Why do you support Swindon Town?

[Danjackson10]

I was a glory seeker and decided id follow a Premiership Team and as I lived in Wiltshire I went for Swindon! That was a few years back!

[mexico red]

dad was QPR and took me until i was 7 then money became too much, next door neighbour was a swindon fan and had no kids, asked if i wanted to go, was hooked immediately. The very same season there was a school trip to see Oxford, went along and even though i was only 7 or 8 years old it felt horrible and wierd there. Hooked to swindon now for 30 years. In the last few years its gone full circle and now my dad is hooked to swindon too and hasnt been to QPR for years.

[Arch Stanton]

I had a mate who used to come to Swindon all the time, then when things started going a bit wrong (Quinn/Todd era) he decided to go and support Arsenal.... weird non?

[Nick Bamosomi]

Lived in Swindon for a few years.

The team:

Downsborough, Thomas, Trollope, Butler, Burrows, Harland, Heath, Smart, Horsfield, Noble and Rogers.


This followed a team with Mike Summerbee on one wing, Don Rogers on the other and Ernie Hunt in the middle, it's enough to make a grown man cry.

Nuff said.

Pretty much for the same reason - and my Dad was an avid supporter and took me.

[magicroundabout]

mum and dad lived in Burford and supported the Town but i was born in Scumford.
Loads of mates are Scum fans sowas torn between who to support.

Dad took me to see Swindon v Oxford ('89 i think) and basically said whoever wins you support.
Swindon won 3.0 and the rest is history.

[Ardiles]

My friend Jamie has a similiar story.  Lived in Oxfordshire as a kid.  When one of his birthdays was approaching his parents approached Oxford United and STFC to see whether they could do anything for a group of kids on a match day.  Oxford responded with a half-arsed effort involving £1 off match tickets or something.  STFC promised a full stadium tour, meet a few players, party hats and a mascot package.  Jamie and his younger brother have been Oxfordshire die hards ever since.

[Saxondale]

Born in Swindon, raised in oxon but moved back to chip when I was about 7.  Went to see chippenham as a kid (still go occasionally) but when I was old enough to go myself I thought Id go to to my local league club which was Swindon.

Been going since, had a lax patch when I was a student / working in Leicester / london / northampton but always still supported the team (whilst not being able to afford to go).  Now back in Nam so going again.

[Nomoreheroes]

Lived in a village near Stroud in my youth. My father, before I was born, used to go with my uncle and step-grandfather to watch Bristol Rovers (which was their closest league team). My uncle moved nearer to Bristol and used to watch Bristol City when Rovers were playing away. He took me to my first ever game - Bristol City vs Ipswich (The Robson years with Cooper (who saved a penalty that day - just for a change!), Wark, Mariner, Geddis, Wymark, Mills, Beattie, Muhren, Tysen etc) followed by a FA Cup 3rd round tie between City & Wrexham (4-4 with City blowing a 2-0 lead then coming back from 2-4 down due to substitute Peter Cormack's double). So, because of this I started down the path of following City and learning about Rovers (Bannister and Warboys era) so I could have something to talk about with my step-Grandad.

However, in the late 70s/early 80s a number of the older kids from the adjoining villages started to go watch the Town, while the rest of us multi-tasked by playing footie, listening to footie on the radio and watching the local village side play. (For the ladies here, you should realise that multitasking is a skill that boys lose at adolescence - No man multitasks!)

Remember a lonely Saturday afternoon when EVERYONE in the gang had gone to see Swindon. I was left alone to watch Chalford Reserves!!! I listened avidly to the radio to find out snippets of what the gang were seeing - From that moment I was hooked and eventually attended my first game - a disappointingly dull and boring 0-0 draw against a piss poor Port Vale side (I think). The game and result didn't matter. I had gone through the rite of passage and saw all of the older lads who had been disappearing from the villages on a Saturday for the first time in ages. I was now part of this select group. I could not go back, I was now a loyal fan! Little did I know that we were about to experience the wonder years as part of Lou Macari's Red & White army, which would see me travel the length and bredth of the country and bring me years of happiness!

