
Which football club has the worst fans?
It’s probably Liverpool isn’t it
Football would be nothing without the fans. But some of them bring the game into disrepute as badly as any Suarez bite or Ronaldo dive. Here we ask you to tell us which set of English fans is the worst in the UK.
Arsenal
Under-25, possibly American and obsessed with Twitter, the Arsenal fan believes players like Mesut Ozil are “world class” even though their team labours to get a place in the top four every year. They used to think Arsene Wenger invented football, but ever since he spent all their money on their (silent) shiny new stadium instead of the players that would allow them to compete with the best, they’ve grown increasingly disillusioned.
Aston Villa
Having a big ground and a fluke European Cup has led Villa fans to think they’re important – although that’s taken a battering this season, where their team’s performance has matched their accents: downtrodden and faintly depressing.
Bournemouth
Good football, good manager, good ground – the worst thing you could say about Bournemouth fans is that they’re a bit too nice for their own good.
Chelsea
Vile, aggressive and happy to support “Captain, Leader, Legend” John Terry, despite that incident when he called Anton Ferdinand a “black cunt”. When they’re not having fun on the Paris Metro, they’ll be telling you what a great player Gianfranco Zola is – even though they’ve never seen him play.
Crystal Palace
There’s a section at Selhurst Park where all the Palace “Ultras” stand and bang little drums. Half of them look like they still live with their parents, half of them look like a police line-up after a glassing at Tiger Tiger Croydon. Their spiritual “king” Alan Pardew is, rather appropriately, a man who spends his holidays in Ibiza with “Babestation models”.
Everton
Usually from North Wales, Everton fans call themselves things like “HuytonBlue95” on Twitter and check to see if Liverpool have lost before they look at the Everton score. One of their main chants is “we play from the back/with Ross in attack/the school of science/is on its way backkkkkk”. The way they pronounce that “acccckk” sound sounds like a submachine gun. And they’re not really on their way backkkk from anything as Lukaku and Stones are about to leave after their worst league finish in years.
Leicester
Leicester fans are fine right now, during this incredible season. But just think how unbearable they will be in about ten years, once they’ve safely returned to the Championship, when their fans will have nothing more to do than go on epic and boring reminiscences about Vardy, Mahrez and big Wes Morgan.
Liverpool
Cringeworthy dreamers who genuinely believe the “12th man” won them a European Cup in 2005 rather than the introduction of Dietmar Hamann at half-time. Romantic and convinced of their own specialness, Liverpool fans are the first to bang on about their “history” but half of them wouldn’t be able to tell you the difference between Bob Paisley and Bill Shankly. Happy to describe themselves as the “biggest and best” club in England, even though they haven’t won the league for a quarter of a century. Everything they write on the internet has the acronym “YNWA” attached to it somewhere.
Man City
Man City fans used to be known for stonewashed denim and the gallows humour that comes from supporting the second team in a big city. Now their supporters are barely worse than Chelsea’s. Supporting City is a bit like supporting an MLS club: there’s no sense of tradition, and no sense of history. Celebrating a City win is akin to dancing on the grave of the sport football used to be. No amount of Gallaghers will distract from that.
Man United
Based in London, the Home Counties or a country that isn’t in the British Isles, your typical Man United fan is perhaps the world’s most arrogant creature. This fan has supported at least one other club for more than a year. Hilariously, Man United fans who have never seen their team play away will describe that away support as “unmatched” and “world class”. Supporters lament the fact that not enough of their young players are from Manchester any more; their fans haven’t been from Manchester since the late 80s.
Newcastle
Big club syndrome was invented for Newcastle fans, who support a club that hasn’t tasted success since the time of the pharaohs. They still manage to be embarrassingly sentimental – mainly about the moving way they continue to buy season tickets year after year – even though this effectively keeps afloat Mike Ashley’s ownership of the club. Somehow this contradiction is lost on them. They are fat, shirtless and still crying about the time they blew the league in 1996. Horsepunchers.
Norwich
Six-fingered fans who are so wet that Delia Smith had to drink 12 bottles of red and scream at them to make some noise at a crucial home match a few years ago.
