Blog Challenge - How we picked our teams

Much to the disgust of the other SBAers, I am a fan of ManUtd (or ManUre), Barca (or Barcugh), and AC Milan (or the better Milan). This week's blog challenge is to explain how or why we ended up supporting the teams that we did, so here is mine.

Basically, I ended up following these teams because of my younger brother, Spuey. The time was the 1990s. The time was the early-mid 90s, prior to the existence of the internet (yes, such a time existed in my memory!) and pretty much the only teams from Europe that made the news in our antipodean home were articles about the winners of the era.

Given that ManUtd won the EPL from 1992-94, it seems obvious. My brother came home from primary school one day with a bear he'd made in Art class. It was wearing black shorts and a red t-shirt emblazoned with the word *SHARP*. Sister Pooey and I were like, "Why does your bear say *SHARP*?" and he explained that it was meant to be a Man Utd uniform.

Likewise, over this same period of time, both Barca and Milan were having golden periods, winner numerous domestic trophies in Spain and Italy, respectively, culminating in their meeting the 1994 UEFA Champions League Final. Sure, Milan spanked Barca 4-0 in the match but it was win-win for us!

Sure, it hasn't been easy supporting these teams - jibes about being bandwagon jumpers, that my team has the worst hair in La Liga, that Milan are the oldest team in the world (mean age 28.85 years, st. dev. 5.58, median age 30 years), that ManUtd are a team of fugs etc. But you know, variety is the spice of life. So to my 'Pool, Arsenal and RM friends, vive la difference!