sports

ESB Design, Hull City Shirt

~ From Boothferry To Germany ~ 5 Comments

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!

ESB Design Football
Image courtesy of ESB Design

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).

fbtg

The Other Arsenal

Arsenal Tula fans
~ From Boothferry To Germany ~ 6 Comments

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

Minnesota Vikings fans
Aside ~ ~ From Boothferry To Germany ~ 10 Comments

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?

~ From Boothferry To Germany ~ 12 Comments

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 →

The Irresistible Lure of Germany

Olympiastadion
~ From Boothferry To Germany ~ 2 Comments

In this guest post, Chris Lee, founder of Football travel and culture blog Outside Write, describes how he first fell for German Football and how the Bundesliga experience has probably helped change attitudes toward Germany among English Football fans.

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It’s the evening of 13 July 2014. I am sat in a packed bar in Balham, South London, enduring yet another turgid World Cup final. I can’t remember a good one since 1986, when the opponents were (almost) the same: then it was West Germany and Argentina. Continue reading →

Pogonophiłia

Pogon Szczecin Pyro
~ From Boothferry To Germany ~ 9 Comments

Eastern European Football fans are very much feared in the West, something I’m certain they take great pride in. And few come scarier or harder than the Poles. We picked a game, took out some Złoty, called up fellow blogger Between Distances and hopped the border to watch Pogon Szczecin take on Ruch Chorzów to see just how scary they get.

Right now in 2016, Polish fans have an awful reputation abroad. Be it the story of player Dominik Koszowski  Continue reading →