What Differentiates a Fan From a Supporter?

By Chris Shutler
Chris Shutler · From the Terraces

Two labels you hear when people refer to themselves when it comes to football. What is the difference?

If I speak for myself, I’m a supporter of a football club, and what that means is I go to games as regularly as I can, home and away. You become part of the club that you go to. You know the names of those that also attend the matches, friendships bond with others and it becomes that second family.

You get to experience football in the flesh. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve also been a television fan of a club as well. I went to a couple of Chelsea games, but to be honest, the cost of it and the travel just for a home game to support a club that I don’t really care about that much and feel that connection to, to me, wasn’t worth it anymore. And I can tell you now, first-hand, watching a club that is a bit closer to you — maybe a little bit less quality in football — believe me, it’s still football.

I think a lot of people want the glory of being a big football club fan. Some people tell me I’m mad to go home and away supporting the level of football that I do, but to me that’s what it’s all about. It’s genuine.

On top of this is the financial aspect. As someone who supports a club in the fifth tier of non-league football, money coming in through the gate is huge for the club — and pretty much most clubs at this level of football — because unlike leagues such as the Premier League, Championship and even in some cases League One, we don’t get massive sponsorship deals or 20-plus thousand people regularly coming through the gate paying their money for season tickets and on-the-day ticket purchases.

Paying for beer and food at the ground is also a big contributor and helps clubs stay afloat.

We’ve seen it on a number of occasions where clubs that aren’t completely massive, and don’t have a global supporter base, struggle — and in some sad cases cease to exist — due to the financial cost of running a football club. This is why volunteers are so, so important at this level: those who will turn up and run a club to the best of their ability.

Now let’s get onto a football fan.

Before I get into this, this is no dig or jab at anybody that watches football in this way.

To me, a football fan is somebody who, yes, will still have their club, but might not be as emotionally or financially invested as others are who go to clubs home and away.

A certain demographic on this list is somebody who lives in West Sussex but supports Manchester United, or somebody who lives in Ireland but supports Liverpool. In the business of football, that’s called a glory hunter.

To me, I find it incredibly confusing as to why you wouldn’t want to go and watch football live instead of giving all your money to Sky Sports.

Don’t get me wrong — at the same time, I know people that live near me, or even a little bit further south than me, who have Liverpool season tickets, and that is incredible dedication. That’s a football supporter.

There’s also the argument of “it’s your dad’s team” or “your grandad’s team” that you support. Well, yes, that is fair.

I have a great example of this. There’s a young guy I work with who’s Scottish and his team is Hibs, and the Scottish league is the only league he watches. To me it falls into a type of in-the-middle area, because it’s a hard one — he still supports a Scottish team and the league itself.

There was a point in time when the Irish league was genuinely worried about its viewers and attendances due to there being a heavily Premier League-supporting affiliation in Ireland.

Like, come on — I know teams like Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City are good. But football was meant to be experienced first-hand. To me, nothing beats the morning of an away day, where it’s a little bit cold in the air, you’ve woken up with the excitement and anticipation of meeting your mates, getting on the train, getting those looks of people who know you’re off to football. You’ve got your beers in hand, ripping into each other, having a laugh. You make a long journey up somewhere you’ve never been before, or somewhere you have memories of previously. When the 90 minutes is up, you’re either running that train home celebrating, or you’re all sat there not talking to each other, trying your best to analyse what went wrong for the whole journey back.

You don’t get that if you’re sat on your sofa. You can just turn the TV off and life goes on, and you forget about it in an hour or two — because you’re not engrossed in it, you’re not consuming it properly. You’re not going through the emotions and the heartbreak and the jubilation as you would do if you actually go to the match.

Anybody can watch football how they want to, but to me you’ll never beat being at the football itself, no matter what level it is — Premier League or County Prem. And never be ashamed or embarrassed to support a club at that level either, because if you love it, what else matters?

First published in Dugout News, Issue 3, 23 August 2026. Republished here in full.