Supporting more than one team?

[TDoGGBulldog]

Having only one team to support and despising all others is ludicrous. If you team doesn't make the GF, do you not watch it? I love the NRL and have a pecking order if you like with soft spots for several teams. Probably the only GF that I would be bored with would be Dragons V Roosters which are the teams I dislike the most.

I'm glad the Titans have arrived because being a life-time SE Qld resident it seems there was little choice other than to be force fed Broncos, Broncos and more Broncos in the papers and on the tele. Now I've got a team I can support whole-heartedly from its genesis I can't wait. I will still cheer the Broncos against most other teams but not at the peril of the Titans that I will support now until either I or they die!

Its not wrong at all imo. I am 100% loyal to my team. Yes i watch the grand finals. It doesn't excite me as much, but i still can find it a good game.

Although i did state this year "I hope all the teams above the bulldogs get disqualified for drugs or something and the dogs vs the dragons in the grandfinal because we've smashed those fools twice already and can do it again"

[Steel Dragon]

Mate, to answer your original question, I've followed two teams in the AFL for a number of years (West Coast and Sydney), and I don't have any problems when they play each other. I just hope for a good, close game, unless one team needs the win far more than the other. Anyone who follows AFL and has seen the last 5 games between the Eagles and Swans (Including 2 semis and 2 Grand Finals, all games decided by less than a goal) might understand why I feel perfectly justified in following both of them. I've certainly thoroughly enjoyed watching 5 top shelf games of footy, whereas otherwise I would have been very upset on 2 or 3 occasions (I'm not someone you want to be around when my team loses, in fact, I think my wife would be happier if I suddenly decided to support all teams equally!).

Perhaps another way to think about it. If you support one team, then your ultimate hope is no doubt to see them play in and win a Grand Final. If you support two teams, then your ultimate hope is a Grand Final showdown between the two of them. There now being 16 teams in both the NRL and AFL, this gives 120 possible Grand Final combinations. The odds, even factoring in differnces between teams, are still pretty remote of hitting that 1 combination when you only have 1 shot a year. When the combination comes up two years in a row, well, I was bouncing off the walls with excitement. The quality of the two games and the nailbiting finishes made it even better.

In my experience, and perhaps this is only true for the non-AFL states, there seems to be a greater tendency to follow two teams in the AFL than in league. I know a number of people who follow two teams, usually the Lions and one of the traditonal Victorian teams. I do think my combination is fairly rare, however I did see someone on the 2005 Grand Final telecast wearing an Eagles beanie and Swans scarf (I was coincidentally wearing the exact opposite combination).

The beginning of the story however is that I started off supporting the Eagles (I picked them because of their emblem, I loved birds of prey when I was a kid, which means I could have very easily ended up a Hawthorn supporter *shudder*), then my loyalty to NSW led me to adopting the Swans as my second team, who over time became my equal favourite team as I figured there was no law against supporting 2 teams, so why the heck shouldn't I? Paid off in the long run.

As for league, I have stated elsewhere I was a blind Steelers fan, with the Gold Coast as my second team. I've supported the Dragons since the "merger", but the way the Steelers and their fans have been treated (i.e. name on the bottom of the St. George badge and otherwise ignored for the most part) means I'm more than ready to adopt my old second favourites as equal favourites this time round. The fact it has worked so well for me in the AFL seals the deal.

Hope that somewhere in that ramble is something that makes some sense, TDoGGBulldog.

Jason