Crazy football fundamentalists!

By Orville Higgins

On my radio programme on KLAS on Wednesday, I was taken to task by some callers for daring to suggest that you can be a fan of one team and yet still want your main rivals to do well. The level of opposition to my position shocked me. I was called out for being a "wagonist", "not a real fan", and, generally, "not understanding sports".

Most of those who were voicing such sentiments were supporters of overseas club football. I was made to understand that if one supports Manchester United, the natural thing is to hate Liverpool. If one supports Barcelona, one has to have it in for Real Madrid! I couldn't understand why.

Why is it if I RATE one team that I have to HATE another? This business of hating rival teams is overrated in my view. Fans who get so emotionally invested in loving their own team to the point where they can hate another team, merely because they are rivals, is understandable, but completely unnecessary. I support Argentina in world football, first because I was an ardent Maradona fan when, as a gawking teenager, I saw him in the 1980s, and now because Lionel Messi is my favourite player.

The Argentina-Brazil rivalry is one of the biggest in all of sports. Indeed, so big is this animosity between the countries on a football field that they both have different records of how many times they have beaten the other! At one point, after 1946, the two countries refused to play against each other for 10 years after a particularly rough game between them!

What does all that have to with me, though? Those fans who are close to the action, who can experience, first-hand, the animosity between the two nations, may have real reasons to hate on the team they don't support. But I'm a Jamaican living in Jamaica, and, horror of horrors, happen to admire both teams. In my formative years, while I was busy hero-worshipping Maradona, I was also in awe with Zico, Socrates, Eder, Falcao and other members of that fascinating 1982 Brazilian team.

Although, emotionally, I am a little more attached to Argentina, I have no problem with Brazil doing well. If Argentina drops out of the World Cup, call me a wagonist or berate me for not understanding rivalries, but Brazil would now become one of my favoured teams. It's a little silly to suggest that merely because I support Argentina, I shouldn't back Brazil.

Local rivalries

I hear locals suggesting that you can't be a supporter of both Calabar and Kingston College at Champs. I ask, why not? I didn't attend either school, and maybe I can understand the natural adversarial attitude from those who did go to either school. But what really is it that stops me, as an 'outsider', and lover of track and field, to admire the efforts of both teams? Why do I have to be for one, and against the other? I was one of those people who ranked Vybz Kartel highly while admiring Mavado when the Gully-Gaza feud was at its peak. Does that make me somehow some strange and crazy human being? Doesn't that make me objective and rational if I can somehow see the good in both sides?

If you really stop to think about it, the reason rivalries really develop is because both sides have a healthy respect for each other, even if they won't admit it publicly. That respect is developed over time because either side would have their period of success against the other.

If that's the case, why is it so strange to openly 'bring' my rival team when my side no longer has a chance to win? I hear that my attitude is not consistent with being a real fan. I disagree. I'm a fan of sports before being a fan of a team. Very few people start liking a sport because of a team or a player. You first love the game, and then you treasure teams or players who fit your fancy.

I don't see why I can't love and admire two teams - even if they are always at daggers drawn. These fans are simply being irrational!

Orville Higgins is a sportscaster and talk-show host. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.