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NEW REPORT REVEALS WHICH FOOTBALL FANS LIVE IN A FANTASY WORLD

Proving that love is blind, Manchester City fans are officially the Premier League’s top dreamers and optimists, according to a national football report launched today.

The ‘Football Fan-tasy’ report, an in-depth study by Littlewoods Football Pools, measures fans’ dreams and expectations against the reality of their clubs’ recent performances on the pitch, to finally uncover which fans live in a world of fantasy.

Almost 6,000 fans representing all 92 league clubs were studied in the report – produced in conjunction with the Football Fans Census – with each club ranked by comparing fans’ predictions over the next five years with their team’s record over the past five years.

Factors such as league performances, trophies won, the number of changes in manager and financial stability were used to benchmark each club, and with a new season upon us, fans will be hoping that the old saying ‘anything can happen in football’ rings true.

Manchester City fans were ranked highest in the Premiership “Dreamers Index” – ahead of fans of Tottenham Hotspur and Portsmouth, who finished second and third respectively. After a great start to the season, including a derby win against Manchester United, it seems that new City coach Sven Goran Eriksson shares the fans’ faith and optimism. Despite not winning a trophy in over 30 years and never finishing higher than eighth in the Premiership, City fans expect to win the FA Cup and Carling Cup by the time of the London Olympics.

Fulham and Wigan supporters were the biggest doom merchants in the Premiership; mirroring their clubs’ recent battles with relegation and managerial changes, whilst fans of Everton, Birmingham City and Aston Villa harboured the most realistic expectations after modest achievements on the pitch.

Hull City supporters entertain the most unrealistic hopes and ambitions in the Championship, with many dreaming of a place in the Premiership by 2012. Followers of Hartlepool, who have never been higher than the third tier of English football, can see their side progressing from League One, whilst League Two side Morecambe– newly promoted to the Football League, have set their team an optimistic target – League One football with 5 years.

The report also reveals that supporters of northern clubs out-do their southern counterparts when it comes to football fantasies, with northern teams topping each division of the “Dreamers Index”, and southern clubs such as Fulham, Southampton and Bournemouth having a more pessimistic view of their teams’ future.

Jon Sheehy, director of marketing for Sportech plc, owners of football fantasies, said: “Pressures within the modern game and the recent influx of major foreign investment has meant that fans’ hopes, dreams and expectations of their club have never been higher – or more unrealistic.

“To finally establish which supporters live in a dream world and which ones have the closest grip on reality, we have produced this in-depth report. By separating fact from fiction, we’ve hopefully given fans of all clubs the chance to see whether their dreams for the future are likely to come true, or simply cause more misery and heartache.”

Download your copy of the ‘Football Fan-tasy Report’ for free at Littlewoods Football Pools.

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Media enquiries: Contact Chris Hughes (c.hughes@brahm.com) at Brahm PR on 0113 220 0626 or Tim Downs (t.downs@brahm.com) on 0113 220 0590.

Note to editors:

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Originally aired 01.01.09 on ESPN. Song: Heroes by David Cook.

The history of football is generally traced back to it’s beginnings in rugby, the English game that is very similar to football and soccer which also began in England back in the early 1800’s.

The college campuses of Ivy League schools all played similar variations of football through the mid 1800’s. Then shortly after the end of the Civil War around the 1860’s some of the colleges began playing organized football. Princeton University frontiered some of the basic rules of football and the game became patented. It seems odd to be able to patent a game but nonetheless the sport began to grow. The first football game in college football history was then played in 1869 between Princeton and Rutgers with Rutgers as the victor thus producing football history.

College Football History took another big step in 1873 when a number of colleges met to form the first rules of the game and established the amount of players on each squad.

The coach for Yale, Walter Camp assisted the final step in the change from rugby style football to the American style. He limited the number of players to eleven on each team and sized the football field to 110 yards. He then created the downs system in 1882 which was originally three downs to gain 5 yards and then changed to 4 downs to gain 10 yards.

Without proper safety equipment at the time the sport had become extremely brutal and dangerous to all the players. There were even a number of deaths that had taken place in the sport. It had become such a serious problem that the President of the time Teddy Roosevelt summoned a change and helped implement a group of 7 selected members to govern a rules organization and save football history. This committee eventually became the NCAA or National Athletic Association which we all know today.

The committee formed a number of new rules including the forward pass and a number of safety measures which penalized players for roughness and unsafe acts. Football history was changed when a common practice for the time of locking arms and blocking in unison which was rightfully made illegal as well. The game was shortened to the sixty minutes that we play today and a neutral zone between the offense and defense was also incorporated.

The development of the sport led to an inevitable expansion into the college football area. College football history has since flourished into an incredible weekly spectacle. Hundreds of college teams now compete each year under the guidelines of the NCAA. Numerous college divisions now have conferences and all have hopes of winning a major New Year’s Day Bowl. The history of football and nostalgia are alive in well in college football today.

Professional football was first played around 1895 and in 1920 the APFA or American Professional Football Association was formed. It was renamed to what we all know today as the NFL or National Football League in 1922. The NFL started slow and in the mid forties only had ten teams. A major merger then took place in 1970 that combined the 16 NFL teams with the 10 AFL teams to make one large association with two conferences. The expansion continued to the now 32 team league and professional football has grown tremendously since it’s beginnings in 1869 from one college game to a billion dollar empire. So goes the history of football.

Remembering the horrendous tragedy of Apr 15 1989, where appalling mismanagement of a football match crowd by police resulted in the deaths of 96 Liverpool supporters, who’d turned up to watch an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. To date, nobody in authority has been punished for their role in what happened that day. See www.contrast.org to learn about the ongoing struggle for justice. Contributors include Des Lynam, Alan Hansen, Mark Lawrenson, John Aldridge, Steven …