Success or Failure; Which is better?

I’m sure you’re all straight away thinking “well it’s quite obviously success,” but just hear me out on this one.  I support wolves, and at times I really wish I didn’t, I think you can all empathise with me on those moments when you just wish that you had picked a better team to support.  Moments like a 6-0 home defeat to Southampton, failing to get into the play-offs (AGAIN,) losing four times in a season to your arch rivals West Brom, or having to face your friends the day after a mix up between your defence and goalkeeper  leading to a comical goal shown again and again on sky sports news, and as your friends ridicule you, it feels like it’s your fault.

However  the other side of this is supporting a team like Manchester United, or Chelsea, who regularly win titles, and only real disappointment comes from the fact that your side haven’t won a trophy that season, still safe in the knowledge that the board, like the parents of a spoilt child, will give loads of money and win everything next season cause the manager throws a temper tantrum.

Sure that sounds great from that perspective, but what does that matter to you if your team win the league? Are they really your team? Are you part of that club? are you connected to that team like how so many lower league fans are?

If you are connected, and do feel apart of a close family in that giant conglomerate of a football club, then what about when all the ‘fans’ jump on the bandwagon and ruin that for you? Even success, when it is not earned can never truly feel right.

That leads me onto another point of whether winning the Premier League three times in a row can really feel great when you haven’t felt a true low, when my team come away with a draw against a team they ought to beat I just get on with my day, because I don’t have the monumental expectation that some fans people have of their team. What I am trying to say, in a rather ranty way I must admit is that you can’t have success without failure, and when you get used to failure it makes moments of success so amazing and wonderful, not just happy because a team you like is doing well, but because there are thousands of other people around you all joined to the same cause, not millions worldwide, all the people that follow my team are in the same place cheering them on, and when that last minute equaliser goes in, I have family to share that excitement with, not just fellow supporters.

That’s why I am willing to stick my neck out and say that it is better to be in a team that is unsuccessful, because it makes the small amounts of success so much more meaningful.

Thanks for reading