Why did you became a fan of your favourite club?

What is your favourite team? Besiktas JK

Why did you become fan of that team? I remember watching the derby against Fenerbahce in 1992 at the age of 6. My cousin was already a fan and he encouraged me to watch the game. And then it suddenly happened - BJK scored towards the end of the game to win 1:0 and then I saw those players in that beautiful white jersey celebrating. I still remember the game very well and will never forget that moment of joy. The video of the goal: YouTube - 11 Nisan 1992 Beşiktaş - Fenerbahçe, Dakika 89, Gol Zeki!

How far would you go? I starved when we lost. I cried when we lost. I travel around Europe to see my team. As long as I don't have to hurt someone else, I would do anything!
 
Just found this by Jonathan Wilson. This is what this thread is all about. It's a very, very good write by perhaps the best football journalist i know. Fantastic.

Like father, like son: Thoughts on being a fan
Last year, after my dad had died, I stayed holding his hand for about
quarter of an hour and then left the nurses to it. In the hospital
waiting room I made three calls. The first was to Sunderland Civic
Centre to register the death. The second was to the undertakers. And
the third was to the Independent to tell them that I was, after all,
free to cover Sunderland v Burnley the next day.

I know a lot of people found that odd. To be honest, looking back, it
seems odd to me. At the time, though, it seemed perfectly natural.
Part of it, of course, was that I needed something else to do; that I
couldn’t bear just to sit at home with my mam, wallowing in that blend
of grief and relief that comes after the death of a loved one who has
been tormented by illness. Part of it was about honouring my dad’s
militant unemotionalism, his insistence on getting on with things no
matter what. And part of it was because football and my dad were so
closely related.

That evening, discussing funeral arrangements with the undertaker, I
mentioned that the first game Sunderland had played after the death of
the great inside-forward Raich Carter had also been against
Burnley. I realised that my mam and the undertaker were looking at me
strangely, at which it dawned on me what an odd thing it was to know.
I have no idea how I knew it – I certainly don’t have a checklist of
first games played after famous player’s deaths – but I’ve looked it
up and I was right. It was the kind of detail in which my dad would
have delighted.

He was not, in any sense, a talkative man, but on long drives he would
regularly, after minutes of silence, ask, “Do you know what happened
on this weekend 20 years ago?” and, when my mam and I admitted we
didn’t, he’d reveal that it was the anniversary of a Brian Clough goal
against Walsall, or of Kevin Arnott’s debut, or of Jim Montgomery’s
save at Huddersfield which, he always maintained, was better than the
more famous one in the 1973 FA Cup final.

After Carter’s death, Sunderland and Burnley had played out a scruffy
1-1 draw. They had the decency, at least, to mark my dad’s passing
with a comfortable 2-1 win that mathematically confirmed they would
not be relegated: nothing flash or extravagant, but proficient and
economical, just as my dad would have liked it.
My dad grew up about 200 yards from Roker Park, Sunderland’s old
ground, and his mother lived in the same house on Appley Terrace until
a few weeks before her death in December 1995. When I was a kid, we
often used to go there for tea on a Saturday. When I was six, my dad
started to take me to the ground for the last 15-20 minutes of games,
sneaking in when they opened the gates to let people out. The first
thing I saw was Steve Williams sidefooting an equaliser for
Southampton. I’d been to about a dozen games before, a year later, I
saw Sunderland score for the first time, Gary Rowell heading in at the
back post against Leicester.

Looking back, it occurs to me that we talked about football remarkably
little, but then we didn’t really need to. We saw the game the same
way, knew what each other was thinking. We both disdained the flashy,
both admired calmness and precision and respected deep-lying central
midfielders who distributed the ball without fuss. It was only at his
funeral that I found out he’d played right-back for his school team:
needless to say, that was the position I played for my college side.
When we watched football on television together, we communicated in a
series of tuts and grunts. After Sunderland had lost on penalties to
Charlton in the 1998 play-off final, following a 4-4 draw, we looked
at each other and turned for the exit simultaneously, ignoring
Sunderland’s lap of honour. We collected the father of a friend to
whom we’d given a lift, and drove back to Oxford. Only when we met my
mam did we realise neither of us had spoken for over two hours (if, by
any chance, Mr Wilkinson, you’re reading this, I apologise for our
grumpiness).

My gran was cremated on January 6, the day Sunderland played away at
Manchester United in the third round of the FA Cup. In the afternoon
following the funeral, my dad drove me back to university. As we
passed the end of Appley Terrace, Nicky Butt gave United the lead.
There was, I think, almost a sense of relief. Neither of us would have
said it, but I suspect we had both dreamed of some kind of send-off;
this at least punctured those hopes early, and let them gently
deflate. But then, in quick succession, Steve Agnew and Craig Russell
scored. There may have been a snort at the ridiculousness of it all,
but otherwise we were silent, recognising what this could mean. But
there are, of course, no fates; there is no guiding force. Football
does not hand out sentimental favours. Eric Cantona equalised with a
late header and United won the replay.


A few weeks before my dad died, I signed a deal to write a biography
of Brian Clough (it comes out in November
[URL="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1409123170/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d1_g14_i2?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=15FQ33QTBGJJ4YHJC6PG&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=467128533&pf_rd_i=468294"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1409123170/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d1_g14_i2?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=15FQ33QTBGJJ4YHJC6PG&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=467128533&pf_rd_i=468294[/URL]).
His memory was gone by then, ravaged by Alzheimer’s, but when I told
him, I saw a flicker in his eyes. “Do you remember Clough?” I asked,
talking, to be honest, for the sake of talking; he couldn’t have told
me, by then, what day it was or what he’d had for lunch. “Of course I
do,” he snapped, and went to talk about a hat-trick Clough had scored
against Grimsby. Although I continued to visit every day, that was
probably the last “proper” conversation we had.


Why do I bring this up? Well, it comes from trying to explain what
being a fan means – to me. I realise this is personal, and I don’t
want to suggest there’s a “right” way to be a fan, but supporting
Sunderland was never a choice. It just was. I’ve spent a lot of time
in Argentina and people, naturally, have asked if I have an
Argentinian team. My then-girlfriend and her family are Boca Juniors
fans, and so I tried to support them, but the truth was that I didn’t
care. I didn’t feel sick with nerves when they took the lead, and I
certainly didn’t feel tears pricking at my eyes when I recalled their
greatest triumphs.

I don’t really like being so emotional about Sunderland, but I am.
And of course it has nothing to do with whichever bunch of players
happens to be wearing the candystripes this season. Nothing to do with
the manager, the style of play or success. It’s to do with home, and
family, and a sense of the club as representative of a strand of
belonging stretching back generations. My dad’s last game was the 4-0
defeat to Manchester United on Boxing Day 2007, but in a sense he has
been with me at every game I’ve been at since. What I hadn’t realised
till last year is that his father, who died before I was born, had
been coming with us for years as well.
Jonathan Wilson - world-renowned football writer, author of the acclaimed history of tactics, “Inverting the Pyramid”, and editor of The Blizzard.
 
Jonathan Wilson is a great writer PLF. His best known book is "Inverting the pyramid" about football tactics through the years.
 
Fantastic read, Gerd. One of the best articles about it I've ever read. Going to show it to my wife, she will like it too. Thanks for that!
 
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