about that!)

Member Name: goalmachine

Product:	There ought to be a law about that!
Date:	29/01/02 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You get to laugh at them when they lose

Disadvantages: see text

Ah, my first truly 100% original (i.e. not previously seen elsewhere) dooyoo opinion. So, to mark this "special" occasion (indulge me here folks!), I thought I'd write a little bit about something I detest and despise with every last fibre of my being.

GLORY HUNTERS.

Now, you may be wondering just what the hell I'm on about here. Well, to put it simply, Glory Hunters are football "fans" who follow a team that is big / successful / well known (delete where applicable), just because they are. Still confused? Let me elaborate slightly.

As some of you may or may not know, I'm Scottish. Not only that, but I love my football. Specifically, Dundee United. Now, in Scotland, we suffer from a fairly unique disease called the Old Firm. Celtic and Rangers (for it is they) are the biggest and most well-known clubs in Scotland, coming as they do from Scotland's largest city, Glasgow. They have the biggest stadia, the biggest turnover, the highest number of trophies, the biggest media profile, and the biggest following. The thing is, that over 80% of these team's supporters come from outwith Glasgow. EIGHTY PERCENT. And no, I'm not plucking that figure out of thin air - it came from a Scottish football survey that was conducted around four years ago. Now, why am I moaning about this? Well.....

As a supporter of a supposedly "smaller" team, I am constantly looked down upon by the followers of the big 2, who seem to think that because they "follow" a more successful team than mine, that they are somehow a higher lifeform than I am. Seriously, the sheer ARROGANCE of Celtic and (even more so) Rangers "supporters" is staggering. And it's not even well-grounded! To give you an example, last season United beat Rangers in the Scottish Cup 1-0. Not just beat, but played off the pitch. At the time, United were bottom of the SPL, Rangers second. The point is that in any given gam
e, the small team can beat the big team - size and reputation does not give a club a divine right to claim victory.

My second grumble is the bare-faced lies told by the supporters of these teams. Around 20 years ago, Rangers were awful. I mean, REALLY AWFUL, with regular home gates of around 5,000. But ask any Rangers fan who is old enough to have went to games back then, and they'll tell you they "never missed a game". So, there's over 40,000 people who never missed a game when the average crowd was 5,000. Getting the picture yet? No? I shall continue.

Every Saturday, buses leave every city in Scotland for football matches. Problem is, that a hell of a lot of these buses are filled with Huns (Rangers fans) and Tims (Celtic fans), who snub their own town's teams to go and wear a scarf of convenience and follow one of the big two. It's a disgrace. One of the main complaints Rangers and Celtic give about the SPL is that there is no serious challenge from the other sides - no bloody wonder when half the potential support of these teams go off glory hunting instead of supporting their local side! The number of Rangers and Celtic shirts you see around Dundee is shocking - if these "fans" put their money into Dundee or Dundee United, the local sides would be in a much better position to take on the big guns. As things stand, the two local sides have to make do with occasional victories over the Glasgow giants, and mid-table mediocrity.

(By the way - my main gripe against Rangers and Celtic is the sickening bigotry that their poisonous "fans" bring with them - but this isn't an op about sectarianism, so I'll leave that for another time).

This isn't just a Scottish disease, by the way - how many Manchester United "fans" are there where YOU live? Bet you in any town in Britain there are people walking down the High Street wearing Man U shirts who have never been to Old Tra
fford in their lives, but who say they are "loyal fans" who "never miss a game", while the local team huffs and puffs just to keep its head above water. Sound familiar? Thought so.

Basically my point is this - yes, these teams DO have true supporters, who come from the right city, and who have followed the teams through thick and thin. I have no problem with these people, as they are football supporters for the right reasons. But as for the busloads from out of town, flying a flag of convenience and costing the finances of their home town teams dear - I think they're the lowest form of pondlife, and I wouldn't p*** in their ears if their heads were on fire. Someone who goes to see East Stirling or Dumbarton or Stenhousemuir (or Dundee United) every week is worth a 1,000 Old Firm glory hunting scumbags.

And you can quote me on that.

(By the way - the op title is supposed to look like that - as I said, at least 80% of Rangers "fans" are glory hunters. As the song goes, "Where were you when you were s***e?")

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