View: Players come and go, fans are forever
Sachin Tendulkar fan from a young age, chances are you still are a Sachin Tendulkar fan even if he had stopped playing a long time ago. Virat Kohli might end up scoring more centuries than Tendulkar, but Tendulkar will forever remain the God of cricket for his fans. That’s how cults are built.
There are many other examples.
MS Dhoni will forever be thala for the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) fans. Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) might not have won the Indian Premier League (IPL), they have one of the biggest fan bases, thanks to Kohli. The Chicago Cubs, one of the most famous baseball teams in the US, didn’t win a National League pennant for 70 years (from 1945 to 2015) and yet Wrigley Fields, their home ground, was always packed.
In fact, with each passing year fan loyalty only grew stronger. Liverpool football club were trophyless in the Premier League for 30 years, fans never stopped coming to the Anfield.
Fans are real ambassadors of the sport. They understand that in sport you will lose more than you win and a loss doesn’t make the team a bad one.
In fact, as Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra says, sport teaches you how to lose and in doing so makes you a better person. The loyal fans stand by their players/teams in good and bad and celebrate them irrespective of the result. When we consider the careers of men like Alex Fergusson and Arsene Wenger, they are who they are because of their association with Manchester United and Arsenal respectively.
At their prime, they could have easily exercised the option of moving to another club with better contracts. They did not and in doing so added to their cult following. For some like Eric Cantona, it is always the Man United identity that will overwhelm everything else.
Mayb
