- Feb 8, 2007
- 11,942
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Well, that's precisely the point - it's the forum, which isn't the whole fanbase. It may not be statistically significant, but I have a connection with Leicester and have a number of friends there who are all diehard Leicester fans. Not one of them has a bad thing to say about Spurs - they quite like us in fact and a couple are very complimentary about the way we've built ourselves up. They've bantered with me over their League win, but that banter was personal - it was because they were having fun with me as a person, not me as a Spurs fan. So, right there is an example of Leicester fans who are far from hostile, far from toxic. Funnily, of the five or six of them, only one posts on a football forum.That is all very fair, but even so that Leicester forum does seem to be an especially bitter and petty place. Most of those fans should be still waking up every morning and whistling a jolly dity and smiling at strangers because they got to see their team win the effing league.
This demonstrates how there are many different subsets of fans. And to be fair, the vast majority won't post on internet forums. Again, look at SC:
It could be argued that SC is the most popular Spurs forum. It has 26,000 members. That won't represent more than the tiniest of fractions of the entire Spurs fan base. Hypothetically, if SC members were all to speak with one voice, would that represent what the entire Spurs fanbase thinks? Of course not. So why should any other club's forum be different?
This is why I don't have an issue with Liverpool fans. I've seen RAWK and I've met Liverpool fans in the flesh. And in the flesh they are very different to what you see on their forums. Likewise, with FoxesTalk. I've seen some of their posts, but I have real flesh-and-blood friends who are Leciester fans and the difference is chalk and cheese when it comes to Spurs.
"What our opponents' fans are saying about us" is nothing but a snapshot into what one section of fans thinks of us. An interesting one, to be sure, but not one that should be treated with any great significance or taken too seriously. It certainly shouldn't be used to cast an entire competing fanbase in the same light if for no other reason but that we'd only have other Spurs fans as friends.
You may see things that are toxic, you may see things that are even hateful. but it's not what every competing fan is saying about us.
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