After I moved to Spain , 20 odd years ago, I adopted a new team , Atletico Madrid, Real's crappier, poorer, humbler and more chaotic neighbours. These have now supplanted my former love of Arsenal, although i still have a soft spot for the Gooners

I'll always support Liverpool. For better, for worse.

changing my football team would be like changing my head. Can't be done, no matter how much grief and despondency your team heaps on you.

It's not as if you choose which team to support. In my experience, it's the team that chooses you.

.. what then? QPR seem to have stopped playing footy and taken up a form of managerial tag team wrestling

Supporting a team is just a form of attachment, so I guess if you became a Buddhist you could rid yourself of it.

posting on a football forum and having witnessed first hand the unrelenting criticism, cursing and cussing that befell a chap who decided to switch his allegiance from Man Utd to Arsenal I would suggest that the answer to your question is a definite 'no'.

All those years of mediocrity and outright thrashings you suffer make that cup run, 1-0 fluky win on a wet Tuesday night over your bitter and hated rivals all the more worthwhile and sweet.
Mind you, Craig Bellamy would stretch my loyalty to almost breaking point!!

despite them appointing Harry Redknapp. In fairness, he's done a good job and deserves congratulations. But I don't like him.

I support Munich's third club, SpVgg Unterhaching. (Especially as my terrace season ticket works out at €5,80 a game.)

My 'real' team is Bolton Wanderers – this is only going to be a problem if their paths ever cross. Highly unlikely, but you never know …

you probably have to do something then. Pompey anyone?

You can adopt a secondary, local team if you move if you must (it is, of course, assumed that your primary alegiance belongs to someone whose ground was fairly close to you when you were 8 years old).You can change your politcal views, renege on your marriage vows and apostasise you religion but you're stick with your team for life.

... my best friend's dad was from Nottingham, and supported Forest. So my pal supported Forest, and I decided to as well.
Bearing in mind I live in Somerset, but for a good 5 or 6 years I watched and supported them from afar.

But, then, when I was about 9, Forest got relegated from the Premier League; their matches weren't on Tele anymore, I couldn't watch them, and was really too young to enjoy reading about them. I changed teams; ever since then I've supported Yeovil.

Still have a soft spot for them. But that was a genuine change, which I don't think is too shameful.

I'm a West Ham fan too and whilst I think Bellamy is a bit of a prick, when he played for us he was our prick so I quite liked him.

As a little lad my Dad took me to see Everton. This was late-'70s / early-'80s, when they were rubbish, and after a while my Dad must've decided to try to stop convincing me otherwise, as we stopped going. A couplem of years later (around age 9) I drifted into going to Anfield with my mates - I could afford tickets on my pocket money, and crucially wasn't short of people to go the match with. LFC were winning EVERYTHING, and had Kenny Dalglish... looking back it seems almost inevitable.

However. Despite all the cups & league titles, I couldn't muster up any real passion for LFC, and gradually lost interest in watching football altogether. This period of success for LFC was reflected by the same for EFC, which conflicted my nascent teenage emotions further. Probably I was just too young to know my own mind, which seems kind of tragic, but feasible given my age.

*Anyway*, about ten years ago a mate started dragging me to Goodison again to watch Everton games. It felt like going back home - I think deep down I just need to side with the underdog. So now I'd class myself as an Evertonian, albeit I'm not the most avid supporter. I probably would be more committed if I didn't carry with me this horrible Catholic guilt about doing the whole "switcheroo".

My point being? You can change your team, but also, you can't. Because once you do, it's really difficult to go back.

... when I was 10 and went regularly the next season. When I started secondary school in Hammersmith, I went to a few Fulham games with some new school friends, I think I got swept up in the "upgrade" from the 4th division to the 2nd and ended up a Fulham regular for the next couple of seasons until the family moved away from London.

When I lived in Cheltenham, I saw the Robins a couple of times in their non-league days. When I moved to Cambridge I saw United a couple of times, too.

