When did you start watching football?

[Panda]

The first game I ever saw on TV was the 1986 FA Cup final between Liverpool and Everton when I was 5. Liverpool won 3-1 and I probably spent my first season as a football fan supporting Liverpool, before switching to Middlesbrough when I moved there around 18 months later. That cup final was followed by the World Cup in Mexico which is probably what got me hooked.

It's strange looking at the line-ups of the divisions back then compared to now. Some things never change while elsewhere there are big differences. This is what the divisions looked like at the start of the 86/87 season:

DIVISION 1
Arsenal
Aston Villa
Charlton
Chelsea
Coventry
Everton
Leicester
Liverpool
Luton
Man City
Man Utd
Newcastle
Norwich
Nottingham Forest
Oxford
QPR
Sheff Wed
Southampton
Tottenham
Watford
West Ham
Wimbledon

DIVISION 2
Barnsley
Birmingham
Blackburn
Bradford
Brighton
Crystal Palace
Derby
Grimsby
Huddersfield
Hull
Ipswich
Leeds
Millwall
Oldham
Plymouth
Portsmouth
Reading
Sheff Utd
Shrewsbury
Stoke
Sunderland
West Brom

DIVISION 3
Blackpool
Bolton
Bournemouth
Brentford
Bristol City
Bristol Rovers
Bury
Carlisle
Chester
Chesterfield
Darlington
Doncaster
Fulham
Gillingham
Mansfield
Middlesbrough
Newport
Notts County
Port Vale
Rotherham
Swindon
Walsall
Wigan
York

DIVISION 4
Aldershot
Burnley
Cambridge
Cardiff
Colchester
Crewe
Exeter
Halifax
Hartlepool
Hereford
Lincoln
Northampton
Orient
Peterborough
Preston
Rochdale
Scunthorpe
Southend
Stockport
Swansea
Torquay
Tranmere
Wolves
Wrexham

CONFERENCE (This was the season automatic promotion to the Football League was introduced. Scarborough won the title, managed by Neil Warnock!)
Altrincham
Barnet
Bath
Boston
Cheltenham
Dagenham
Enfield
Frickley
Gateshead
Kettering
Kidderminster
Maidstone
Northwich
Nuneaton
Runcorn
Scarborough
Stafford
Sutton
Telford
Wealdstone
Welling
Weymouth

[o]

My dad took me to a Stags game when I was 8 or 9 I think. I remember the world cup when the argies beat holland 3-2 Also remember Stags drawing 2-2 with Spurs on the telly, think that was 77 78 or 79 when we were in Div 2 (championship).

[Robin]

1987 Cup Final where Coventry beat Tottenham 3-2. They don't have finals that exciting anymore!

[musicfan2000]

when i was 5 or 6

st.mirren v Dunfermline

[suedehead]

rmbod said:

1987 Cup Final where Coventry beat Tottenham 3-2. They don't have finals that exciting anymore!

Last year's (Liverpool v West Ham) was probably the best since 1987.

I started watching football with the 1968 Cup Final but didn't really follow it seriously until three years later. The first match I went to was Crystal Palace v Leeds in 1971. That must be why I ended up supporting Brighton!

[Earl Purple]

I started getting into football the year Nottingham Forest won the league and the world cup in Argentina immediately followed, that being 1978.

[Mart!n]

I first started watching football when the 1978 World Cup started, after that I was a Manchester Utd fan for a few years, but I found Arsenal were far better to watch, and supported them ever since.

It is true that Arsenal, Liverpool, Man Utd are the only 3 teams in the Premier League that has never been regulated for a long time, while other teams in the Premier League have.

[Robbie]

Live matches:

my first match was Newcastle v Chelsea, which seems to be December 4, 1971 but i was so young I don't remember the game at all, just the score, 0-0, which is how I've been able to find the date. The crowd was 37,586.

My next match I attended was, unbelievably, Sunderland in a mid-week afternoon game played in 1973 during a time when power cuts were happening due to the miners working to rule and striking and no night time games were being played. The game ended 4-1 to Sunderland and the crowd was a massive 8,000!

