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impulse
Finding My Club
I like football, but haven’t followed a team for years. What to do? Write to all 42 SPFL Clubs and ask why I should support them, of course. Here’s what happened. Words by Logan Walker
D
o you support a football team? If you’re Scottish, you most likely support Celtic or Rangers. Maybe Hearts or Hibs. Maybe you’re one of those people so disillusioned with the game at the top level you support your local junior team. Me? I don’t support anyone. You see, I grew up in Armadale. A town with two Union Jacks for every person. A town where the majority of street signs have either RFC, WATP, or FTP spray painted on them. It’s a place where the words “fenian” and “taig” are thrown around with reckless abandon. Every time Rangers and Celtic play each other, regardless of the outcome, Gers fans gather at the cross in the centre of town and do “the bouncy”, like some strange ancient occult ritual, perhaps hoping to summon the ghost of Davie Cooper. It’s a weird little place. When I was a kid, all my friends supported Rangers. So, I did too. Not because I felt a connection to the club, but because I wanted to fit in. I had an orange Rangers away strip, with Lorenzo Amuroso’s name and number on the back. I was deep undercover. As I got older and started to become more conscious of what was going on in the world around me, the language and behaviour I was experiencing on a daily basis started to unsettle me. Grown men shouting about how much they hate Catholics, and their children repeating it. It’s the ugly side
of the game that some people choose to ignore, but you can’t ignore it when it’s happening outside your front door. I gave up the ruse. I stopped supporting Rangers. Threw my tops in the bin and ceased pretending to care in the slightest about the team’s results. I went into voluntary exile. All of which meant, I didn’t have a team. And that really sets you apart. I still liked football, but I wasn’t in a rush to swear allegiance to another club. I thought that eventually, I would naturally find my way elsewhere. Maybe come across a game on the TV, and find myself rooting for a side. Maybe I’d be invited to a game and get caught up in the atmosphere, erupting in cheers with the fans when a goal went in. Didn’t turn out that way. I’ve been to a lot of games. I saw Manchester United (in Fergie’s final season) beat Newcastle United 4-3, with the winning goal coming in the final minute of injury time. I felt nothing. I went all the way to Germany and saw Borussia Dortmund triumph 3-1 over Hoffenheim, Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan running riot. I was unmoved. I saw Hibs play Aberdeen off the park at Easter Road, battering them 3-0. I yawned. I didn’t feel the connection. I waited for the connection to come along, and it didn’t. So, I went searching. I got in touch with every single club in the SPFL, from Aberdeen to Stranraer, and asked a simple question. “Why should I support your
I want to experience it all, the elation and delirium when your team pulls off the impossible.
club?” You might expect that these clubs would relish the opportunity to espouse their deeply held values, to explain what sets them apart from everyone else. Why they are deserving of adulation and admiration, why someone should give up their freetime and hard-earned money to stand in the freezing cold cheering them on. 42 clubs. 42 emails. 1 response. I screamed into the abyss, and a voice answered back. That voice belonged to Partick Thistle. More specifically, that voice belonged to Brian, who works in Partick Thistle’s PR department. Brian informed me that he had passed on my message to the untold legions of loyal Partick fans and was compiling their responses before sending them my way. Brian was the light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel. Brian, it turned out, was also a lying bastard. Two weeks after his initial email, I had received no such compilation. No fans telling me how much they loved their club, and why. Nothing to entice me into supporting them. I was left in the lurch. Brian had presented me with a carrot, and proceeded to crack the stick in half over my head. Perhaps, this is a sign. For forsaking my original team, I am cursed to wander the earth forever, with no club to support. A footballing nomad, with no home. I can look through the window at everyone gathered inside, sitting by the fire and laughing, joined in camaraderie, but I can never walk through the door. Is this really a curse, though? There are certain benefits to having no team to support. My weekends are never ruined by a dodgy result. A keeper with butterfingers has never made me want to leap off the top of the nearest building. A derby-day defeat has never tempted me to commit violent assault upon another human being. A bovril
