Desperately Seeking a Team

Unlike most things in life, the team that you support doesn't come down to a choice. It's thrust upon you. When it comes to football, I'm unfortunate enough to support Gillingham FC. Why? Because my dad took me to a couple of games when I was 6 years old. When it comes to cricket, substitute my dad with my Nan and you've got the reason I support Kent CCC.

There was no real choice in the matter, when you're a child these things just happen. And unfortunately I got addicted to sports, and this became a lifelong pursuit rather than a childhood obsession. I'm always partially jealous of the Man Utd/Chelsea/Whoever's top of the league "supporters" parading around town in their new shirts and ringing Talksport to complain about how they only spent £70m in the summer. For them, Saturday afternoon equals a few hours in a pub watching an illegal feed from Norway or an occasional glance at score updates on a phone. I'm even more jealous of the fans of these clubs who go to every game, they go in expectation of a victory and some high quality entertainment. Last Saturday I went to Macclesfield and sat in the snow watching a dire game of football between two largely incompetent teams who could have played all day without troubling either goalkeeper.

But, and it's a fairly illogical but, I wouldn't swap positions. It's all about caring. I don't go to watch football every week, but when I don't, I still care deeply about the the outcome. And I have done for the best part of my life.

Of course, I wish my dad had taken me to an Arsenal or Liverpool game when I was 5 but he didn't...and that's just the way it is.

And I'm the same as millions of other sports fans. Watching games as a neutral is all well and good (and a lot more relaxing!) but it doesn't beat the drama and emotion of watching your team play. Until recently cricket and football were the only 2 team sports I avidly followed. I watch a lot of other sports like snooker, golf, darts and tennis, but it's harder to develop a support for an individual. The individual is a snapshot in time and won't be around for too long, whereas the team is a constant. True, I do cheer for individual players on occasion but the reality is that I'm cheering for the club. The club will be around long after the players have left and forgotten they even played for the club.

But what if you could choose who to support? What is it wasn't thrust upon you? What if it was entirely up to you?

It's an unlikely scenario as most people develop their love of a sport at a young age. Usually introduced by family or friends, by the time we become adults we've usually decided which sports we like and don't like and subsequently who we follow.

This was the case for me, until 2007 when I started watching American Football. I'm not entirely sure why I started. There's no great moment when it clicked for me. All I know is that I watched the first half of the Superbowl and I enjoyed it. I'd never previously giving the game a chance and had no real idea of the rules or the players. I knew a quarterback threw the ball and a receiver caught it, but that really was the extent of my NFL knowledge. I'd heard of some of the teams, but, as I'd only recently got Sky Sports, my access to the sport was minimal at best.

Since then I've slowly developed a great affinity with the NFL, I've been to 3 Wembley games, play in 3 Fantasy leagues each season, regularly listen to NFL podcasts and spend my Sunday evenings avidly watching Sky Sports whilst following all of the games on my laptop. In fact, in my hierarchy of favorite sports I'd now rank American Football 3rd behind football and cricket.

But I've still not found a team to support. I've tried to get behind a team but I can't pick one and thus can't develop a passion for any of them. Sure, I sometimes watch games and sway towards wanting one team win, but I'm never that bothered about the outcome. I want to support a team because I want to watch matches and be partizan, I want to care about the outcome and develop an attachment that will stick.


So, I've got 2 objectives. Firstly, I need to find a team to support and secondly I need to support them! For the uninitiated, there are 32 NFL teams and I'm going to include all of them in my list of potential teams. The current regular season finishes in early January, followed by the playoff and Superbowl. I don't want to start supporting a team this late in the season so my aim is to find a team to support before the start of the 2012 NFL season in September.

I will try and eliminate one or two teams per week based on various criteria, before finally finding my ideal team so I can start supporting them in time for the start of the season. A bit like a serial killer movie with 31 teams on the hit list! The season is scheduled to start on the 6th Septemember so I want to find my team before the start of August. Thus giving me roughly a month to get to know the players and the club a lot better. Then it's support all the way. Don't get me wrong I'm not planning on flying out to the US much, my fandon will be pretty much exclusively armchair based! but who knows what will happen in the future!

I'll try not to be too technical about the sport during the process (although sometimes it's inevitable) but instead try to make it a look at how I make my choice and stick by it. And I honestly have no idea whatsoever who I will end up supporting


So time to begin...