Before arriving I started looking into a few London based teams to follow, Chelsea and Arsenal first, then maybe Fulham or Tottenham. I was leaning towards Chelsea initially just because I was under the impression they were the best London based team, and if you're going to pick arbitrarily you may as well pick a good one. I figured I would find out where we ended up living when we got here first though, and pick the closest team.
When we ended up in Wimbledon I figured the decision to pick Chelsea was made. Problem was with so many choices in London everyone we met followed a different team, and every other team was shit by default. In BC it's quite easy to choose the Canucks but over here it's not the same at all. We lacked any real persuasion towards a team and it just stayed in limbo for a while
With no salary cap in the Premier League teams are essentially buying success, which in my opinion ruins a lot of the fun (Although if the Canucks could buy the Stanley Cup next year I'd still go to the parade). So with that being said people don't just pick the best teams to follow because there's not a lot of merit to that. If you follow the good teams you just expect them to win and get mad when they don't, there's not as much to get excited about. At least that's what I'm told by loser followers. It kinda makes sense though, and a lot of people follow lesser teams and just lower their expectations. Scoring a goal against Man U is a victory, getting bumped up to the Premier League is cause for major celebration.
While Chelsea was playing those big games we went out to a couple pubs in Chelsea and Wimbledon and got caught up in the excitement enough to say Chelsea is our team, which should mean next to nothing in the coming years. It was a lot of fun to be out in the celebrations though, reminded me of the playoffs last year.
As luck would have it the Euros, which happen every 4 years, just took place so we were able to see what London was like during international play. It was cool to get behind England on the whole and go out anywhere knowing who to cheer for. No matter who was playing it was a relatively big deal at any pub, and the Spanish fans stole a bit of our thunder on Canada Day when they won.
Funny thing about fans here though is nobody really wears jerseys or even shirts, I was given an England shirt by a coworker and figured I'd wear it out to fit in and was very much the odd one out. Maybe 1 in 4 at a big Chelsea match is kitted up and well under half that had England gear during the Euros. Quite a contrast to a sea of Canucks gear at a local pub for a preseason game
The level of celebrity that players get here is massive too. On top of all the coverage the sport gets there's also pretty intense scrutiny on their personal lives. They're included in all the sensationalized celebrity gossip, which seems normal here, but can you imagine seeing photos in the province of Kesler out with another woman and the caption 'Kesler Pucks Around!'. It's weird. There's also a lot of attention paid to the WAG's (wives and girlfriends). They're always shown on TV during the games and a lot of them are pseudo celebrities themselves, starting music careers or launching fashion or make-up lines.
As far as actually watching the sport, I definitely enjoy and understand it more than I did, and I could see watching the occasional big game back home. It falls in the middle ground of sports I can watch, far below hockey and well above baseball and basketball. It's easy enough to follow and for the most part there's enough action and athleticism to keep in interesting, although some games have been pretty slow. My biggest problem with soccer, and it's what kept me from getting into it before, is the diving. The more I watch the more pathetic I find it and I really can't help but think that these guys are actors and underwear models first and athletes second. I know not every sport is like hockey or rugby and I appreciate that, and if most contact in soccer is a foul that's fine, but it's the faking and rolling around on the ground wincing and then jogging off 10 seconds later that is just so disgusting. It's not like there has to be injuries for a sport to be enjoyable, but if you are slumped on the ground like you're paralyzed until they finally stop play and then hop up and jog off you are a liar, a pussy and not exactly the best role model. Of course it's not just the players though because why wouldn't they, it works, it just takes so much away from the sport. I know there's diving in the NHL and it bothers me there too, but even then it's usually something like dropping to your knees when a cross check to the back wasn't quite that hard, and at least it's called occasionally. Most people here don't seem particularly bothered by it, so I guess it's just part of the game, like having no video replay and countless blown calls that decide games. When I do manage to get over this part of the game it is actually pretty enjoyable to watch.Between Chelsea winning the FA Cup and Champions League, and then the Euros it was a pretty good year here to try to get into soccer, and we had a lot of fun checking out a few pubs in Chelsea as well as a really good sports bar here in Wimbledon. It was nice to be in a crowd of people really excited about sport, but it fell far short of filling the void left behind by hockey. It was an adequate substitute for the time being, but I can't wait to go out and watch a Canucks game!
It should be noted that I have no idea what I'm talking about, this is just how I saw soccer this past year and I'm likely wrong on a number of things. I also choose to call it soccer because even though football makes far more sense I am a proud Canadian and it annoys Europeans.
-Justin
pretty accurate. Bonus points for the simpsons video!
ReplyDeleteJen