Football fans: trainspotters in disguise?

[teuchter]

There's a thread in the transport forum about trainspotters.

The suggestion is that "trainspotting" (in the anorak and notebook sense of the word) is viewed as a kind of mildy autistic / obsessive behaviour and hence the tendency for those who partake to be ostracised ...

I (and some others) have always considered it as pretty similar to the behaviour of many football fans. Obsessive collection of statistics and trivial facts, etc etc .... But football fans never seem to get as much ridicule as trainspotters.

Just wondering if anyone here had any thoughts on the matter?

 

[T & P]

This'll go well

 

[maximilian ping]

there are some footie fans (even on these boards) who would put a trainspotter's nerdiness to shame

 

[Andy the Don]

Some wonderful examples of the speices on here..

http://www.pyramidpassion.co.uk/html/supporters.html

 

[editor]

I did a comic strip about obsessive footie fans.
I'll have to scan it in.

Here's another one wot I drew:

http://www.urban75.org/comics/fans.html

 

[Dubversion]

in the days when i tried - god knows, i tried - to show some kind of interest in football, it wasn't enough. I couldn't just support a team, i had to know stats dating back to before i was born.

In that sense, it's WORSE Than trainspotting, because at least trainspotters have the decency to be pretty much ashamed of their obsession

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Those cartoons are great.

 

[T & P]

I know a bloke (Andy the Don might guess who I'm talking about) whose ultra-photographic memory of all matters football is truly astonishing.

He can even tell you the names of the starting 11 for both teams from a random European Cup final several decades ago- none of which involving English teams.

Had he applied such mind powers to a better use he would probably be a rocket scientist today, or have worked out a winning formula for the National Lottery, but there you go...

 

[editor]

Here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Statman:
http://www.urban75.org/comics/statman.html

 

[souljacker]

Here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Statman:
http://www.urban75.org/comics/statman.html

I know a bloke just like that. He's been chinned on a number of occasions.

 

[skunkboy69]

Some of the things people do and say in the name of football are laughable.The rivalry thing between local teams is, at worst, simply playground sillyness

 

[oneflewover]

There must be some sympathy for the Hull City supporter on his 80th+ ground (only involving aforementioned team) done them all by train except Mansfield and attempts to travel a different way to the ground as coming home and willonly drink in a pub with real ale!

Up The Tigers

 

[passenger]

just love those cartoons i would be the over excited fan

 

[teuchter]

So how come is it that these football obsessives get off so lightly (in terms of mainstream media ridicule, etc.) compared to the harmless trainspotter?

Why, when I let on I might have a passing interest in railways, I am looked at as if I am an obsessive maniac .... yet I am treated with equal suspicion when I state that I really don't give a toss about football?

Is it because the media and government are controlled by the footballing classes?

Is it time for a revolution to get rid of this rot?

 

[editor]

Here's another cartoon just posted up, this time rather cruelly taking the piss out of one or two of the obsessed Cardiff fanzine writers:
http://www.urban75.org/comics/fanzine-writers.html

And - by coincidence - it mentions trainspotting too!

 

[andy2002]

Ignore this post, I screwed it up.

 

[andy2002]

I don't think it's just football fans and trainspotters. It strikes me that men, generally, are very anal and that characteristic always finds an outlet somewhere – whether it be in collecting coins, stamps or comics, obsessively collating footie results or train numbers, or learning the dialogue from every Star Wars film off by heart. We're all at it!

 

[Bazza]

I agree that football is a bit anorakish but to compare it to people who go sit on train platforms and take pictures of trains and tick off their numbers is taking it too far.

Does trainspotting invoke the passion that football can?

Does it involve the drama and unpredictability of a good match/season?

 

[teuchter]

I don't think it's just football fans and trainspotters. It strikes me that men, generally, are very anal and that characteristic always finds an outlet somewhere – whether it be in collecting coins, stamps or comics, obsessively collating footie results or train numbers, or learning the dialogue from every Star Wars film off by heart. We're all at it!

or arguing about stuff on internet boards ..........

 

[teuchter]

I agree that football is a bit anorakish but to compare it to people who go sit on train platforms and take pictures of trains and tick off their numbers is taking it too far.

Does trainspotting invoke the passion that football can?

You'd be surprised!

There are some nutters out there who travel literally thousands of miles a year just to clock up "mileage" behind their favourite locomotives, or over rarely used lines.

And it's not really trainspotting but there are many who devote much of their life to saving, restoring and maintaining preserved trains and lines.