But now, despite being 6,000 miles from London, thanks to technology and Rupert Murdoch I can watch Fulham as well as half a dozen other live Premiership games every weekend.

If you are an armchair supporter then I guess there is never any reason to change your team, but if you actually go to games then it seems obvious to me that you end up supporting the team you watch week in week out.

I have therefore changed teams whenever I have moved. So it was Leeds from 1967 to about 1977. Then Coventry from 77 to about 2003 and since then it has been Malaga. Admittedly the change was never instant. It takes 2 or 3 years for the loyalty to diminish as familiar players and managers move on and the bonds that tie you are weakened.

Although I still check Coventry's results every week I probably couldn't name more than a couple of their players. In contrast, I could (and do) hold forth for hours about Malaga's players, tactics and performances. Yet I know that if I move again it won't be too long before they are replaced in my affections by whichever is the local team that I will be going to watch.

Evertonians are Born Not Manufactured
We do not Choose; We are Chosen
Those who Understand Need No Explanation
Those That Don't Understand Don't Matter

... but if "Colin" is ever appointed as your club's manager, you are more than justified in sending in your season ticket and asking for your money back. He is anti-football.

I don't want to change. I couldn't anyway.

And even if I could - I couldn't.

Kieron Dyer, Craig Bellamy, Lee Bowyer, Souness, The FCB... (I could go on).
Nothing would ever make me change, not even that lot - they are just passing thru' - I'm here till I pop my clogs.

Supported QPR for 38 of my 40 years on this planet. Despite working at a Premier League football club, will never ever ever change. It's sacrilege.

Come on you Super Hoooopsaaaaaaaaaa

was David Mellor. From Fulham to Chelsea if I remember. Says a lot about the type of lowlife who could consider such behaviour.

As my cousin says - wives are temporary, Wolves are permanent.

Change your religion,divorce your wife but stop loving your club,Never!

Saw my first Swansea City game when I was nine and I'm still there as a season ticket holder aged 39. I was ten when we got promoted for the first time in our history to the "top division. A year later we were sixth in the big league after leading the league several times....and then the abyss. It's taken us 27 to get anywhere near the position where we are. Administration (twice), directors illegaly trying to sack our players, winning a trophy at old Wembley, promotions, relegations, playoff wins and defeats. I love my club and wouldn't change anything about them.

Change your house, change your wife, change your car, even change your sex....But changing your team is beyond the pail.
Until the move from The Marbled Halls of Highbury that was the only place I had kept returning to since I was a small boy.Every other meeting point/place (Doctors,dentist,school etc) had at one time or other changed in my life. Some of the my highest and lowest emotions have been felt watching The Arsenal, sometimes in the same match (Champions Lge Final v Barca, 1979 FA Cup Final v Man Utd, 1968 League Cup Final v Swindon, Nayim from the halfway line, 1971 White Hart Lane winning the League...I could go on)

I could never contemplate another club, that's why I feel for all Portsmouth fans and fans of other teams who are in danger of losing their team.I would not want that for any supporter, even a Sperz one!

So as I come from East Angelia I look out for the results for both Norwich and Ipswich.

I currently live in Oxford so follow their fortunes and used to live in Leeds and follow them as well.

I guess I am the ultimate "fairweather" fan but have never felt the need to limit my feelings to one particular club.

Is that weird?

A football team is for life, not just for trophies.I support Raith Rovers....BUT I stayed in Aberdeen for over 30 years, and have seen the Dandy Dons on hundreds of occassions... the good times (The Fergie years) and the bad (every year since he left)... I have stood and cheered the Men In Red at cup finals, european games (3-2 versus Bayern!!), league games against The Evil Twins from Glesga, but when the odd occassion that Raith came to town, I was in the Away End, supporting The Rovers. Recently, WE beat Aberdeen 1-0 at Pittodrie in The Scottish Cup...I was ecstatic....a personal self inflicted schadenfreude? Perhaps. I will always love Aberdeen, the City, The Football Club, The people, even the climate (well, maybe not) but Raith Rovers are my team.

