For some Americans, the English Premier League has become an infatuation. But what makes a Californian an Arsenal fan? Or a New Yorker a passionate supporter of Cardiff City? Such loyalties to centuries-old teams from across the pond are, necessarily, partly fabricated – and yet they are brandished with an almost excessive zeal.



As the NBC-Premier League venture to broadcast games in America has built inroads for greater recognition and commercial expansion, so it has given birth to a cadre of American fans who appropriate a culture that isn’t theirs. Two nations once divided by a common language are becoming united by football. Or soccer.



But just how does an American decide which team to support?



In New York, a city with a high concentration of American transplants as well as foreign expats, English team colors can be seen everywhere. There’s the ardent Liverpool fan from Dallas; the diehard Spurs fan from Orange County, CA; the rabid Manchester United fan from just about anywhere.

Legends, a midtown Manhattan mega-pub in the shadow of the Empire State Building, boasts two floors of flatscreen TVs. Underneath those screens, on any given Saturday, you’ll encounter throngs of fist-pumping, beer-swilling football fans in training. The majority weren’t raised on the EPL and are only there for the drink and camaraderie, but some take their fandom as seriously as the roaring fans who fill pubs and stadiums across the UK.



On EPL game days, the basement floor of Legends is a dense sea of Chelsea blue, packed wall-to-wall. They’ve all arrived before the rest of the city has done hitting the snooze button. Nonetheless, they’re imbibing lager and stout like it’s much later in the day.



On one snowy, frost-bitten day in February, the mood in the basement of Legends, which is known locally as the “Football Factory”, was subdued – Manchester City were beating Chelsea in the FA Cup. But a strong sense of pride and excitement lingered.



Shouts of “Come on Chelsea!” echoed around the room. Men in blue jerseys clutching pint glasses screamed overtly British obscenities – “fucking hell!” and “for fuck’s sake!” – as Chelsea squandered any chance of victory.



The Chelsea fans at Legends were united in their frustration; they were also fairly single-minded as to why they were watching in the first place. One of them, Tim Chogovadze, a longtime fan of Italian football, became enamored with Chelsea years ago, when the team contained a strong dose of Italian talent. Gianfranco Zola, Carlo Cudicini and Roberto Di Matteo compelled him to become a Premier League enthusiast:



In the beginning it was kind of arbitrary because I couldn’t see a lot of Premier League games growing up. But when I could, I’d follow Chelsea because of their Italian contingency. Over the years, I’ve started following Chelsea fully. I don’t even follow the Italian teams anymore.

Chogovadze looked exasperated by his team’s performance. His girlfriend, Theresa Lugo, watched the game beside him. She seemed unperturbed that Chelsea were losing. “I come here with him and I support him,” she said, making it clear she was not about to scream herself hoarse. She said the vibe at Legends could be a bit crazy at times.

On this day, though, the atmosphere became increasingly lethargic as the game wound down and Chelsea went out of the cup. Game over, the dispirited fans closed out tabs and ventured out into a snowy Manhattan afternoon.



‘Arsenal is my wife’

Supporting Arsenal, says Logan Taylor, is ‘a lifestyle and a subcultural membership which is the right fit for me and probably not for a majority people’. Photo: Jay Oligny Photograph: Jay Oligny

If the crowd at Legends is an association for weekend warriors and a commune for those in search of a tribe, my friend Logan Taylor is a member of a fully-fledged football cult. Logan is a 25 year-old American who harbors unusually romantic notions of life in working-class Britain. His infatuation with such a gritty working culture is somewhat at odds with his roots in suburban Los Angeles, but it lives side by side with an even more robust obsession – his love of Arsenal.

To Logan, who recently spent a few months working in a factory, Arsenal is church chorus, temple and guiding light. Almost every article of clothing he owns is embroidered with the club’s famous logo. On Saturday mornings, you’ll find him at one of the mainstay Arsenal hangouts in Los Angeles, the Fox and Hounds, shouting beside like-minded fanboys as his Gunners take to the field.

His level of dedication is both severely ironic and ironically severe. He says things like: “It’s a relationship, or even a marriage. Arsenal is my wife.”

But how did his obsession develop? Was he indoctrinated? Manipulated? Drugged?

The answer is more simple.

Since spending a semester at Oxford Brookes University, in 2008, Logan has embraced the style, culture and speaking habits of a (highly stylised) working-class Brit. He’s donned Doc Martins; he’s had a bulldog and a Union Jack tattooed on his chest, just above his heart. He has a number of other tattoos that pay homage to British heritage, national pride and Arsenal. The word “Gunners” is emblazoned on his back, in a bold and dark-red font.

He’s a regular caricature of a macho, factory-hardened British archetype – except he’s not even a UK citizen. One has to wonder, is football to blame?

