Who do you support and why?

by Joanne Rosenthal, Curator of Four Four Jew: Football, Fans and Faith

The arrival of the World Cup leads me back to our recent football exhibition, Four Four Jew: Football, Fans and Faith which closed a few months ago, and is currently on display in a revised form at the Manchester Jewish Museum.

In one section of the exhibition we asked a simple question: who do you support and why? Visitors wrote their responses on customised red and yellow cards, and stuck them up for all to see on a large magnetic football pitch. I loved watching the cards go up, and change from day to day. The messages people wrote were silly, cheeky, surreal, moving, and sometimes quite surprising (who knew Partick Thistle were the greatest team in the world?)

These comments perfectly encapsulate the wit and humour (sometimes unintended) of the humble football fan. Ten of my favourites are featured here, together with some lessons they teach us about football fans:

1. Football fans can be quite surreal

2. They can sometimes trick themselves into thinking things that aren’t quite true

3. Some of them hate football

4. Lots of them hate Manchester United

5. And, finally, some of them are very wise