When I was walking up hill to the Hong Kong Stadium for the match Hong Kong vs Paraguay, there were many white collar in full suit walking up at the same time. Sure, it's 20:00 match and people would go straight to the stadium after work. I really loved this. I mean, walking with a bunch of people to the stadium and watching the sport we all loved. It's something you really feel good, human likes to be in group in the end, it's instinct.
On the road, an expat asked his local friends “Do Hong Kong has a league?" "Yes, but no one watches it" "haha"
It's a complicated question. I have talked about it so many times, Football Love should never mean only the Elite Football. Sure watching Lionel Messi scoring for fun every week in Spain is enjoyable. But somehow, if your football love is only about watching EPL only, it's doesn't really make your football love that creditable to me.
So you know the book Fever Pitch. Nick Hornby is probably the biggest Arsenal fan among celebrities, a real "Gooner". He went through the up and down, visited Highbury regularly for a period of times and remembered every single match he witnessed. Does it because Arsenal is a good team? Well, Arsenal was not a good team. The period of time Nick Hornby started to be a gooner is the dark age of arsenal. Playing boring football, won some matches and lost most of them.
As least it's an England top flight.
He went watching Oxford United regularly, sometimes back than.
It's a bit difficult to say so since the small team in England is actually facing the same problem. The media coverage, the marketing hype and also the change of lifestyle, the transpotation, the globalizaion... drawing people, live within the area or not, turn themselves to the top flight leagues in Euro.
However, take Nick Hornby as an example. If I'm a Gooner and I can visit Highbury, why the heck I care about Oxford United? (it's a conference or div 2 back at the time as i remember)That's the deepest level of supporting. It's because the team was meaningful to Hornby. It's not because how amazing the team is(Indeed, not many teams in EPL playing decent football in any means), how many trophies the team can win. Sure, it's a form of supporting also in decay all over the world however. Just because it's MY team.
And that's why the Hong Kong team or South China playing in AFC Cup could still draw a large crowds there. Because in those matches, people feel it's My team, and I have to show my support.
So, what about the local clubs?
