Ever since the beautiful game was first conceived in England, problems have continued to arise that divide the fans, while other aspects of the game can bring the fans together.
Supporters of any football club will always feel united by loyalty to other fans of their club, even those who live in entirely different areas of life that they have never met (fotballreiser). At football matches around the world, people will talk about football with complete strangers, often solely because they wear the same shirt or t-shirt, confirming their shared beliefs.
This contrasts with the somewhat irrational hatred of fans of local rivals of the chosen football club. Despite the fact that they can really be very good people, they support the club from the other side of the city and wear a different colour T-shirt.
Such rivalry is often quickly thrown aside when it comes to the international football scene when obvious enemies are joining in support of the England team, and suddenly it’s the English fans joining, capturing the rest of the world.
The strange force is that football must quickly unite or separate people and groups, which leads to clearly irrational behaviour, which can sometimes be positive and beautiful, and in other cases can be destructive and ugly.
Here are some anecdotal stories confirming this, some of them actually have no evidence but have long been fixed in football folklore.
– On Christmas Eve, 1914, during the First World War, they say that English and German soldiers laid down their arms to play football on the “no man’s” land between the trenches.
– It is believed that in some war-torn countries in Africa, hostilities cease when national team matches are televised.
– The passion of South American fans led to the fact that Honduras and El Salvador entered the war after the match between the two countries in 1969.
– In April 2000, 2 Leeds United fans were mortally wounded in Istanbul; the only reason for this was that they supported their team’s game against Galatasara from Turkey.
Football will always continue to share their opinions and provide many favourite debates for many fans (fotballtur) . Even fans of the same club will have many different points of view to discuss and possibly argue. Here are some of the most common debates that seem to be prevalent among supporters of most professional football clubs.
– Which football player is the best?
– Which club can claim the best story?
– In which club did the referee give more decisions?
– Who has the best football club owners in the Premier League?
– Who are your favourite players?
– Who will be the best XI player to ever play for your team?
– Which team shirt has the best colours and design?
– What colour should T-shirts be at home and away from your football team?
In general, it should be said that the positive aspects of rivalry in football far outweigh the negative, and most disagreements encourage only healthy debate. Football unites people from all walks of life, all nationalities and all corners of the world.