From Southampton (my dad's team) to Charlton (the nearest team when I was a teenager) and back to Southampton again when I ended up living here thirty years ago. Given that both teams ended up in the third division this season, I don't think I can be accused of glory hunting.

This isn't intended as any sort of a criticism - god knows I'm in no position - but being someone who doesn't really "get" sport, this thread is kind of astonishing to me. Speaking as the lamest of laymen, I've never understood why a person wouldn't support their most local team, but that's as far as my view on the subject goes. Other than that, my first thought on seeing this thread was (whisper) "erm... isn't it, um... a... game?"

To which the only sensible answer is "well, isn't pop music JUST music?", to which the answer is "yes", but that doesn't explain why it can be the trigger for almost every emotion a human being is capable of. The thing is, I get music. Even though it's just combinations of sound frequencies and language, it speaks to me on some utterly visceral level. My lizard hindbrain just latches onto it and goes "YES!"

But I've just never been able to see what there is to "get" with football - it really is, in my eyes, no more than 22 unbelievably privileged young men chasing a ball around for rather longer than you'd imagine would be fun. I wish I got it, I really do. Honestly, I'm not trying to be a twat, and certainly not trying to act in any way superior - if anything I feel that I'm missing out, because lots of people seem to get so much from following sport - but I've never, ever been able to get my head into a place where sport, any sport, looks important to me. It just entirely sails over my head, especially the tribal bit.

Nowt s'queer's furk, eh? I must be missing a gene.

Sean Connery is gently ridiculed in Scotland for apparently shifting his allegiance from Hearts, to Celtic, and then to Rangers.

And on the political front for being the Scottish National Part representative for the consituency of Malaga south.

There is only one team the rest of are disillusioned Fools, Only kidding.
Vale and Espanyol for me. Can't abide Sjoke or Barça (Don't believe the Hype) and would rather watch roller hockey or 3 day eventing than either of those two and supporting them, Matron ,my revolver please,

But I've always lived at the other end of the country. In 1970 they were the biggest team in the land, so I adopted them. There was no sense to it - no way I was ever going to go to Elland Road. I was six!

It would have made more sense to choose Chelsea, who beat Leeds in the cup final a week before my birthday; they were only 90 minutes up the road. Maybe I preferred white to blue.

Anyway, that was me for the next 30 years, even through my home town (Brighton)'s glory years - all right, glory weeks - in the mid '80s. A few years ago I bought a sofa just outside the 18-yard box of the seaward end of the Goldstone Ground (it's a DFS now). Anyone else from round my way would have felt a pang or two about that. I felt nowt. It's not rational or wise. It just is.

There's no divorce. By the 90s I knew I'd made a mistake, could even laugh about it, but couldn't move on. I gave up Leeds by giving up football.

Leeds and I haven't spoken for years (it's not them, it's me) but, even though I've tried, I've never been able to follow another team.

But I have expanded on the original selection. I grew up in NZ without a TV, and saved all my pocket money up when I was 11 (this was 1977) so my mum could hire one and I would be able to watch the FA and European Cup finals. As Liverpool were involved in both, I became a fan.

Then we moved to the UK and ended up living a few hundred metres from Northampton Town's old ground. I ended up training regularly with the youth team (never offered a trial, sadly) and became a season ticket holder.

In London I've had season tickets at a few clubs, both league and non-league, depending on who's nearest. These days it's Arsenal, but I'm still a Liverpool fan first and foremost, and found the game at the Emirates a few weeks ago excruciating to watch.

Then there's the foreign teams I follow, or have followed - one is no longer with us - teams I've seen play and often bought the shirt: Busun I'Park in South Korea, Valerenga in Norway, Deportivo Palestino in Chile, Barcelona AND Real Madrid, AC Milan (I had to seek permission from some people high up in the Brigate Rossonere to stand amongst them during a European tie), LA Galaxy (a full decade before Beckham arrived), Vancouver Whitecaps (this was 1982: Terry Yorath, Peter Lorimer, a pre-Liverpool Peter Beardsley).

