We all know them and they are up and down the land. Dressed in their new replica shirt they bought in Sports Direct or online. Sitting in the local pub shouting at the TV (usually calling players by their first names) while calling each other Scousers and Mancs.

Now, if we're honest a lot of us will have had our heads turned by the big clubs in our early years because for many seeing them on TV at a cup final or on Match of the Day was the first exposure we had to football. Thankfully a lot of us, certainly on here, came to our senses soon enough and got passion for real football.

There is nothing worse than talking to a 'fan' of the club who has a day out to their Premier League club once every few years and treats it like a day out akin to going to a theme park. It's all a bit sad really seeing the photos of them skidding up, standing in front of various landmarks for photos and ransacking the club shop because they won't be back for a good few years.

You won't find many people in the land who get football so wrong. For them it is a TV show that inconveniences them momentarily when their team loses and have bragging rights, albeit hundreds of miles from the home grounds of the teams they support, for a short time when they win. Usually the bragging rights are over another plastic fan of the big four though so does it really matter all that much?
Football is about so much more than that. They aren't even getting the bare minimum of what football has to offer but they just don't see it.

The behind closed doors trophy lift witnessed by many a South Wales 'Scouser' recently was viewed by many looking on as weird in many ways due to Covid. If you think about it though it isn't that different to what they have witnessed recently when winning the Champions League for example. Only difference being they could not see fans in the background on their TV screens. Many of them probably watched both trophy lifts on the same TV.

The funniest part of it all for me is the way your fans of the big four seem to have pity for fans of clubs who don't win things or challenge regularly and seem to try to talk down to you in some way.

I find their deep need to have some kind of success in their empty sporting lives to make them feel worthwhile is all very sad.
I feel sorry for them because they have something in front of them in football that could be very, very special and get it so wrong. It is so different to what real fans do and experience in a season that it might as well be a different sport. It's no different to what I do when tuning in to the darts on Sky (my Michael Van Gerwen replica looks quality).

In short, as much as they think they have the upper hand on us due to the success of their hand picked team they just don't seem to get it and I actually feel very sorry for them and how very little they get from this great game.