Originally posted by DragonLady
(I'm a Black Cat by default)
I shall open by saying Roy Keane is god.
Now, a serious address to the topic at hand.
We discuss the lowly, simple, mass-produced footy kit. Let us regard it. Prominent is the sponsor's logo, the team's badge, perhaps the number and name of a favourite player, the EPL logo. All arrayed atop a shirt sewn by some half-blind child paid ten sesame seeds in a third world sweat shop.
This is what we speak of. Weighs nowt in the hand, carries immeasurable weight in symbolism.
And such symbolism. Not only a talisman for our preferred team, but evidently a marker for a certain class. A certain class of behaviour -- lower class, to be exact. But, in the cold light of fact, one cannot assume the kitsman to be a chav, a numpty, a bounder...too many old boys and dons wear the stuff, and I should know. One cannot assume the man or woman who wears footy kit outside the grounds to be a yob or an ASBO. Facts do not support it, and to argue as such is to reveal a willful disregard for truth.
Why, then, the hate? I can only deduce that it's a deep-seated, not-altogether-well-reasoned assigning of unearned disgust on the part of the haters.
I wear my MUFC and England kit in public as a point of pride and as a notice to the world that I hold footy close to my heart. I'm no mindless vandal -- I'm a football supporter (and a Democrat, and an art collector, and a PR, and a subscriber to Wallpaper, and myriad other socio-political indicators). Risking a maudlin sentiment: I am many things and therefore many men.
My kit is not my sum total, nor is any other part of me, tangible, spiritual or behavioural. And so, I must marvel at the level of churlish disdain lobbed at such an innocuous aspect of any man or woman's character.
A few feet of fabric and some applied embroidery. Is that all it takes to scare you? To cause you such pain and bother?
Do not fear the kit. Fear your reaction to the kit.
GJ