The Beautiful Sentiment
Why support a premiership football team? Certainly, if you like matching decorations then supporting Manchester United is fair enough, as a visit to their shop will outfit you with a themed duvet, lampshade, wallpaper, toothbrush holder and loo roll. The same can be said of Arsenal and Chelsea, with the added benefit that you can complete your collection of footie tat with a tattoo.
If you were born in the area and they are your team then fair enough, but it's something of a mystery why most of Manchester United's supporters don't live in a Manchester post code, they can't all have moved out of Manchester (although having visited Manchester, that's not a bad idea).
Maybe it's to be associated with success. If one had to support one's local team, simply by being in their catchment area, most supporters would spend their weekends shivering in rain-swept provincial footie grounds, risking food poisoning from the catering and trench foot from the stands, instead of watching Premiership football matches from the warm safety of the pub.
Misery. That's the usual reason you stick with a team. You watch one match where they should have won and that they lose and that's it, you've made an emotional investment and the next thing you know you're buying replica kit to wear at 3:00pm on a Saturday.
Which is what, perversely, has drawn me to take an interest in Aston Villa. They have followed the lead of FC Barcalona, who don't have a sponsor's name on their kit but rather sport the word UNICEF to raise awareness of that organisation and have the name of a local children's hospice, Acorns, instead.
This, I think, is tremendous. And imagine the edge it gives you over some tosser with the name of a paint company, arms dealer or airline on his chest.
If you were born in the area and they are your team then fair enough, but it's something of a mystery why most of Manchester United's supporters don't live in a Manchester post code, they can't all have moved out of Manchester (although having visited Manchester, that's not a bad idea).
Maybe it's to be associated with success. If one had to support one's local team, simply by being in their catchment area, most supporters would spend their weekends shivering in rain-swept provincial footie grounds, risking food poisoning from the catering and trench foot from the stands, instead of watching Premiership football matches from the warm safety of the pub.
Misery. That's the usual reason you stick with a team. You watch one match where they should have won and that they lose and that's it, you've made an emotional investment and the next thing you know you're buying replica kit to wear at 3:00pm on a Saturday.
Which is what, perversely, has drawn me to take an interest in Aston Villa. They have followed the lead of FC Barcalona, who don't have a sponsor's name on their kit but rather sport the word UNICEF to raise awareness of that organisation and have the name of a local children's hospice, Acorns, instead.
This, I think, is tremendous. And imagine the edge it gives you over some tosser with the name of a paint company, arms dealer or airline on his chest.
Labels: Aston Villa, Business, Football, Sponsorship, Sport, UNICEF
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