Football Fans Quotes & Sayings

I've still got Paul Scholes' shirt at home which I swapped with him once. When I was at Liverpool he was one of the players I liked most. Maybe he's not valued as much as he should be in England because of the style of football there and because he keeps a low profile. Perhaps he would have been more valued in Spain, where midfielders like him form part of the 'ideal.' Fans in Spain rate him very highly and I admire him a huge amount. — Xabi Alonso

Still, even after the black winger John Barnes scored his solo goal to beat Brazil in Rio in 1984, the Football Association's chairman was harangued by England fans on the flight back home: "You fucking wanker, you prefer sambos to us. — Simon Kuper

At a play-off game with the Chargers, goose bumps ran down my arms as I rushed through the smoke-filled tunnel onto the field. The energy and voices of 70,000 screaming fans can turn even a veteran player's determined squint into the wide eyes of a child on Christmas morning.
While the cheerleaders performed and urged on the crowd, running back Danny Woodhead turned to me. "Can you believe we get to do this? — Jake Byrne

A handful of individual football stars - not necessarily the most talented, but those boasting good looks, beautiful wives and an animated private life - assumed a role in European public life and popular newspapers hitherto reserved for movie starlets or minor royalty. When David Beckham (an English player of moderate technical gifts but an unsurpassed talent for self-promotion) moved from Manchester United to Real Madrid in 2003, it made headline television news in every member-state of the European Union. Beckham's embarrassing performance at the European Football Championships in Portugal the following year - the England captain missed two penalties, hastening his country's ignominious early departure - did little to dampen the enthusiasm of his fans. — Tony Judt

Not much of what he said was original. What made him unique was the fact
that he had no sense of detachment at all. He was like the fanatical football fan who
runs onto the field and tackles a player. He saw life as the Big Game, and the whole
of mankind was divided into two teams
Sala's Boys, and The Others. The stakes
were fantastic and every play was vital
and although he watched with a nearly
obsessive interest, he was very much the fan, shouting unheard advice in a crowd of
unheard advisors and knowing all the while that nobody was paying any attention to
him because he was not running the team and never would be. And like all fans he
was frustrated by the knowledge that the best he could do, even in a pinch, would be
to run onto the field and cause some kind of illegal trouble, then be hauled off by
guards while the crowd laughed. — Hunter S. Thompson

Why is it good for football to take the excitement away from fans by overcharging them for tickets to see their team? — Sepp Blatter

How lucky I was to have played for the Pittsburgh Steelers fans. A proud, hard-working people, who loves their football, and their players. — Jack Lambert

Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent. — Dave Barry

The train's always full of football fans going up to see matches. Oh, they make sure I hear their points of view all right. They all want to have their say about their team, and make their opinions known. — Gary Lineker

It is a strange paradox that while the grief of football fans(and it is real grief) is private - we each have an individual relationship with our clubs, and I think that we are secretly convinced that none of the other fans understands quite why we have been harder hit than anyone else - we are forced to mourn in public, surrounded by people whose hurt is expressed in forms different from our own. — Nick Hornby

In Missoula, Grizzly football exists in a realm apart, where there is a pervasive sense of entitlement. University of Montana fans, coaches, players, and their lawyers expect, and often receive, special dispensation. — Jon Krakauer

Liverpool was made for me and I was made for Liverpool. — Bill Shankly

Corporate documents, like football game plans, are not easily drafted in a stadium, with thousands of very interested fans participating, each with their own red pencil, trying to reach a consensus on every word. — Jon Postel

The basis of my own addiction, I know, is my simple human need for Darcy to get off with Elizabeth. Tom says football guru Nick Hornby says in his book that men's obsession with football is not vicarious. The testosterone-crazed fans do not wish themselves on the pitch, claims Hornby, instead seeing their team as their chosen representatives, rather like parliament. That is precisely my feeling about Darcy and Elizabeth. They are my chosen representatives in the field of shagging, or, rather, courtship. I do not, however, wish to see any actual goals. I would hate to see Darcy and Elizabeth in bed, smoking a cigarette afterwards. That would be unnatural and wrong and I would quickly lose interest. — Helen Fielding

The fans know their football, you can't kid them. — Richard Gough

The fans, and now most of the crowd, are interested in this event. — Angus Loughran

