It’s common to choose a team to support based on family allegiances, but what happens when you follow a completely different team to someone else in your immediate circle?

I got down on bended knee and proposed to my long-term girlfriend a couple of weeks back – she said yes, thanks for asking – and she’s someone who accompanies me to a fair few football games.

She’s now seen the Socceroos win an Asian Cup on home soil, strut their stuff unsuccessfully against Japan at Saitama Stadium, and she was even there when Milos Ninkovic swept home from the spot to clinch an A-League championship for Sydney FC.

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She knows quite a lot about football these days too, despite never having watched a game until she met me.

I put that down to the fact that she’s the smartest person I’ve ever known – and she’s also the most beautiful, if you don’t mind me saying.

There’s just one problem. She’s a Queenslander.

It’s a bit of a running joke in our house but whenever the topic of the Queensland versus New South Wales rivalry comes up, she’s always quick to remind me which side of the border she’s from.

I usually laugh it off, but only until one of my teams loses to one of hers, at which point I tend to disappear in a huff and it becomes abundantly clear that I care more than I would prefer to let on.

And something happened recently that really drew a line in the sand. She became a member of a rival A-League club.



She’s now two-timing me with a season ticket.

I should know. I bought it for her.

It got me wondering: can a relationship survive when you each support different teams?

There were some tell-tale signs that this moment was coming. She and her best friend attended plenty of Brisbane Roar games together last season.

They’re both originally from Cairns, but shortly after the Roar drew with Sydney FC in a fiery encounter at Suncorp Stadium, my partner asked me to procure a maroon jersey for her.

They were pretty much already sold out – let this be a reminder to certain Roar fans that the state-based jersey carries some serious meaning to those born elsewhere in Queensland – and it took the Roar’s unfailingly affable general manager Brendon Boss ringing around on my behalf for me to eventually track one down.

I attend every Brisbane Roar game when the schedule permits, and the more my partner became invested in the team last season, the more I found myself willing them on to win.



That is, of course, until they came up against my team – the one I first joined the very same day the A-League was launched.

I guess I’m a typical supporter who has moved to a new city but still follows a team from my home town.

That is what other fans do, right? Or is the A-League young enough for fans who’ve moved to switch allegiances?

I seriously can’t wait for the new season to kick off, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I thoroughly enjoy watching games in Brisbane.

I can’t wait to watch the Roar go around again, even if three times a season they do so against the club I support.

But this time around it will be different, because for the first time my fiancée will be a season ticket holder.

She’s fully invested now, and I can’t imagine her supporting anyone else even if a Cairns-based team enters the A-League somewhere down the line.

We hear much about split loyalties among families in Europe and South America, but usually it’s more common for a pair of siblings to follow different teams.



So what happens when it’s your partner? Can you still live in perfect harmony, or is it a recipe for disaster?