The next game after that was Newcastle v Aston Villa in 1977, in a game that saw us qualify for the UEFA Cup.

On TV, the first match I can recall was the 1971 FA Cup Final, Arsenal beat Liverpool, I remember Charlie George lying back onto the pitch when he scored. As I was too young to stay up and watch MOTD the next game I remember was the FA Cup Final the following year, Leeds winning. The next game after that was a Sunderland match v Man City on the way to them winning the FA Cup, in 1973.

[suedehead]

jinx said:

I first started watching football when the 1978 World Cup started, after that I was a Manchester Utd fan for a few years, but I found Arsenal were far better to watch, and supported them ever since.

It is true that Arsenal, Liverpool, Man Utd are the only 3 teams in the Premier League that has never been regulated for a long time, while other teams in the Premier League have.

Man U were relegated in 1974. Everton have been in the top division longer than Liverpool.

[Doctor Blind]

My first game was a Colchester match in March 1993. I can't remember who it was against, but I do remember it being bloody cold.

[Tom]

The first game I saw on TV was Ireland's 1-0 win over Italy in the 1994 World Cup, mainly to see what all the fuss was about the tournament. Saw 15 mins, after Ireland had scored, before promptly switching it off as it was so boring. With Ireland being a long-ball team and Italy being negative it wasnt the best game to be introduced to! But it was early the following year that I started following football properly, almost through boredom as it was while listening to the chart that i decided to switch stations and found the Newcastle-Man U game on 5 Live just after Andy Cole had moved to Man U. He didn't play in that game (which finished 1-1) but I soon became a big Man U fan. Reading were my local side at the time so after hearing of their success in pushing for promotion to the Premiership, and with a mate from school being a fan as well I also followed them. But after we lost the 1995 playoff final, we moved away from the area and apart from the odd result it wasnt until the late 90s and the advent of the internet that my interest was rekindled. I remained a Man U fan until I went to my first Reading game 5 years ago (though I took much more interest in Reading for the two previous years) Since then, although Man U were my favourite Premiership team up until Reading got there, its been more of a general interest I've had in the Premiership.

My first live game was England-Brazil that summer in the Umbro Cup. I was fortunate to go to the game through school, for some reason it came down to a draw between me and a mate for who got the final place. I got the place but felt rather guilty as my mate clearly wanted to go to the game more than me, and I'd only put my name in the hat at very short notice! The goal that England scored to put us 1-0 up is still probably the most excited I've been for a live goal, being the first live goal I celebrated and having thought we'd lose convincingly. (When Murty scored his first goal for 6 years, the winning goal in Reading's 2-1 home win over QPR on the final day of our 2005-2006 Championship winning season, I had to restrain myself in the away end otherwise that would have topped it). On the way to the game we'd listened to the latter part of the 2nd half of the England-Australia rugby world cup quarter final, with Rob Andrew's famous winning drop goal, and we were on such a high that the football always seemed like it would be a comedown afterwards. Of course the 2nd half of the football went to plan and Brazil came back to win 3-1, all their goals coming from free-kicks.

[frag]

I started following Arsenal towards the end of the 1993/94 season (my dad was cheering them on during their Cup Winners' Cup run, so I took after him). First game I remember seeing on TV was the Arsenal-Parma final that year.

First time I went to a live match was October 1994, with Arsenal coming from behind to beat Chelsea 3-1. The only away match I've seen was also that season - a 1-0 win at Coventry in January 1995. I was sitting with (Coventry-supporting) family in the home end.

[Earl Purple]

Tottenham have been in the top division for the longest without winning it. But in the year 1978 they were actually not in the top division, having been relegated in 1977. And White Hart Lane was the first ground I went to for a live game, in October 1979 when they beat Norwich City 3-2. It was in this game that I really noticed for the first time that great player called Glenn Hoddle. He scored two of the goals that game.