MOOD # 03 - Who do you cheer for?

Knicks vs. Sixers - 19/01/2020

How come? Like, that's random.
Why? You crazy? 
Oh wow, how did that happen?
Why those punks and not someone else?

The phrasing might get more or less offensive depending of the person asking but it's always been fair to ask. Why and how did I end up cheering for my teams? 

I mean I get it, I am from the middle of nowhere in France so it might need some kind of explanation. Also, not everybody is born a fan of X or has a parent that just made them into a fan (my hypothetical future son actually will have no choice but that's a story for another day).

I became a sports fan very early on, a sports nerd even, I love it and I love being invested in it. I always find a way to care, someone or some team to cheer for. But who?

Olympique de Marseille: my first love, or is it?

No, not really not entirely. Or more like a repressed love at first. Broken record alert here, but I grew up in the armpit of France, closest pro sports team was the CSP Limoges in Basketball, 1h away and crippled by management scandals at the time.

 So I did what every kid does, I started watching football and saw that fella with the flashy hair running veeeeeery fast and hitting the ball veeeeeery hard, Djibril Cissé. So I started loving Auxerre. The flashy striker, the legit quality (a title in the 90s, several cups...), the tiny town feel (just go and google Auxerre) and last but definitely not least, a fire jersey with the best sponsor a 10yo kid could ask for, Playstation.

Djibril, you magnificent legend

A few of my close friends were already Marseille fans, my cousins were as well. So i started feeling like I was special and that Marseille was just the easy way. The popular way. And I was far from being the popular kid. No big club for me, I'm special ok?

But in my proper teens, I started to realise I was attracted to that club, tried to repress it. I was amazed by what the atmosphere seemed to be like on TV, the crazy fans, the flares, the history of the club.I started to lean more and more into my Marseille (dark?) side. Started to feel all kinds of things watching them win, and pure rage when they lost. Started to feel offended when my dad shat all over the club during our Sunday nights watching Ligue 1. To who wanted to hear it though, I was club-less, didn't like Paris or Lyon. Tha, I knew.

I started to be more and more at peace with the idea that I liked a club that seemingly everybody liked. One day, my cousin, season ticket holder and Ultra, brought me with a mate down there to The Velodrome. And. Wow.

This was everything I ever dreamed of without having even dreamed of it. (makes no sense I know) I was blown away. Being in the Virage Sud, singing from way before the match to way after. The chants, the tifo that made me miss a solid 5 minutes of the match stuck under the drapes, but who cares. It was the best thing ever, the two kops replying to each other. I knew this was it right then and there. The stuff that I wanted to feel over and over again. Being in a stadium and enjoying every second of it, like its the place you feel most happy in. It doesnt even matter sometimes what's happening on the pitch as long as the atmosphere is there.

Tifo Commando Ultras 84 - OM/ASSE - 19/02/2011

Talk about a non-Covid friendly thing to enjoy. F*** covid, I hate covid.

So OM is my first love not because it was there first but because It was love, at first sight.

The New York Knicks: start spreading the loose

[I started writing this before the 20/21 started, before Julius Randle became Dirk, before Immanuel Quickley stole my heart and the heart of thousands of Knicks fans. Love you IQ! We are winning and it feels weird. Good but weird.]

Random european boy is dreaming of NYC, very original I know. But let me elaborate. I never played organised Basketball and the struggle of following the NBA from Europe was tough at first. But it has always been bigger than Basketball, even when I didnt follow the league as closely (and not throwing yet my sleeping pattern out the window), it was the Knicks, New York, Spike Lee, the Garden, the stars...

I loved them early on, barely knew anything about the sport (I still dont but I got better at pretending). I loved New York, city of Paul Simon, of all my favorite movies and tv shows. So I loved the Knicks. But then I started learning the history of the NBA and the Knicks' very special role in it. From When the Garden was Eden to losing with Pat, the play call by Clyde, the World's most famous Arena...

Hello there cutie

Then came Melo, the Linsanity...all expressions of the madness this Franchise can bring even while losing. Exactly everything I love in a sports team! So NY, I know you are playing better lately, I am really happy about that, but I was there for the lows so I will be there if you mess this up.

Finally set foot in the Garden last January, it was everything I'd ever dreamed of. Including a clutch shot from... Marcus Morris. Never change, or do. Whatever you do, New York Forever.

Bohemian FC : always believe in your soul

Ah sure, look, in fairness to me now...
Moved to Ireland in September 2016, didn't know much about club football there but I quickly found people mad about sports. And it took just a few months until my mate Shane took me to Dalymount Park, ''the Home of Irish Football'' and the home of Bohs.

February 15th 2020, my last visit to the Dalyer

Dalymount is an old stadium (to say the least), only half of it still standing, nothing sexy on paper. But I loved it. The pints before matches in the Back Page, the flares on a Dublin derby night, the high tackles of Paddy Kirk and the questionable choices of Keith Ward. All of it. Bohs are fan-owned, players are part-time, it feels like going back to the roots of the sport. There is no fuss, no money, just a lot of fun and passion.

I went to a few matches towards the end of 2016/2017 then took a season ticket every year since. Best decision of my life. There is nothing like going to a match on Friday night, nothing like freezing in the rain in the roofless away section of Oriel Park (another stadium that would make most people laugh, sadly) in Dundalk, only to concede a last minute penalty from Pat Hoban (and his disproportionatly big calves). Nothing like live football, whatever the quality of it. And as I write this after over a year without getting my bi-weekly dose of Bohs, this hurts.

February 25th 2019, Bohs/Rovers

There is no rational reason for me to be a fan of those teams, but irrational is what makes it beautiful. It is not alway your local team, your da's team. It is who you love.