I don’t have kids but it’s something I can sympathise with and something I think about from time to time, though not a football sense. Said in another thread but I’m originally from the UK but lived in Melbourne for a number of years before moving north for work last year. We bought a place here so it seems like we’re staying here for the foreseeable. For me, following a sports team is all about community so if/when I have kids I’d rather they followed their local side rather than my English team.
I’d go to Victory games and the odd City games when I was down there but never really took to either team, that’s why I had no real problem switching to Sydney. But my issue is living in Vic I fell in love with AFL and took on a team there as my own so the thought of having my child supporting the Swans is conflicting.
But I’d say let them choose a Melbourne team. They are Melbournians and they’ll be better for going to live games on a regular basis. That’s what football is all about.
Let me inject an element of controversy into proceedings by saying that, while Victory are a bunch of diseased rat fuckers, at least they’re a proper football club, unlike that cardboard cutout of a team (sorry, marketing vehicle) owned by sheiks and cartoon villains stroking white cats.
Besides, Victory are so ridiculously shit right now, supporting them would be a character building exercise.
“A proper football club” what does that even really mean in professional football in 2021? I’d wager it means nothing at all. It’s a warm and fuzzy fiction that we all like to cling on to, but there hasn’t been any truth to it, anywhere, for decades already.
Boycotts, tantrums, throwing computer monitors through pub windows, and graffiti tifos on garbage bag plastic is a hell of a thing to call fan culture.
I am with Nath. Lean him towards WU and when they fold as Nath posted they will have a few years of hating the other Melbourne teams abs will go to Sydney.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts everyone. I found it interesting to read everyone’s different opinions.
I think I will go ahead and encourage him to support Melbourne City (tacitly, of course!) and take him to watch their games rather than Victory’s, while at the same time still not give up hope that he may one day be a Sydney FC supporter.
I can at least live with taking him to watch Melbourne City’s games on a regular basis but having a son who supports Melb Victory is something that I would like to avoid at all costs.
I actually didn’t realise (as was pointed out in the comments above) that if I take this approach then we’d both be cheering for each other’s teams whenever they play the Victory, so that’s a big plus, a good bonding thing and an important consideration.
I hope that Melbourne City don’t become a huge force in the A-League in the future and that their current success is just a phase. All that money from the UAE makes me a bit nervous but I guess we’ll see what happens in the future.
One more question: If Victory do indeed rise again soon to become the dominant team in Melbourne and City becomes like what they used to be, any good suggestions of what to say to my son to stop him from supporting the Victory? Why is supporting City better than Victory? (from his perspective, not ours obviously)
You’d hope by the time the Victory become a dominate team (what a horrible thought), that your Son might be rusted on fan by then and wouldn’t switch teams.
Simple. Show him this video. Does he really want to support a club that idolizes this grub of a human being?
Or follow a team, that when the chips are down on and off the field, their captain gives up and shows disrespect to the club as a whole by tossing down his armband in disgust.
In all fairness though, as much as it would suck for him to support Victory, let him support who he wants. At the end of the day, if you push him to support a team he doesn’t like, he’ll just more thank likely become disenfranchised and just start supporting a European team. Also, your son will more than likely end up supporting a tonne of teams. My nephew follows Sydney FC, Liverpool, PSG, Barcelona and Newcastle United and he passively cheers on for a whole heap of other teams.
A local football fan passionately supporting an Aussie team is a winner regardless. Nothing worse than people who stay up to watch Liverpool but ignore their local competition.
