Fans Comment
Sam Fearon

Doubting your Allegiance? 
What to do when faced with the ultimate conundrum
03 May 2005

Well, it seems that the blue and white army is now faced with the ultimate conundrum.  The football Gods have dragged the red minority of Merseyside to the Champions' League final, kicking and screaming.  We don’t know how they got there.  They don’t know how they got there.  We’re both expecting Mourinho to tell us it was a joke and that he will be putting his 'real' Chelsea team out in the 'real' semi-final and that Duff and Robben will be allaying our fears shortly.  For now it seems that the wearers of pink kits have dreamed their way to a beating against the Milanese.

I spoke to a kopite friend on the phone after the game and he wasn't at all patronising or undignified, basically he didn’t rub it in.  He was just happy in victory and wanted to share it with a friend.  Victory certainly makes humility a more easily obtainable quality but humble my friend certainly was not.

This leads me to consider the following question:  If it means so much to people I care about (friends) and people whose company I enjoy (colleagues, acquaintances) and people with whom I share a city, a habitat, a dialect, a culture — then surely I should be happy for ‘la merde’.  After all I won’t be sharing success with many Italians...  will I?

Does the fact that I hate their crest (more of a tacky badge than a real club crest — what are the flames all about?), their name (the name of my city but what right do they have to it?), their colour (I consider myself a bull in that red is a colour to be charged at and stamped upon), their establishment (a heartless, soulless, media-run, joke of a football club), their ethos (or lack of one — nothing to compare with ‘nil satis’), their warble (makes me cringe), their existence — does all this mean that I should wish unhappiness upon the aforementioned friends?

Perhaps the equation is one dependent upon relativity — their desire to win versus my desire to see them beaten.  If so, then perhaps I should begrudgingly acquiesce and at least refrain from explicitly chanting ‘Andrei’s gonna get yer’ every time the Milan forward receives the ball.

But then if I do it will mean another day for me to be reminded of all the things I hate about ‘la merde’.

And anyway…will they do the same for me?  When we are shouting our name to the finest the continent can offer and doing all we can to lead the stands of Goodison Park into battle, will the red minorities of our city support us against the rest of Europe?  I think I can hazard a guess.

So… will I be black & red or pink & white for the final?  Well the very question is self-fulfilling.  How could I support a bourgeois team who sing Jerry & the Pacemakers and wear pink?  Regardless, perhaps my position will not quite be as polar as it may have seemed.  In fact for me and for Toffee’s at large perhaps it is a win-big vs. lose a little situation.  If so I will take the gamble with Dunc in my eye and Nil Satis in my heart — the rage of a true blue can go a very long way.

Sam  Fearon

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