rdfs:comment
| - Britain has a considerable number of teams in the various Footy Leagues. These are some of the more notable ones. Many of the bigger British clubs are currently owned by foreign investors. Historically, which club Britons support has been a matter of home town pride, or tribal affiliations where there is more than one club in a city, or familial connections if there are no clubs where you are, which is very rare due to there being over 40,000 teams in England alone. A Mancunian doesn't just arbitrarily decide one day to support United or City, he is born in a City-supporting household, in a City-supporting area of town. Changing allegiances was (and still is) very rare.
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abstract
| - Britain has a considerable number of teams in the various Footy Leagues. These are some of the more notable ones. Many of the bigger British clubs are currently owned by foreign investors. Historically, which club Britons support has been a matter of home town pride, or tribal affiliations where there is more than one club in a city, or familial connections if there are no clubs where you are, which is very rare due to there being over 40,000 teams in England alone. A Mancunian doesn't just arbitrarily decide one day to support United or City, he is born in a City-supporting household, in a City-supporting area of town. Changing allegiances was (and still is) very rare. These days, Sky Sports' blanket coverage of the English Premier League has led to a generation of younger fans who reject home town loyalty in favour of supporting someone who might actually win something, and whom they can watch on TV down the pub, admiring the silky skills of highly-paid players. Standing on an unroofed terrace on a rainy October afternoon cheering on a bunch of no-hopers playing mediocre football for the Johnstone's Paint Trophy just doesn't seem quite the same. Although traditionally most people support a Premiership team and a local team, even if they would rather watch Arsenal and Manchester United play at Wembley then some club up the road. A note, incidentally - British teams don't wear "uniforms", they wear a "strip" or a "kit". Each club has a "home kit" for most games, a kit for away games where the home kits clash and sometimes even a kit for when both clash. We are describing the former. These kits, especially for the bigger clubs, have a tendency to change on a season-by-season basis, bringing in more money for the replica shirt sellers. The two main programs for Football Coverage in the UK remain Match of the Day on Terrestrial TV or Soccer Saturday on Sky.
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