Backyard Support

Photograph by Zweli Ndhlovu

So it seems like the new football season has started with an exciting bang!

Social media is buzzing, football #hashtags are trending like the season never ended. Seems like we just picked up where we left of during the month of May when the under dogs did the unthinkable. The memes and the songs you hear from a stadium full of supporters taunting the visiting team, makes you wish you were there.

But...That’s Europe.

With the football season starting on the 23^rd of August this side, one can’t help but feel like we will bemoan poor stadium attendance in all but big three games against each other. Where empty stadium hashtags will trend more than the good football they actually give. (They really produce good games! but because there is no atmosphere you wouldn’t tell.)

It seems like we have some sort of an inferiority complex regarding sports in our country versus those from overseas. We never seem to find the right balance between valuing our sports and giving just enough respect to sports in other countries, but charity starts at home and not when they are at the Olympics! But our own leagues as well.

It always breaks my heart when people support a team that does not represent them or their town, in this country you would find that a team does not have support of the town it is based in and why is that? You see people from KZN telling you that they are proud Zulu or 100% Zulu and even that they are proud to be from but support a proudly Gauteng team.

I stopped supporting Chiefs when I realised that my focus on the popular teams and its rival made one less interested to get tickets to watch the smaller teams in stadiums when I hardly watched them on TV.

And we often rave on about how the Dortmund team is so well supported, or how small town teams like Leicester City win the league but never take a lesson from them, that they support their hometown teams, because they understand the importance of supporting teams that represent where they are from.

They say charity begins at home, and no growth in our sport will happen until we start in our hometowns to support sports teams we have.

Enjoy the 2016/2017 season and all the goals, surprises and memories it will bring. I am sure we can all say we missed it.