Favorite Team Part 5

Today's installment of the Favorite Team series will cover one of the less popular sports in North America but one of my personal favorites, soccer/football. When the World Cup was in the United Sates in 1994 I went to a few of the games with my cousins and uncle and had an amazing time. From then on I became a soccer fan. It was not until recently however that I really began to follow soccer at the club level.

Upon starting to follow soccer I realised that I needed to pick a favorite team. This was an awesome experience because rarely ever do you get to sit down and just pick a favorite. Usually a scenario comes along and the team sort of picks you or you can be a sheep and simply follow the team closest to you geographically. Either way I needed to pick a team and I feel that I chose the best team around, West Ham United.

West Ham is a team in the EPL or English Premiership League, which is the best league in soccer in my opinion, that was established in 1895. What first brought my attention to West Ham was the movie Green Street Hooligans which documents the life of soccer hooligans who cheer for West Ham. The movie was amazing and made we want to know more about the club.

What I quickly learned was that this club was perfect for me. They are not the best team in the league but they are always competitive. I didn't want to simply choose Arsenal or Manchester United because what's the fun in that? West Ham also has the greatest cheer in sports which is called 'Forever Blowing Bubbles'. When chanted by all of the fans at the games it is truly amazing and is well recognized by fans of all English teams to be the best cheer in the sport.

I'm forever blowing bubbles,
Pretty bubbles in the air.
They fly so high,
nearly reach the sky,
And like my dreams they fade and die.
Fortune's always hiding,
I've looked everywhere...
I'm forever blowing bubbles,
pretty bubbles in the air.

This year was not a particularly good year for West Ham even though they finished 10th out of 20 teams which is an improvement from last year. They got a new manager named Alan Curbishley who prefers a defensive style of soccer and makes terrible decisions behind the bench. The team however usually has to play from behind which makes it exciting to cheer for them. Also in the past two years they have beaten Manchester United 3 out of 4 times which has just been great.

For all of these reasons and more West Ham United is my favorite soccer club and I look forward to seeing one of their games when I go to Europe in the summer and can hopefully join in some singing of Bubbles.

Runner Up: No one