And here's the weird bit: I've seen Liverpool play dozens of times over the years (highlight: Dalglish scoring at Stamford Bridge in 1986 to secure the old first division title)... but I've still never been to Anfield.

I go back to 1974 with Ipswich Town and I cannot see me ever switching to another club. They have in turn delighted and frustrated with their free-flowing style of football. Their forays into the top tier have surprised and delighted fans for generations.

However, if they did any of the following things I probably would desert them :

1. become deeply involved in deeply dodgy things like child abuse or drug trafficking,
2. revealed that important wins from the past were arranged via dodgy betting syndicates, or the poisoning of tea urns at half-time
3. adopt a racist policy on anything,
4. change their name to Traktor Boyz FC to be down with the kids,
5. merge with another club and lose their name entirely.

Australian references follow, but the meaning will be clear.

When a child of about nine, for reasons made dim by the passing of the years, I decided to switch from Hawthorn, the team of my father and brother, to Richmond. I’m sure it made sense at the time, but perhaps it was just a dose of childhood perversity – none of my friends followed the team, they were nowhere near local and I’d never had any real affection for them before I made the switch.

I had a rough time at school for a year or so, from students (and some teachers) and my family, none of whom could understand why anyone would do such a truly terrible thing. Shaving my head and tattooing my address on my skull in case I got lost would have seemed more reasonable.

In 1980, a year or so after the move, Richmond won the premiership. I was a very happy lad (although the odd cutting remark was still heard).

And as the years since have passed… nothing. Not a sausage. Richmond have had an appalling run for most of the last twenty-five years; a combination of poor recruiting, a playing squad with issues in the skills and attitude departments and a committee that didn’t realise they were actually supposed to support the club. There has been the odd ray of hope and quality play, but more often that not the rays of sunshine have been darkened with agonising regularity.

Hawthorn, the team I deserted, have become one of the most successful sides of the last twenty-five years.

Apparently Richmond is now moving into a wonderful new era. I still think it’s karma for my performing the unspeakable act as a child. But it’s too late to switch. I often hate being a Richmond supporter, but I’d hate myself a lot more if I stopped following them.

Parents: don’t let your child grow up to switch teams.

I sort of transferred my allegiance when I moved from Merseyside to Yorkshire. No way was I going to support Wednesday or United so I started watching Rugby League with Sheffield Eagles. I'm passionate about the Eagles and while I never lost the first-born love of Liverpool, I cried when we beat Wigan in the 1998 Challenge Cup Final.

The "almost change", though, came in 2000. Then then Eagles board took the (Sky TV) money and ran. The old Eagles club was "merged" with Huddersfield. The new club took Huddersfield's nickname, Huddersfield's badge, Huddersfield's colours, and were to play at Huddersfield's ground for most of the season. It couldn't have been more insulting if they'd added "and Sheffield" in cheap Letraset to the bottom of their logo. Oh wait, they did!

So if I wanted to carry on supporting Super League and the players I'd followed I needed to switch clubs. I considered it. I really did. But then Eagles' longest serving player, Mark Aston, announced a consortium would try and start a new Sheffield Eagles. Along with all of the other Eagles fans I decided I'd rather drop two divisions than support another team.

We're only 25 years old as a club and I've only seen 20 of those years but how long does it take to build fan commitment?

Born and bred in Crewe but for the first 11 years of my life lived at the opposite end of town to the Alex. As a proper small town kid that part of town was a mile or tow beyond the "Here Be Monsters" sogn so I never went there. Sort of supported Man City (League 1968, Cup 1969), so a sort of early adopter in the glory hunting stakes.

At the age of 11 moved to the other end of town, about 50 yards from Gresty Road and an everlasting love affair developed. Season tickets, reserve matches...did the lot. Great to have a proper allegiance even though we were a crappy 4th division team for whom avoiding re-election (look it up kids) was greeted like promotion or winning Europe. You're not a proper fan until you've suffered 0-0 at home v Workington in the January rain with less than 1,000 other hardy souls.