Without fans who pay at the turnstile, football is nothing. Sometimes we are inclined to forget that. The only chance of bringing them into stadiums is if they are entertained by what happens on the football field. — Jock Stein

I think it is high time that Europe starts to understand that we do not rule the world anymore, and that some former European imperial powers can no longer impress their will on to others in far away places, and we must accept that football has moved away from being a European and South American sport: it has become the World Sport that billions of fans are excitedly following every week, everywhere in the world. — Sepp Blatter

Unfortunately, sometimes the fans forget who puts the money and passion into the club. It's funny, but when you win, it's the coach and the players who are responsible, but when you lose, it's the owner's fault; but that's football. — Andrea Della Valle

Every profession has changed. Journalism has changed. Medicine has changed. Technology has changed and it evolves. The same is true of football. Free agency has now allowed teams to be a dynasty as they have been before. It is not a great thing for the fans, but it is a good thing for the players. — Marv Levy

My mom is a big sports fans. Basketball, football, baseball, whatever. She calls into sports radio shows and gets into shouting matches, that's how intense she is about it. — Chris Hardwick

The majority of my family is Auburn fans, and I grew up watching Auburn football, and that's always who I've cheered for. — Katherine Webb

Nixon was a bad loser. He hated losing worse than death, and that is why I enjoyed him. We were both football fans, both addicts; and on some days, nothing else mattered. — Hunter S. Thompson

I think the way we played was as important as winning the title, the way we did it with the players and the fans enjoying it. — Manuel Pellegrini

I am very patriotic and grew up in a house with football fans. — Rachel Stevens

I do get invitations all of the time to play actual fantasy football, by the way, but I get the feeling that I'd like it too much. I have enough demands on my time. My fans would kill me. — George R R Martin

Of course, I love football, but I'm not one of those die-hard fans that never miss a game or with rooms devoted to team colors. At the end of the day, it's just a game. — Katherine Webb

Tottenham, and I hope the English fans will forgive me, are a club in mid-table and I need more. — Samuel Eto'o

No matter how much money you have or what kind of cocoon you live in, the reality is that you have lost a game of football and let England's fans down. We are bothered. — Rio Ferdinand

A lot of fans were drawn to me because they knew that whatever the score was, I was going to run as hard as I could on every play. You don't have that now, you have guys waiting for next week or even next year. — Walter Payton

I do like football fans, though, contrary to most people of my skinny-train-enthusiast build. I like how merry they all are. They mean things good-naturedly. I find it sweet that they sing such girly songs with such conviction. The West Ham theme, for example, begins: "I'm forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air", which is the least manly thing you could ever hear anyone sing, and yet they bellow it with all the testosterone they have in them. What's more, it's a song completely ill-chosen to be a football anthem, as it's about hoping you achieve your dreams but never doing so; after the first two lines, the song continues, "they fly so high, nearly reach the sky, then like my dreams they fade and die; fortune's always hiding, I've looked everywhere; I'm forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air". It's poetic, humble and very sweet. Bless those lovely little football fans. — Alex Day

Fans have a constitutional right to expect success and have high expectations ... — Jim Harbaugh

The real triumph of the state occurs when its subjects refer to it as "we," like football fans talking about the home team. — Joseph Sobran

I would like to thank the United staff for making me feel so welcome and part of the United family from my first day. And of course thank you to those fans who have supported me throughout the season. — David Moyes

In college football, fans wallow in a culture of failure. Unless you root for Miami, you sadly wait for disaster to strike your team in a manner not seen outside of Fenway Park. — Stephen Rodrick

England really is the birthplace, the heart and soul of football. If Barcelona had Liverpool's fans, or Arsenal's, or United's, we'd have won 20 Champions Leagues, hahaha! — Xavi

Nightmare completed, another humiliating defeat. 10 goals in 2 game.
It will take time to come out from such humiliating defeat for Brazilian fans. But I think when you like something, when you fall to someone, when you are in love, you like them whatever happens, even they give tears to you time to time because you liked it from your heart. — Nutan Bajracharya

I will never reject an autograph, hug or photo. I was also a fan of football. — Cristiano Ronaldo

In baseball, it's tough to get up for every single game, every single moment. In football, you have 90,000 fans screaming and the band's playing. I do miss that adrenaline rush. — Adam Dunn

