Allanon":1qtx7qjn said:WoodsyGreen":1qtx7qjn said:I'm sure Bournemouth fans have absolutely hated the last few years and pine for the days of travelling to Rochdale and Macclesfield.
A family member that has supported Bournemouth all his life, Has said to me "as good as it is to see Premier league football, its no longer the same club I've supported all my life". Take that as you wish.
Noel Gallagher said something similar about Manchester City and the Champions League. It was along the lines that those occasions mean nothing to him, that his club was never brought up on European nights like they were at Manchester United and Liverpool, that the hunt for European glory just isn't in Manchester City's DNA. The club has a torrid time selling tickets for Champions League fixtures, the hardcore ST holder fan base really don't seem interested in watching Shakhtar Donetsk, Marseille or Valencia.
My guess is that your instincts go back to your childhood memories and everything that made you fall in love with the game and with your club. Manchester City won the occasional title and cup, but were never a dominant power in English football. They suffered relegations and spent years in the wilderness, but their fans seemed to embrace the hardship with loyal home and away followings.
Now their status is elevated among the very elite clubs expected to win silverware, it is a feeling many of their old supporters don't seem totally comfortable with. It just isn't them and what their club has always been about. They were familiar with bouncing between Division Two and Division One with huge lower league crowds, winning promotions, sometimes getting one over Manchester United whilst being the firm underdog, but usually failing.
Now they are Sheikh Mansour's trainset and expected to win the title with a serious push for Champions League contention, it is an unfamiliar new boundary that many of their fans don't know what this new club identity is about. They never used to judge a season on the trophy haul, a transfer window by how many World cup stars they signed, or sack a manager for only finishing fourth in the top flight. That was something Manchester United and Liverpool did while they were happy enough finishing 15th and watching George Kinkladze.
It really wouldn't surprise me if the true hardcore fans of some thirty or forty years following the club did miss the old days, floating between the divisions, being good some seasons and rubbish others. Great and varied away trips up and down the country. That is what they bought into their club knowing they were, and fell in love with for life.
How do you explain that though when fans are brainwashed into believing the world revolves around winning the Champions League, or competing at the highest standard of football possible? That fans could actually quite miss those trips to Birmingham and Ipswich, Portsmouth and Bristol City. That playing Borussia Dortmund and having more World cup winning Germans in your team than they do isn't the club you obsessed about as a kid?
Almost all of the same would no doubt apply to Bournemouth, a small 3rd to 4th division level club experiencing an elevation in stature way beyond the club those supporters remember supporting for decades. Yes the standard of competition is higher, but supporting your football club can be about so much more than that.