Still the only team for me. I love to watch football played the exciting way, so currently enjoy Barca (saw them at the Nou Camp for the first time this year), Real and Arsenal (going to the Emirates on Easter saturday - a birthday treat for me) but there's still only one team whose results really matter.

Dario really is a God. Without him we would now be a shopping park and just a memory.

In that order. Always.

has always intrigued me. He started of a mad Man Utd fan, then switched to Southampton (our local team) when they won the FA Cup, then went back to Man Utd until he moved to London and is now a Chelsea season ticket holder who rarely goes.

To me, that says there's not a lot of real love there and I'm always ribbing him about being one of those ghastly Johnny-come-lately media footie types who support the big clubs and talk a good talk about it but somehow it doesn't really ring true. Do you know the the type I mean?

Me, I've kept the faith with the Saints despite not being a football fan at all. Glad to see them doing better this season at last.

Have been an Aberdeen fan for over 25 years now.

We had some good times, but now we are rubbish.

Would I switch to any other team? No
Would I support either of the Old Firm? yes, when hell freezes over.

Where's the fun in winning every week?

A very good mate of mine was a Wigan Rugby fan, until he met a girl from St. Helens, whereupon he started supporting the dreaded enemy.
To equate that to football, it's like a Man U fan deciding to support Liverpool, and it's brought no end of Judas-based mockery.

Every time we all get together, there's a barrage of Judas gags, including: "Are your lips ok, mate? They look a bit sore. Must be from kissing Christ on the cheek in the Garden of Gethsemane." And when the bill arrives, the inevitable, "Ok, let's spilt the bill. Mike, you can use your 30 pieces of silver to pay, if you like."

It was the guy's stag-do recently, and we were going to take him out with a Wigan shirt with 'Judas' emblazoned on the back, until his fiancee had a word.

... if you support Ars*n*l

ABA

No

Ever. I picked Leeds when I was 6. I have had some fleeting moments of wonderful glory but mostly its been disappointing. The good moments were great though - for a time, we were the most exciting team in the Prem. Anyone who changes their team just doesn't understand football.

I can like another team (I have a soft spot for Woking but they seem to have signed a deal with Leeds to ensure that they remain at least 3 levels below Leeds so are currently slumping below the Conference). I like Arsenal (got bought a load of drinks by Arsenal fans in the Hope & Anchor one night before a Arsenal Leeds game) And after all, they are not Man U or Chelsea. My Granddad was a huge Liverpool fan so have a soft spot for them too. But it will always be Leeds. Lorimer and Bremner started it, Batty and Strachan gave me some glory to carry me through and I hope to see Becchio and Snodgrass gracing the Championship with us next year.

you never change sides. never.

Not ever, never. End of.

Kidderminster Harriers - Pride of Worcestershire!

So, if there is no excuse, what do you do for Wimbledon?

Stick to the originals and tie in with MK Dons or jump ship to AFC Wimbledon?

At what point does a club change who it is? Name change? (There've been a few.) Venue change? (Likewise...) Monetary considerations? (Oh, don't let's go *there*!)

As a longtime Man City supporter living near Rotterdam I developed an attachment for Feyenoord. It's hard not to considering the fact that I pass their stadium everyday on my way to work.

I've moved sideways to Barnet (from QPR) as I can't really get behind any club that actually 'wants' to be in the Premiership and, even worse, the 'Champions' (or should that be 'Safety-net') League.

To put it bluntly, any league that has Tottenham and Chelsea as members I want no part of.
Don't like them.....don't like anyone who supports them......don't want to give them any money.

Also, I like standing at football and at Underhill I can do that.

As an aside, is it me or is the 'Champions' League absolutely crap?
I mean Porto!!!!
After six months of football (six months!), they're handed two goals in the first leg against ho-hum Arsenal and then........five-nil.
What is the point?