I don't like champagne, I don't smoke cigars, I haven't any real jewellery at all, apart from the 8 pieces of gold I picked up at Anfield, the most important relationship at a football club is not between the manager and the chairman, but the players and the fans. — John Toshack

Every time I score the passion comes out and I try to relay that back to the fans and to the players and the staff how grateful I am to be playing for such a good football club. The fans have taken well to me. I am part of the furniture at Everton, but I don't take it for granted. — Timothy F. Cahill

Football is all about sentiment; if it weren't then we'd all support Manchester United. — Mark O'Brien

I don't like Utah. In fact, I hate them. I hate everything about them. I hate their program, their fans. I hate everything — Max Hall

I just wanted to get back to playing attacking football after my time in Italy. It was a little difficult at first but the atmosphere and the fans were just fantastic. — Dennis Bergkamp

I like the fans, but I don't feel an obligation that I have to be an example to them, like say maybe a baseball player would, or a football player or maybe some other type of musicians. I don't feel I have to really set an example that somebody else has to live up to. — Bob Dylan

Critics of soccer contend that the game inherently culminates in death and destruction. They argue that the game gives life to tribal identities which should be disappearing in a world where a European Union and globalization are happily shredding such ancient sentiments. Another similar widely spread thesis that holds that the root cause of violence can be found in the pace of the game itself. Because goals come so irregularly, fans spend far too much time sublimating their emotions, anticipating but never releasing. When those emotions swell and become uncontainable, the fans erupt into dark, Dionysian fits of ecstatic violence. — Franklin Foer

Fans of football and fans of nationhood have a similar zeal. Read the fanzines: their contributors could find a needle-sized diss in a haystack of compliments, and their passions are fundamentalist. — Andrew O'Hagan

Those Panthers ... those itsy, bitsy football players ... those hearty, gutsy guys from the oilfields ... what about 'em? Yep, its incredible, amazin' and unbelievable, but the li'lfellers do occasionally catch the best end of the stick. All the reasons for the phenomenal support of Permian had been embodied by this 1980 varsity team. They were a classic bunch of overachievers who had become living proof of all the perceived values of white working-class and middle-class America-desire, self-sacrifice, pushing oneself beyond the expected limit. They were the kinds of values that the Permian fans harbored about themselves. What made those boys great on the football field had made the fans great as well. Just as the boys had produced against all odds, so they had produced in the oil field against all odds, not with brains and fancy talk but with brawn and muscle and endurance and self-sacrifice. — H. G. Bissinger

I am joining the people's football club. The majority of people you meet on the street are Everton fans — David Moyes

I had discovered after the Swindon game that loyalty, at least in football terms, was not a moral choice like bravery or kindness; it was more like a wart or a hump, something you were stuck with. Marriages are nowhere near as rigid - you won't catch any Arsenal fans slipping off to Tottenham for a bit of extra-marital slap and tickle, and though divorce is a possibility (you can just stop going if things get too bad), getting hitched again is out of the question. — Nick Hornby

As football gets more globalised, it's probably more important than ever to have one or two players in your team who have grown up in the same streets or been to the same schools as the hard-core fans. — Gary Neville

Football is for the fans. It can be the greatest game in the world but if there are no people to watch it, it becomes nothing. The fans are the lifeblood of the game. — Jock Stein

My companions for the afternoon were affable, welcoming middle-aged men in their late thirties and early forties who simply had no conception of the import of the afternoon for the rest of us. To them it was an afternoon out, a fun thing to do on a Saturday afternoon; if I were to meet them again, they would, I think, be unable to recall the score that afternoon, or the scorer (at half-time they talked office politics), and in a way I envied them their indifference. Perhaps there is an argument that says Cup Final tickets are wasted on the fans, in the way that youth is wasted on the young; these men, who knew just enough about football to get them through the afternoon, actively enjoyed the occasion, its drama and its noise and its momentum, whereas I hated every minute of it, as I hated every Cup Final involving Arsenal. — Nick Hornby

When I got out of coaching, I had taught a class at the University of California, an extension class on football for fans. I was looking for tools. I was showing them films. I was going to write a textbook. Trip Hawkins came to me about making it a game for computers. — John Madden

A friend tells a story about taking his ten-year-old son to a Jets game. The game was being played during a driving rain on a freezing cold day, and the Jets lost by twenty points to a team they were supposed to beat. As they headed toward the exits, the boy looked up, with tears in his eyes, and asked, 'Dad, why are we Jets fans? — Joe Queenan

