HAVE YOU LIVED ABROAD AND FOLLOWED A

[AckneyAwks]

Local Football team. I lived in Spain for nearly seven years and my local town around 20mins from me had a football team FC Torrevieja. They played in the PREFERENTE which is a non league level of football. They also made Spanish Third division level and because Spain is such a large country both third and non league level was regionalised. Torrevieja played in the Valencian region and we were in something like group 14 out of around 18 regions ( may not be exact but a example).The players were mainly semi pro with three or four proffessional players as well. The standard was probably Non league South but most of the players were very skilful, as good as many in our two lower leagues 1&2. Most clubs in our league used to get home crowds of arround 250 whereas FC Torrevieja would have home crowds of between 1.000 to 1.500 due to the high number of Brits living in the community. We had a supporters club the "Torrey Army" which was a large contributor to the finances at the club, something never seen in Spain at that level. Made national headlines. Unfortunately as is rife in Spanish football thier is much corruption with club owners and this was a problem every season. A example of this is a builder/developer would become sponsors of the club through advertising, kit and financially but during the season they would go bankrupt or some other reason and the club would never see any money. Quite often the "Torrey Army" would pay players wages.
Some of the teams we played Altea, Benidorm B, Calpe, Denia, Elche B, Orihuela and many others.
The football was skilful,technical and competetive with normally 12 bookings a game and one or two sendings off. Alledgely the referee recieved a payment for each caution given...so i'm told!!
The only link with a British footballer i could give you is ex West Ham and i think Norwich, Colchester and Millwall Kenny Brown. He was caretaker manager and then moved on to Javea i think. Great memories and i espescially liked the away trips.
Anyone else followed a team abroad would be great to know your experiences.

[Beradogs]

Yes. Happy Valley in the Hong Kong premier league. When I first moved there my first thought was, right, if I am going to support a team it will be one in the premier league and one that wins a lot. Supporting Orient can do that to a man. Used to get about 2-3000 there. Only went to home games. There are good bars in happy valley and close to central. Most of the players were HK or HK Chinese with the odd Brazilian. Dong Ke Kong was my favourite, no joke. That was his name. Lasted a couple of seasons then moved to one of the islands and gave up.

[AckneyAwks]

What sort of standard was the football compared to the English game?

[Beradogs]

Felt like orient standard. Perhaps a division lower. Put it this way, when I put my head down to open my Hong Kong bovril I knew when I lifted it back up I would not have missed anything.

[RientO]

Local in that I lived in Amsterdam and followed Ajax. The old De Meer stadium was no bigger than Brisbane Road at the time.

[i8ubutler]

Been to watch Limerick a few times - pretty poor standard and fairly crap ground.
'Big' Sam Allardyce cut his managerial teeth here in 1991 fact fans.

[EH16]

I lived in England for 20 years and followed my local team, Leyton Orient.

[StillSpike]

I've lived in Scotland for 29 of your Earth years, and I follow my local team, Raith Rovers. Only recent links to Leyton Orient, that I can think of, are Jean Yves M'Voto (clown - gave away a goal a game on average) and Craig Easton (excellent coach, will manage RRFC one day, we hope)

[BIGRON]

NO

[Dunners]

I've gone to a few Catalan Dragons and USA Perpignan games. They're not into their football here and, although I'm not fussed about rugby, it's something to do.

[KC & sunshine band]

worked in Majorca and supported the O'S

[EliotNes]

Lived overseas for nearly 3 years. This was before internet etc. My dad used to cut out the Orient reports from the Ilford Recorder and post to me each week.
Until retirement travelled 4 months each year. There is only one footy team for me.
So the answer is yes, I’ve lived abroad but never followed another team

[KC & sunshine band]

worked on the isle of wight and supported the os