Phoney Fans

I can really understand coloured, Indian and Blacks supporting teams other than South Africa pre 1994, for them it was supporting symbols of Apartheid. But then April 27 came along and South Africa had a new democratically elected government, this should have seen those supporting overseas teams as a means of thumbing their noses at apartheid saying, “lets support South African teams”. The Rugby World cup of 1995 evokes emotional memories for me, especially when I think of those scenes after we had beaten the All Blacks 15-12 in the final. The Movie Invictus portrays that period very well and is well worth a watch. Surely after the Boks became world Champs and all South Africans had elected a new government we would all be shouting for South African teams, no matter what sport they participated in?

This is however not the case and since moving to Port Elizabeth I am amazed at how many residents, especially the coloured community support the All Blacks and not just half arsed either, they go the hole hog and fly flags from the house, wear supporters shirts and have stickers on their cars “Make believe Maori’s” I call them. It pisses me off to be honest that they do this, if you ask them why they support the All Blacks they invariably tell you because they are the best team in the world, but when you ask who are the current world champs are they mumble something about how many games the All Blacks have won and I usually counter with since 1995 how many World Cups have the all Blacks won and how many have the Boks won, you can also ask if they supported England after 2003 because they were the world champs, at this stage you usually get abused. If you ask them to tell you about the country New Zealand not many can give you an answer.

But its not just Rugby where you get false fans Soccer also has its share and the Soccer World Cup held in SA last year (2010) I got upset at how many South Africans supported Brazil, Holland and even England. I have no problem with you supporting another team as a backup I supported Brazil after Bafana Bafana had been knocked out of the World Cup and anyone who played England. Even people from overseas were amazed at how many South Africans were supporting any other team but South Africa. Can you imagine a Scot supporting England or a Spaniard supporting Portugal they would be tarred and feathered, here we just seem to accept it and not say anything.

Most recently I was annoyed to see how many South African Indians were supporting the Indian team, literally thousands with the majority having been born here, why then do they support a country that their forefathers came from? If you like India so much then go and live there.

As far as I am concerned we as South Africans living here should be supporting any South African team when they are competing and if you support another country over South Africa you are a traitor and the definition of traitor is “someone who is disloyal or treacherous”

So next time you see a South African supporting a team from overseas that we are playing against, make a comment or ask them why, you will be surprised at the the answers( sorry excuses you get) you get.