First of all, I'm so glad that the city of Houston has a football team again. They have such great fans. I'm really happy for the people of Houston because they deserve a football team. — Earl Campbell

I do not feel that I have a mandate from the entire world of football - the fans, the players, the clubs, the people who live, breathe and love football. — Sepp Blatter

Most Barcelona fans are kids who have watched football for the first time yesterday — Didier Drogba

Back in the 1930s, when men with handlebar moustaches played football in long johns and tails, and the ball was a spherical clod of bitumen, did fans weep in the stands when their team lost? No. They limited their responses to a muttered 'blast' or a muted 'hurrah' before going home to smoke a pipe and lean on the mantelpiece. — Charlie Brooker

I saw greatness in John and he lived up to it. I also saw a tremendous competitor who loved to win. John is a standard bearer, someone that players, coaches, fans and the Raider Nation can all look up to. One of his great virtues, the fire that burned brightest in him, was his love and passion for football, which was seldom ever equaled. — Al Davis

My mom's whole side of the family, they're all Packers fans. My mom's a Bears fan. My stepdad is a Vikings guy. So that gets ugly. My mom sits upstairs watching the Bears game; he sits in the basement. They can't watch it together. Football's a violent anger in our family dynamic. — Ashton Kutcher

Football fans share a universal language that cuts across many cultures and many personality types. A serious football fan is never alone. We are legion, and football is often the only thing we have in common. — Hunter S. Thompson

You made it something special. Most of all, I want to thank the fans for your support not through the great times that we shared on the football field, but for the last 17 years of my life. You have supported me through all times. — Michael Irvin

The other side of the coin is that fans can panic players into making poor decisions. The more unsettled a crowd gets, the worse the football on show will become - I've seen it a million times. Certain grounds have a reputation. Whenever I've played at Wolverhampton Wanderers or West Ham United , every manager has said "Keep this lot quiet for 20 minutes, and their fans will start getting on their back". — The Secret Footballer

I love football now. I have a club in Sarajevo, and I love that. The fans are fantastic. The people who run the club are incredible, honest people, and they really motivate me. — Vincent Tan

It's sometimes difficult living in France. People are more open minded in England, and of course I'm missing England in terms of football and the passion that the fans show, they're really passionate. — Emmanuel Petit

I love football. I love the aesthetics of football. I love the athleticism of football. I love the movement of the players, the antics of the coaches. I love the dynamism of the fans. I love their passion for their badge and the colour of their team and their country. I love the noise and the buzz and the electricity in the stadium. I love the songs. I love the way the ball moves and then it flows and the way a teams fortune rises and falls through a game and through a season. But what I love about football is that it brings people together across religious divides, geographic divides, political divides. I love the fact that for ninety minutes in a rectangular piece of grass, people can forget hopefully, whatever might be going on in their life, and rejoice in this communal celebration of humanity. The biggest diverse, invasive or pervasive culture that human kinds knows is football and I love the fact that at the altar of football human kind can come worship and celebrate. — Andy Harper

I'm really looking forward to the Hall of Fame ceremonies. It's going to be unbelievable - just crazy. I'm looking forward to thanking all the fans for inspiring me to go out there and play my best football each and every game. — Jerry Rice

For many sports fans, the onset of fall only means one thing: It's football season! — Marcus Samuelsson

Tottenham Hotspur has a huge following across the world and I have great admiration for the passion the fans show for this team. We are determined to give the supporters the kind of attacking football and success that we are all looking to achieve. — Mauricio Pochettino

Football without fans is nothing. — Jock Stein

The Olympic stadium may have been built only in the early 1970s but it was clear for a long time it had no future. For many reasons it is not good enough for modern football and today's fans. — Franz Beckenbauer

The real fans of football come from the working class. Now they cannot afford to come and watch the game. — Eric Cantona

It's named the Lombardi Trophy for a reason, because we play and live in Titledown. We've got the best fans, and I can't wait to go home and see those fans and bring home the Lombardi Trophy. — Aaron Rodgers

Liverpool's grand opera also gave us some light comedy - on hearing the news that the house of goalkeeper Pepe Reina was burgled, and his Porsche stolen, while he was heroically saving penalties at Anfield, fans took a typically witty line: police were said to be interviewing a man from the West London area, a certain Frank Lampard, whose whereabouts on Tuesday between 7.45pm and 10.15pm are unknown. Indeed. — Declan Lynch

