Please forgive me if there is an 'Introduce yourself thread' and I missed it.
I was going to wait to interact here until the season started but after reading the Meeting the Manager Results thread I thought that this would be a good time. That thread blew me away with the report on how LJ interacted with supporters and also how much you guys like the man. Which I'm sure has a little or a lot to do with – well – meeting with supporters.
I'm fans of a few teams and hang out on those forums as well and no other supporters are as supportive of their manager as they are here. I'm sure that can change at some point but for now I think it's great.
I grew up around (American) sports all of my life and even worked for the Tampa Bay Rays Baseball Club for 6 years. NEVER have I seen a manager/coach meet with supporters.
Let me expand on being a “fan of a few teams”. I'm new to the sport entirely. 2010 World Cup hooked me and I've learned everything that I possibly could in these past three years. I took my time finding a team in England to support and of course I was drawn to the EPL because of more television coverage. I chose Everton (and now Hull City). Last season I wanted to start to learn about the Championship and somehow gravitated toward Hull City. I got to watch only two Hull City matches on American tv. I mostly followed through their forum and Twitter. Pretty interesting experiment actually.Now that they've been promoted, I needed to find another team outside of the EPL to follow. Enter the F.A. Cup. They showed the Liverpool v Oldham tie here on tv. Delighted with the outcome I was obviously hooked on OAFC! Then I got to watch the Everton tie. I literally found myself torn and was somewhat disappointed when the referee blew a call and subsequently the game. I can't remember what the call was but I came away thinking that Everton got really a lucky call from the ref and things could have been different. Needless to say I found that another side to follow. I know I won't be able to see many -if any matches but I am looking forward to this season none the less.
Having said all of that, I am sure that I'll have questions about the team throughout the season. I already have a couple- like is there a site for match highlights and where can I pick up an OAFC baseball cap (E-bay has none that I can find).
Anyway, thanks for listening & I look forward to the education. I also promise not to post something as long as this again!