Att älska ett lag på distans
Det är inte bara i England som vi på redaktionen knytit band Port Vale-supportrar emellan. Vi har lyckats hitta en portugis som beskriver sina känslor om Port Vale och att älska ett lag på långt avstånd. OBS. texten är på engelska
First of all, I will try to explain where I come from. I live in a small island in the Atlantic Ocean, called Sao Miguel, which is a part of the archipelago of the Azores, which belongs to Portugal.
From my early days, just like any youngster, I become a fan of the beautiful game called football, and I always wanted to know more about it. I eagerly “devoured” all matches that were transmitted on TV.
Portuguese football seemed great to me, classy players with lots of skill, great “jugglers” of the ball, and my favourite club, Sporting Lisbon – the true love of my life, kept me happy, till one day I saw a “foreign” game on the TV. It was a FA Cup game involving Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest (I was very young so I’m not 100% sure on the exact details). I was astonished with the passion and heart involved in the game...it was the beginning...I became an “addict” of English football. There was so little diving, so much emotion from the stands, and so much heart put into the play, whether it was in the first minute of play or the last minute of injury time, and there were the strikers such as Lineker, Mark Hughes, Ian Rush and many more.
Portuguese television started to transmit a lot of English games and I didn’t miss one. I saw all the games – sometimes I had to wake up very early on weekends to see them. But I never had that special “feeling” about one club, especially as there weren’t many clubs who played in green, like Sporting does. Although I quite liked Tottenham, and my best friend (who had relatives working in England), supported Liverpool.
One day I read in the newspaper that Liverpool was kept to a 2-2 draw in a cup game against a side I was unfamiliar with called Port Vale, and I just kept teasing my friend saying I was a Port Vale fan! Later that year his relatives (who lived near Stoke) bought him a Vale shirt, and when he showed it to me it was love at first sight. If I was a kind of fan before, I then became a true Port Vale fan. Every time we went playing football with our friends he had to bring the shirt and I was the only one who could wear it (the shirt was more mine than his).
His uncle was a regular spectator at Vale games –at least that was what he said - and every time he returned to the Azores he had to tell me all the things he saw – the games he attended, the players of the time, etc.
That, and the win in the Autoglass Cup, which I read about in a sport newspaper, were the last things I heard about the club. For many years, the only “connection” I had with Port Vale was one old computer game, where you could run the business of an English club, and every time I had to be Port Vale.
Many years later, with the boom of the internet, I could finally check all the results of my “English club” as I like to call it, and consult how well or how bad Port Vale were doing.
Recently I found an Internet site, which I logged on to, and I could understand even better the reality of the club and how much you love and support your club.
A friend of mine, who lived in Lisbon has just moved to Stoke-on-Trent, and when he asked me what was the club to watch there...well...you could guess what my answer was. He also has been “ordered” to buy me a Vale shirt, and who knows...I hope one day I will pay him a visit and attend a Port Vale home game.
As I like to say, the fans are the ones who make the football clubs, not the players, the managers or the presidents of the club...they all come and go and the club stays, and if you love the club as much as I read about it, I can only say that “our” Port Vale will have a bright future!
This Portuguese Vale fan would like to wish all the best for the club!
UP THE VALE!
Frederico Barbosa, the number one Port Vale fan in Portugal.
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