Love and loyalty – sport on the south coast
I grew up without a football team to support. My dad has never really been that keen on sport so left the choice of finding team to follow up to me. He grew up in Portsmouth, but I was born in Southampton. Two cities, two football teams, one great rivalry.
My family, on my dad’s side, were fierce Portsmouth supporters, where as I went to school where the loyalty was behind Southampton. The solution, for me, was to pick a different team to follow and ended up with Liverpool because they won everything (at least they used to).
But, today, Liverpool are out of the FA Cup and the big game of the day is Southampton v Portsmouth. ‘Come on you…’ Maybe the winner of this will become my team for the next round.
I vaguely followed Southampton when I went to uni – if only to wind up my nephews who are fierce Pompey fans! Generally though if people ask me which team I support, I’d have to say Gillingham as my great-grandfather and great-great uncle used to play for them
I’m supporting Scotland then France. What football?