5 reasons why being a Huddersfield Town fan is better than following Manchester United

This might not be a popular opinion but I genuinely believe that Huddersfield Town are a better club to support than Manchester United. It’s not because I’m a masochist who delights in pain, I think there’s a lot more to enjoy about supporting a small team.

Town’s trip to Manchester United this weekend got me thinking about why, even though Town are experiencing a terrible run lately, I wouldn’t want to support another team.

1. You’re a supporter, not a consumer

Huddersfield Town have a few more fans now we’re in the Premier League than we did this time last year. But Manchester United have 659 million fans, according to a survey in 2012. There’s no way you can feel the same connection to a club if your fanbase is bigger than every country in the world apart from India and China.

Huddersfield Town genuinely need every fan to push them on and support them. In the stands, you can really feel the difference our support has made on the pitch. Manchester United fans are more like theatre goers, visiting the stadium to be entertained and only showing support when they feel like it. Town fans have consistently shown this season that they’ll cheer their players win, lose or draw and it’s part of the reason I love following Town at the moment.
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2. Success is never boring for a Town fan

Sometimes I hear fans of the big clubs saying things like “If we don’t win the league this year then the manager has to go.”, which I find bizarre. Supporting a team like Man United means that winning becomes so normal that you expect it, and are furious when you go a season without a trophy. Or if you only win a minor trophy, like the Europa League.

I’m confident in saying that Town fans were more satisfied with our promotion last season than Manchester United fans were about winning a European trophy. Their expectations are so high that they’re almost bored of winning, to paraphrase Donald Trump.

I’ve been a Town fan for around twenty-five years now, and I’ve seen us playing in the bottom tier of English football, and fighting for our survival when we went into administration. I remember Mick Wadsworth getting sacked, us not having the money to pay him off, and then him carrying on managing to make sure he got his pay off. The empty chair press conference, where Phil Parkinson got cold feet but we’d already called the press.

What I’m trying to say is, those bleak times in our recent past make the smallest achievement something to celebrate. David Wagner’s arrival at Huddersfield Town has marked a memorable time in our history, and it’s all the more enjoyable because of the tough times fans have endured in the past.
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3. It’s easy to get tickets to most games

I think you’re only really a proper fan of a football club if you attend their matches. Obviously practical and financial reasons limit some fans from getting to games, but it’s just not the same to cheer a team from your sofa. So being a Town fan means that you’ve got a much better chance of actually being in the stadium and seeing the game unfold from the stands.

Our promotion to the Premier League has meant it’s now tricky to get tickets for the most sought after away matches, but most away games have either not sold out, or only sold out after everyone in the priority system has had a chance to buy them.

While I’m not all that clued up on the intricacies of Manchester United’s ticketing policy, I do remember the story back in 2002 that revealed there was an army of dead fans renewing their season tickets long after they’d shuffled off their mortal coil. Though Old Trafford being stuffed with zombies might explain their atmosphere, it was actually relatives that were renewing their dead family members tickets for themselves because it’s so hard to get to games.

4. The connection between players and fans

I’ve seen fans of other teams make snarky comments about the celebration between the fans and players after we’ve won a game, but I think it’s mostly jealousy. Huddersfield Town are a smaller club, and so the key people in charge understand the value of the connection with fans.

The design of the Canalside training facility has even been arranged so players are mingling with bowlers and snooker players on a typical day. The club and the community are so close to each other, which is further helped by schemes like the breakfast clubs that Town’s charity fund and players regularly attend.

It’s common for football clubs to pay lip service to this kind of thing, but under Dean Hoyle’s stewardship of Town there’s been a strong emphasis on this kind of work and it really helps to position the club as a key part of the town of Huddersfield.

Even Sean Jarvis’ relentless pursuit of new partners builds the bond between the club and the town. While some fans might question the need for an “official falconry partner”, the way the club include local business really helps to build up ties with the community.
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5. We’ve got an amazing chairman who genuinely loves the club

Dean Hoyle is such a big factor in Town’s success in recent years. While the players and the coaches take the limelight, Hoyle was the man that stepped in when we needed him and has consistently made the right decisions for the club.

While he’s got the personal fortune to throw money at the club, he worked over a series of years to get the club on a stable financial footing and to make us close to self-financing. The benefit of this was that our modest Championship budget allowed us to push the boat out on signings last summer because we were in good financial health.

While Town might not be spending £90m on a single player anytime soon, our Chairman has the skill to know just how much we can spend of our Premier League windfall to give us a good chance of staying up without the risk of imploding if the worst happens, and we go down.

In an era where foreign owners with billions of pounds use Premier League teams like their own personal train sets, it’s nice to support a team whose owner is also a proper fan. He sat in the Kilner Bank with the rest of us before buying the club, and I think he’ll probably go back there when the sad day comes that he sells his stake.
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