Football provides 'connections' in 'increasingly lonely' worldpublished at 11:49 5 August
Nicola Pearson
BBC Sport journalist
Image source, Getty Images'Why did you fall in love with your club?'
This week, we have asked hundreds of football fans across the world that very question and got hundreds of different answers.
Yes, the themes might be similar - born near a ground; family supported the team; watched a certain player - but the individual story will be unique to each supporter.
The relationship between a fan and their club should not be underestimated, with people ploughing uncountable amounts of money, time and emotional energy into their support for their team.
But what is that makes us love our clubs the way we do?
"A lot of it comes down to our identity," researcher and co-writer of the Routledge Handbook of Sport Fans and Fandom Danielle Sarver Coombs told BBC Sport.
"We become part of this group that means so much to us. It becomes a way to find a community that you're a part of and to find a group of people that, no matter where you are, you could find a pub with other fans of your team. You have that kinship.
"In a world that's increasingly quite lonely, this provides one of the ways that we can have connections so we can have the feeling that we're part of something bigger."
Connection and identity plays a big role in someone's love for their club - particularly when it is a family link.
Many fans talk of being born into who they support - that the connection is so strong there was no other team they could, or would, have chosen.
"The great thing with football is that there's such a strong heritage component to it," Sarver Coombs said. "Often, your grandfather, father, mother or whomever was a fan of the team, so it's part of your family's tradition.
"It's handed down from generation to generation."
The uniqueness of football fandom is something researchers are increasingly investigating.
An article, external published earlier this year in psychology journal Frontiers discusses how football fans often follow follow teams with 'significant attachment and commitment, sometimes to the bewilderment of those outside of the game'.
"With football clubs, you have decades of tradition that you can tap into and it's going to keep coming," Sarver Coombs added.
"Players come and go, managers come and go, shirts change, badges change, but the club itself - the heart and soul of it remains constant. You always have that piece that you're tied to, so the longevity of clubs is a really important part.
"But also, that constant in-person opportunity to be present in a community space really sets football apart from other passions that may be transient or do not have that constant engagement."
