Eytan Halon gives his insight into a Monday at a central Manchester school as a Stockport fan

To be a Stockport fan in a school with the vast majority support base being Manchester City and Manchester Utd is not easy. In fact, it causes a lot of disputes, especially when you have the honour of beating one of those teams.


There are only a few Stockport fans in my school, which is in the very centre of Manchester and therefore the football supporters in my school come from all over the city and surrounding towns.


I shall concentrate on my plight in my form as a fan of a struggling lower league team. I shall start off with the fact that last time I took my Stockport County scarf into my school, there were many attempts to rip it to shreds. So much for a private education with “well behaved pupils”.

A Theatre For Dreams?

Every Monday, I dread coming into school purely for the reason that I will face taunts about my football team losing again, lying at the bottom of the league and why the heck would anybody support a team like Stockport? I will not quote directly for fear of losing my job as a reporter.


I shall concentrate on the last match, the 2-1 loss at home to Colchester. I meander into my form room during morning registration to the chants of “Colchester, Colchester”. This is a regular occurrence, so I straight away dismiss this.


“Whey!”

“Going down, going down, going down”


Those above are other examples of the chants of kindness shown at the beginning of each and every week. On the rare occurrence that we do win, nobody mentions the match, and if I do myself say a word or two about it, then they will shrug it off and say it was a fluke. How do they know when they have never seen a lower league football team play? It sometimes is amusing to hear the supposed knowledge of my team that they have.


I am not sure whether I feel angry or just amazed by some comments made about the team. Why I do not have the freedom to support a lower league team because it is a pointless exercise whereas people are allowed to support Manchester City or Utd is a mystery. There are many reasons for the decline of Stockport which have been mentioned in the past, and I am sure I would need several more pages for those to be discussed.


Throughout the week until Friday, the score of the previous game continues to be mentioned. Friday, however, is different and those who taunt are now looking forward to the weekend. The sniggers change to questions and ask, “How many you going to lose by today?” I still show a small level of optimism, however hard it may be.


“3 goals? That would be an improvement!”


Humorous.


And once again I will hope that County can do what seems to be the impossible and be victorious, and maybe just maybe, there will be no taunts for one week.


Then, the form will be quiet. Then, the school will be quiet. Then, the noise will be tolerable. Then, the only noise spreading through the suburbs will be that of the Stockport County fans rejoicing.