Southampton
If Matt Le Tissier was as good as Southampton fans say he was, why did he stay at their no mark club for his entire career? Southampton has the sort of silent stadium of a soulless top-tier southern club, and are more concerned about whether Toby will get the grades to get into Canford than how many of their youth players Arsene Wenger pillages.
Stoke
Stoke fans are quiet, handsome types who are in no way inbred or prone to embarrassing themselves on Transfer Deadline Day.
Sunderland
Less important than Newcastle, with less history and far less attendance at home matches. As the players enter the stadium, they pass below a pseudo-inspirational sign reading “step into the light”. By the look of Sunderland fans, you’d imagine their visits to the Stadium of Light are the first time they’ve “stepped into the light” – they are delighted to be released from their parents’ attics at long last.
Swansea
Slightly less offensive than Cardiff, the Jacks describe themselves as an army but this amounts to little more than singing hymns that only deserve a place at boring rugby matches.
Tottenham
“Nah, it’s not anti-Semitic when we do the really ominous chant of ‘YIDS’ while banging on the tin of the stadium – it’s actually part of our club identity.” Spurs fans have also been saying “next year is our year” since the early 1960s. They have therefore developed a strange, self-hating relationship with their club, which sees them saying “typical Spurs” whenever something goes wrong. They are the “proper” North London team, and by “proper” they mean “less successful”.
Watford
Awful, happy clappy family club. They think they’re the English version of Borussia Dortmund’s “wall of yellow” but the entire fanbase is about as scary as Elton John singing “Candle in the Wind.”
West Brom
Just sort of there. You wouldn’t find anyone saying anything bad about West Brom fans, but then again you wouldn’t find anyone saying anything good about them either.
West Ham
The young ones describe themselves as being part of a “firm” because they’ve watched Green Street too many times. The old ones will tell you that West Ham “won England the World Cup in 1966” even though Bobby Charlton scored most of the goals in that tournament and he played for Man United. All of them are from Essex.
Birmingham
By far the worst hooligans in the Midlands, although that’s not exactly saying much when the other teams are West Brom and Villa.
Blackburn
Ewood Park is an oppressively small-time, morbid ground filled with oppressively small-time, morbid fans.
Brighton
Going to watch Brighton is like going to watch rugby – there’s a lot of polite applause and muttering, and only one section that really makes any noise. Brighton fans proudly chant “hello, hello, we are the Brighton boys”, not realizing how ludicrous this seems to the hardened visiting Boro fans. They serve boutique pies and local ale – they are, to paraphrase Peter Mandelson, “consumers of the Football League experience”, rather than die-hards.
Burnley
Small town, small club and northern in the way that “Kes” is northern: coal, flat caps and weird old men who keep pigeons. Alastair Campbell is probably their most likeable fan, and that’s saying something.
Cardiff
Somehow “sheep shaggers” is more apt when it’s directed at violent Cardiff fans, rather than their neighbours at Swansea. Every time they do the Ayatollah the world rolls its eyes.
Derby
Good in the 1970s but not since then. They sit and wait for something good to happen to them in their soulless out-of-town stadium.
Fulham
Craven Cottage: posh fans called Hugh stand next to tourists who can’t believe how lucky they are to watch a football match this close to the River Thames. Both types of Fulham fan are extremely quiet.
Leeds
Brain dead, violent thugs who see red mist at the mere mention of the word “Ridsdale”.
MK Dons
Hated by everyone, for good reason. Doesn’t even matter that their fans are crap as well. It’s utterly despicable that this club even exists.
Nottingham Forest
You’re not a big club if you haven’t been in the Premiership since before Tony Blair was Prime Minister.
QPR
They thought money would lead to more success. It just meant further disappointment. Doesn’t change the fact that these posh West Londoners think they’re cockneys. Loftus Road also hosts the worst goal celebration music in English football, which the locals happily join in with, to their eternal shame.
Reading
Maybe the most middle-class fans in the country, the crowd at the Madejski is about as intimidating a Berkshire farmer’s market.
Sheffield Wednesday
Dull, unglamorous toilers who are one half of English football’s least interesting derby.
Millwall
Millwall supporters are known for their gentlemanly conduct, sartorial elegance and generosity towards opponents.
Luton
It’s 2016, stop calling Tony Thorpe’s mother a whore.