On the 12th day of Christmas FBTG gave to me;
Season’s Greetings
football fans
Angry Cops And Belgians
A wall of aggression. A barrier of taxpayers’ money. One single channel holding 2,000 fans in complete anarchy. Glassware continued to rain down indiscriminately. A middle-aged woman behind me shook with fear. Two men burst through the crowd, one supporting the other, blood rolling down his face. It wasn’t a fight because it wasn’t fair. Our travelling support suffered greatly; it was more than humiliation Continue reading
Ultras Aufkleber of the Week – 1. FC Union Berlin
The Football fan who prefers to go down the pub with his freshly washed Spurs shirt and chat all friendly with peers wearing Arsenal, Man City and Villa merch will maybe not know Union Berlin. The Football fan who is more invested in the politics of the sport and knows which fans suck and which fans are boss will definitely know Union. Berlin’s 2nd club playing at the infamous Stadion an der alten Försterei, a stadium partially built by the fans when the club needed to upgrade the facility but couldn’t afford to, 1. FC Union Berlin have a lot of sympathy from fans worldwide. Read up on our visit of a friendly when SV Austria Salzburg came to town.
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ESB Design, Hull City Shirt
Scrolling through the usual tags, we found an array of alternative shirt designs of national and club teams. There are the usual suspects, Man Utd, PSG, Brasil, FC Bayern. But to our pleasant surprise, Hull City AFC also made the list. A short browse later and it turns out that ESB Design are a Chilean graphic design team with a real talent for striking kit designs – please check them out!
As a small, provincial club, it’s somewhat flattering to see a designer thousands of miles away not only know your club, but also be invested enough to want to dedicate some of their work to it. I guess this simply reinforces our growing image as a ‘cult club’ around the world (independently of how City fans feel about this).
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A Gobshite’s Ode to the Yorkshire Clubs
We brought you ‘A Gobshite’s Ode to the London Clubs‘ back in October. The gloves are off once again, and we’re now giving it to the nationalists up there who always had it the toughest.
Wednesday fans are c**ts.
The Other Arsenal
You take your son down the Gunners. You wrap him up in 4 layers and the same red and yellow scarf you wore as a boy to protect him from the -10 degrees. Boris at the kiosk hands over the sunflower seeds, yesterday’s newspaper to sit on and vodka to suppress the bitter cold. Teenage gopniks catch your eye opposite the underpass, grimy faces squatting by a burnt out car. They spit in your direction, your hand tightens around your son’s.
This is Arsenal, but not as you know it Continue reading
Minneapolis, Twinned with Reykjavik
The 2016 European Cup will be remembered for 4 things; 1) Wales’ emergence as a tournament dark horse, 2) Will Grigg’s reported perpetual state of flammability 3) how boring it was and 4) the Iceland Clap. We should probably extend that to the Icelanders’ amazing support throughout, but “The Clap” was so universally popular it had bookies betting which Premier League fans would be the first to replicate it. That’s not really materialised but the Iceland Clap is now being performed by fans elsewhere (I vividly remember a video posting of a Vietnamese fangroup getting it on post victory).
But it has spread in other ways Continue reading
[Houston Dynamo] Do They Know What Dynamo Means At All?
Teach the Texans. Let them know that they screwed up.
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Football fans in countries with nascent Football leagues are very interesting to observe. A lack of existing customs and traditions means that fans can basically develop their Football culture from scratch. The behaviour among fans and people involved in the sport at this point therefore can be very telling about their culture and what they value. The USA’s Major League Soccer is a prime example of such a nascent league.
On the other side of the pond, European Football fans resent the very commercial nature of American sport. The franchise model of ownership and subsequent potential for immediate Continue reading
From Boothferry To Germany 