[Phil_S]

Mine is boring but probably typical. Dad had & has no interest in any sport, so my influence was from friends at school. This was in 1970 just after we'd won the cup so, there was only one team in the local area to support. Went to the first games I think in 1970/71, although I can't remember too much other than the Town end always being packed.
I have never really understood how anyone who was born & bred in Wiltshire can support any other team. My hatred for Bristol City arose from an incident at that time when a Sh1tty supporter, asked by brother (aged 10) who he supported. (He had a red & white scarf). On the answer "Swindon mister" he was beaten up.

[Ardiles]

[NMH]  #### me.  I was going to post something as well, but I can't follow that.

[juddie]

I've lived in wokingham all my life, so should really have been a Reading fan, but when I was a kid they were rubbish and their ground was a dump, it just wasn't an enjoyable experience. I used to watch Wokingham Town instead, they were in the Vauxhall Opel League in those days (late 80s), the league below the conference, and their ground was a short walk from my parents house. At 10-11 I played a bit on Saturdays, so didn't really get to watch a lot of football. Me and my dad used to get free tickets to see Palace as I was with their centre of excellence. On spare saturdays that I wasn't playing, we'd watch wokingham, but then started picking up the odd Swindon game. Still don't really know why. Swindon wasn't too far and seemed like a nice club, I guess. Me and my dad became proper fans - went regularly and actually started caring if they won and lost –  when Ossie Ardiles came to the club. My dad had watched Spurs and Fulham growing up and had a soft spot for both, and he was a big fan of Ossie. We loved it and went back the next week, and the week after that. We kept going back, and then Hoddle joined, who had been my hero as a young lad. My first proper season going every week, home and away, was 91-92.

[Samdy Gray]

Taken from this thread:

My dad's side of the family are all from Alton in Hampshire but my nan and gramp moved here when my gramp left the army in the 70's. My dad's a Chelsea supporter (spit) and my gramp supported and played for Southampton, growing up in Alton they were his local club.

My mum's side of the family have lived in Purton for at least 4 generations. None of them football fans.

I have my uncle (on my mum's side) to thank for getting me into supporting Swindon. He has been going since the late 70's, was (and still is to some extent) a bit of a lad. I think Spencer White probably knows him. He used to take me in the early 90's when you used to get kids in for free on an adult season ticket and then when it was kid for a quid.

[Peter Venkman]

Born in Swindon to a family of Swindon supporters.

My dad was a 20 year season ticket holder before I first went to a game in 74 as an 8 year old and he stayed a season ticket holder right up till he moved to Liverpool in 86.

My grandad was a supporter back in the heyday of the 1910 - 1912 cup semi finalists and passed all the old programs from those games over to my dad who subsiquently lost them as a child in WWII!

My Great Grandad was a lay pastor at Christ Church the time of William Pitts founding of the club and my Great Great Uncle was Jimmy Edmunds who played for Swindon in the 1890's and became trainer at the club for a few seasons.

Can't ever imagine supporting anyone else now and never will.

[Reg Smeeton]

 Cos... we're by far the greatest team the world has ever seen...

[Ardiles]

From the other thread.  (It's still stands!)

Forces child.  We moved every three years while I was growing up.  My Dad had a Lyneham posting in the early 1980s during which time my parents bought a house in West Swindon - still a building site in those days.  Moved away soon after but returned three years later for another 6 years (1986-92) and it was during that period, my teenage years, that I started watching STFC.

I have no family connections with Swindon and neither I nor any other family members live in the town these days either.  If anything, the family history is much more closely connected with Reading/Wokingham and the surrounding area.  So while I'm not really very attached to Swindon any more, I'm umbilically attached to STFC - as are several of my brothers and sisters.  Whether we manage to pass this on to the next generation remains to be seen.