If you were to ask Logan, he’d probably tell you his newfound identity isn’t problematic and that football fandom saved his life. He learned about Arsenal from his homestay parents in Oxford and never really considered whether geographical proximity to north London, or the lack of it, mattered when it came to supporting the team.

When with other Arsenal fans – or “Gooners” – Logan feels a sense of belonging he has had trouble finding elsewhere. And since he has six Arsenal tattoos scrawled across his chest, arms, back and neck, he is irreversibly invested in that community.



He says it’s “thoroughly a lifestyle, and a subcultural membership which is the right fit for me, and probably not the right fit for a majority of other people”.



While his British garb and proclivity for pub drink might seem completely out of place in LA, Logan is finding himself through his club – ebbing and flowing (and effing and blinding) with their highs and lows, finding solace and patience in their triumphs and shortcomings:

I’ve found this outlet for performing loyalty, perpetuating a legendary verbal history, defending something at times very blindly and feeling pride in something only slightly larger than myself, all the while feeling this great sense of brotherhood and immortality.

He believes the team and its community has kept him out of trouble and has even perhaps made him a better person. “Arsenal Football Club gave me purpose again and kept me at many times from committing certain senseless acts of violence out of frustration and anger toward the state of circumstances in my life,” he says, gratefully.



Worshipping Arsenal has saved Logan from a life in which he would “drink infinitely more, speak more abrasively toward people more often, make political or racially biased statements I didn’t actually believe to be true”. It has saved him from straying from his true character.



The pub is his sanctuary and Arsenal his belief system. After 90 minutes watching the match with his friends, Logan feels “thoroughly recharged”.

Away from the extreme

Ryan Giggs scores a famous goal for Manchester United, against Arsenal in the 1999 FA Cup semi-finals.

While Logan might represent a polar extreme of full-blown footie Anglophilia, scores of other American fans fervently support EPL teams without committing to such dramatic extremes.



Take Andrew Murphy of North Carolina, a 25 year-old soccer coach who lives and breathes all things Manchester United. Although he grew up in the American south, you’d think he had spent years screaming from the stands of Old Trafford.



Murphy, like any good fan, enjoys sparring with those who deride his affiliation. Although he says it’s hard being an EPL devotee in the States, he’s still extremely proud, saying that “geographical location doesn’t matter for a fan to be a true fan”.



United’s storied legacy makes it easy for Americans to follow them. Murphy, a student of the game and a former NCAA Division I footballer, recalls in vivid detail the stylistic and tactical brilliance of United’s most thrilling performances.

“I saw a goal Ryan Giggs had against Arsenal in the 1999 FA Cup,” he says. “He picks up the ball past half and dribbles 60 yards while beating four guys all on his own and ropes one, top shelf. Its an absolutely brilliant goal. My love for Man United began right then and there.”

Murphy’s ties to United seem far from hollow. It might be strange that he so passionately cares for a team he has never seen play live, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a true fan. Indeed, his diehard commitment in a foreign land might make him a stronger fan than most.



And it isn’t always the teams with great histories that captivate American admirers. Take Stephanie Shapiro of New York, who absolutely adores Cardiff City.

Her ties to Cardiff began with a kind of roll of the dice – her husband, an Arsenal fan, asked her to pick a team to follow for the 2011 season.



As a fan of Doctor Who and Torchwood, I asked if Cardiff had its own team. This was in 2011, so they were still in the Championship League. I said perfect, because then I felt like there was less pressure to become an expert on soccer overnight.

Since she’s a newbie to Cardiff City and the EPL, Shapiro says: “I felt comfortable learning with them. Their wins felt like my wins.”



Shapiro takes Cardiff’s (currently relatively scarce) wins with a hint of jubilation. She feels connected to the club and says she’ll still follow them even if they are relegated. She feels immersed in the club and says she even has some “Cardiff cred”, having seen them play live.



“As long as you cheer for a team,” she says, “and care about what they are doing, then you shouldn’t feel like you’re less of a fan because you’re not in the same geographic region.”



American fans of Premier League teams have appropriated British sporting culture and then, appropriately, made it their own. Since it’s mostly the admirable and healthy facets of the football world – loyalty, camaraderie, excitement – that have landed stateside, Premier League euphoria is reflecting positively. Premier League clubs are giving Americans reasons to sing and celebrate. Those rivalries between clubs and fans that can turn violent and ugly remain mostly invisible to the average US supporter.



Such affiliations may be arbitrary, as evidenced by the plethora of “how to pick your Premier League team” guides that surfaced after NBC agreed to broadcast games. But that’s no reason for support to wane.



Barney Robinson, a Southampton fan and a frequenter of Legends, puts it this way: “Football support goes across the board. It doesn’t matter where you come from.

“Just support your team. That’s it.”

The Guardian’s coverage of the 2014 Major League Soccer season begins next week. Find our Premier League coverage here