I am from a city (Glasgow) that is not unlike Liverpool. I am joining the people's football club. The majority of people you meet on the street are Everton fans. It is a fantastic opportunity, something you dream about. I said 'yes' right away as it is such a big club. — David Moyes

I played one year of fantasy football in high school. You really get into it. It makes more fans of the NFL, and people love talking about it. They'll come up to me and say, 'Why did you throw an interception? You ruined my fantasy team!' Or they're happy because they got you for a bargain. — Andrew Luck

I think if Tottenham are going to be top four side, the fans and the club will need to get away from the philosophy of 'pretty football', that's got to go. — Alan Hansen

I'm sorry, Alabama fans. I'm from New York and didn't watch football growing up. — Dominique Easley

Sheffield United are attacking their own fans. — Matt Murray

Wait'll next year! is the favorite cry of baseball fans, football fans, hockey fans, and gardeners. — Robert Orben

Alabama fans love Alabama football. Auburn fans love Auburn. — Pat Dye

I am a National Football League player of American Samoan heritage. Because of my status as a professional athlete, I have been blessed to play a role in educating players and fans about the culture and history of America's southernmost territory. — Troy Polamalu

But the press, instead of reporting on these shared and often boundary-crossing views as an asset for the Democratic Party - after all, Democratic voters would have to unify around one of these candidates eventually - responded with disappointment and even condescension. They seemed to want newsworthy division. Soon frustrated reporters were creating conflict by turning any millimeter of difference between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama into a mile. Since there was almost none in content, they emphasized ones of form. Clinton was entirely summed up by sex, and Obama was entirely summed up by race. Journalists sounded like sports fans who arrived for a football game and were outraged to find all the players on the same team. — Gloria Steinem

No Scot ever made a bigger impact on a club than Bill Shankly. Others may claim an equal share of trophies and Matt Busby comes to mind with his wonderful record crowned by the European Cup, but not even Matt would claim the kinship with the fans that Bill enjoyed. He was what football was all about. I can't praise him higher than that. — Jock Stein

Almost all of the stories in The Matchmaker, the Apprentice, and the Football Fan are told in the first person, yet, depending on the angle and distance of the narrator, they exert different effects. The best are those in which the speaker never poses as an objective outsider. ( ... ) Other stories are damaged by the urge to distance the narrator. — Yiyun Li

Fans are fans. I hated and loved them, hated and loved them, hated and loved them. — Terry Bradshaw

There's a strange uniformity in the vocabulary European soccer fans use to hate black people. The same primate insults get hurled. Although they've gotten better over time, the English and Italians developed the tradition of making ape noises when black players touched the ball. The Poles toss bananas on the field. This consistency owes nothing to television, which rarely shows these finer points of fan behavior. Nor are these insults considered polite to discuss in public. This trope has simply become a continent-wide folk tradition, transmitted via the stadium, from fan to fan, from father to son. — Franklin Foer

Whenever I see those crmison jerseys and crimson helmets, I feel humbled to have played football for Alabama. Other players in the NFL talk to me about their schools and their traditions. I just smile knowing the immense love Alabama fans have for our school and its football program. I'm proud to be a part of that Crimson Tide heritage. — Derrick Thomas

Football is nothing without fans. — Matt Busby

Football is one of the world's best means of communication. It is impartial, apolitical and universal. Football unites people around the world every day. Young or old, players or fans, rich or poor, the game makes everyone equal, stirs the imagination, makes people happy and makes them sad — Franz Beckenbauer

We have demonstrated that we are the best, I'm also happy because everyone seems to enjoy our football, whether or not they are Barca fans. All over the world, I've heard people saying that they have been enchanted by us. This type of football deserves to be rewarded with titles. — Lionel Messi

I shall not rest until Leeds United are kicked out of the football league. Their fans are the scum of the earth, absolute animals and a disgrace. I will do everything in my power to make sure this happens. — Ken Bates

I love our fans. Our fans are so supportive. It's been incredible to end four playoff games with 'Go Pack Go.' It's great at home, they travel well, it's on a first-name basis. It's a special play to play and all of us are blessed to play in Green Bay, and hopefully we will be repaying those fans with the Lombardi trophy. — Aaron Rodgers