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Being a Football Fan is Not About Winning

West Ham's Carlton Cole and Junior Stanislas

For those who limit their football to top-flight divisions only, watching lower-tier football may irritate your eyes.

The quality of football is often unappealing with hoofing the ball up front first in the playbook. There are no extravagant stepovers like Cristiano Ronaldo, there is no Velcro-footed dribbler like Lionel Messi and you rarely find a team that fancies passing football in the mold of Swansea, let alone Barcelona.

Yet I find lower-tier football somewhat amusing and entertaining because of its competitive nature and relentlessness. Also, in lower-tier football, you can spot the presence of local pride and identity that could easily be shadowed in top-flight football.

I watched the derby between West Ham United and Millwall in an Irish pub last night. Both teams play in the English Championship, one tier below the glamorous world of the Premier League. You might have known about the rivalry between these teams from “Green Street Hooligans,” a movie that’s responsible for the inception of West Ham’s fan base in Indonesia. Watch Green Street, be a hooligan, support West Ham. Yeah, sure.

The match ended with a victory for West Ham despite having to play with 10 men after captain Kevin Nolan was sent-off for a Vincent Kompany-ish tackle. The match is always categorized as high-risk, with the lower section of Sir Trevor Brooking Stand separated from the crowd to minimize the potential of disturbance. Last season, both sets of supporters made headlines after clashing with each other in a cup match that was marred with a couple of pitch invasions.

As I was observing the game while enjoying a pint of ale, I was intrigued by some older patrons at the next table (one of them said to be the cousin of David Gold, West Ham’s co-owner), who were glued to their chairs as they watched the match. One of them was sporting claret and blue.

They cheered when Carlton Cole scored West Ham’s opener, were stunned when Millwall pulled one back and jumped off their chairs when Winston Reid netted the winning goal. As the match approached the final minutes, I bet they were biting their nails in a moment famously described by Sir Alex Ferguson as squeaky-bum time.

For casual football fans who don’t share local identity with teams they support (e.g Salford Glory Hunters FC), the idea of supporting a second-tier club like West Ham is beyond their understanding. Despite its lower-league status, West Ham is a club with rich history and recently elevated to a pop cult thanks to “Green Street Hooligans,” but what about other teams who don’t have a movie dedicated to their firms?

Last night I also met a Burnley fan, and the only reason he supports Burnley is because he comes from that town, much like the reason why the aforementioned people support West Ham. Are there any Indonesian Burnley fans? It’s unlikely. In our perspective, Burnley never won anything. The last time Burnley won the league was in 1960. We don’t share the sentiment of coming from Burnley because most of us can’t say where Burnley is exactly.

Why would we support a team that hardly exists? Let’s support teams that win trophies; let’s be Manchester United fans. Let’s support clubs that play great football; let’s baptize ourselves as Barcelona cules. Let’s be different and edgy; let’s be West Ham supporters. Do you want to borrow my pirated “Green Street” DVD?

The sense of local pride and identity also explains the reason behind the fanatic following of Indonesian football supporters. The football is below mediocre, but there are many fans who are willing to travel with the team. Thousands of supporters will cram the stadium every time the match is held, and it’s not because winning is guaranteed but because they feel represented by the club.

Being an Indonesian football fan is not merely for the sake of being edgy; it’s the sense of belonging that fuels such devotion.

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