How popular is football in British culture?

In the Anglosphere things are a bit different

In Canadian culture, Hockey reigns supreme. The NHL gets the highest ratings among Canadians and most young Canadian kids grow up dreaming of making it to the NHL

In New Zealand culture, Rugby reigns supreme, Rugby gets the highest ratings among Kiwis and most young Kiwi kids grow up dreaming of making it to the All Blacks squad

In African-American culture, Basketball reigns supreme. The NBA gets the highest ratings among African-Americans and most African American kids grow up dreaming of making it to the NBA

In Yank culture, AM Football reigns supreme. NFL gets the highest ratings among yanks and most yank kids grow up dreaming of being in the NFL

In Australian culture, Aussie Rules Football reigns supreme and AFL gets the highest ratings among Aussies. Most Aussie kids dream of making it to the AFL

How popular is football in british culture? Do most people follow the Premeirship? How are the players treated in British society? How popular is the sport at a grasroots level?

Reply 1

cole-slaw

Its huge in inner city working class culture, along with betting, darts, obesity, reading the sun and all day drinking.

Amongst the middle classes, its no big deal. We prefer rugby and cricket if truth be told.

Reply 2

Jakerc1

Original post by cole-slaw

Football is popular amongst all classes in England, trust me...

Reply 3

Andrew657Thomas

Yeah everyone knows about football over here.

Reply 4

cole-slaw

Original post by Jakerc1

Football is popular amongst all classes in England, trust me...

Actually, I've been researching this, and its not. Its divided along class lines.

Thanks for your input though.

Reply 5

Smileyface97

VERY. People here are very passionate about their local football team. It's like part of your identity here.

Reply 6

Drewski

It's all pervasive. Football sayings and cliches are common parlance, even for those not fans of the sport, most people are aware of at least some players and most of the big clubs.

Reply 7

username1054063

It's very popular, thankfully. I'm sick of hockey here in Canada.

Reply 8

username1177050

It's popular and with good reason. It is the best sport in the world and aston villa is the best team. That is all.

Reply 9

Drewski

Original post by cole-slaw

Actually, I've been researching this, and its not. Its divided along class lines.

Thanks for your input though.

Not exclusively, though.

And it's fair to say that, while popular, cricket and rugby almost qualify as minority sports in comparison (and let's not forget the other rugby code, which is most definitely not the upper class field).

Reply 10

bittr n swt

Sport of the nation tbh

Reply 11

somemightsay888

Football is the most popular sport here, probably the most accessible too. All you need to know is "Man kicks ball into net, the more he does it the better it is". Obviously there's a lot more to that, but it's accessible at a base level to everyone and even non fans can get into simple things like the international tournaments.

Most people follow the Premiership, but the lower leagues have a very healthy following. I'd still say the big teams (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool etc) have by far and away the lions share of support in and out of the respective areas but you'll find plenty of supporters of every calibre of club.

Most players are never treated well by the media, if that's what you mean. If they're not doing one thing wrong, it's another. Because most of the maltreatment comes from tabloid scum, which unfortunately are the most popular papers here, there can be a bit of an air of hostility towards players, some even targeted. You'll rarely see a teams own fans abusing their own players, so the fan side of it is fine. Opposition reception varies; some chants against players are funny, some are just grossly offensive. Overall, fan side = good, media side = bad.

Reply 12

GnomeMage

football is the sports of the world.

Reply 13

esbo

It used to be a very working class game, but since compulsory all seater stadiums the working class have largely been priced out of attending,
certainly the working poor.

For example in 2000 Roy Keane referred to Man U fans as "the prawn sandwich brigade".

The seats are bough up for corporate hospitality pricing normal fans out of the game

"Away from home our fans are fantastic, I'd call them the hardcore fans. But at home they have a few drinks and probably the prawn sandwiches, and they don't realise what's going on out on the pitch." attributed to Roy Keane (but he never said it).

But that is at the big clubs, it is somewhat different in the lower leagues and bottom end of the Premiership.

It is still a working class game at grassroots level though, but the game has changed a lot over the years, back in the 60's players would have been on similar
wages to the fans, now the average Premiership player earns in a week what a fan would earn in 2 years. Some earn more taking a dump!!