When Did You . . . become a fan of the Patriots ?

signbabybrady said:

For me it was at birth. You see I was born into a family with season tickets and the rest is history. Thanks @fgssand!

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Thank Papa Joe for taking me to watch the first Patriots practices in Billy Sullivan's hometown of Lowell, Ma and then to the first ever regular season game at BU Field -- I was 8 years old and there are lots and lots of games embedded in brain!!!

Evolving into a Pats fan occurred when I was maybe 9 or 10 playing Pop Warner.

I grew up in NY Giants household. I watched SB42 and SB46 with my dad.

He knew how annoyed and demoralized I was after the games and he never twisted the knife.

I'm not interested in watching another NYG/NE SB with the old man as he is jinx but if he asks to get together then I'll play the role of the good son.

In college, like everyone else. With an adult human female.

Edit: Oh wait, wrong question.

fgssand said:

Thank Papa Joe for taking me to watch the first Patriots practices in Billy Sullivan's hometown of Lowell, Ma and then to the first ever regular season game at BU Field -- I was 8 years old and there are lots and lots of games embedded in brain!!!

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In my mind I am tapping his seat and pointing to the sky.

When they drafted jake bequette. I really had no choice

1995... Was in elementary school. Didn't even realize it's been 21 years... holy ... I feel old.

PATSYLICIOUS said:

When they drafted jake bequette. I really had no choice

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Thread has been won!

Froob said:

Why would you do that to yourself?.... I don't understand why you would ever re-watch those SB losses.

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There's worse things in life. It was my first time watching either of those games, and it was because I could handle it now. They won it all and came within two points from making it back. It would maybe have been different if they didn't win it a few years ago.

Some time in the 1970's. I can remember many a fall Sunday when we'd stay at the family beach house in NH (freezing our butts off because there was no heat) just to watch a blacked-out Pats game on Channel 9, the ABC affiliate in NH that showed the games that were blacked out in the Boston area. I also remember heading home from said beach house (with my dad muttering to himself) many times at half time when the Pats were already out of it. Ah, the good old days....

Met Nick B. (miami SUCKS) in 1962, been a fan ever since. It's been quit a ride.

I read the Globe and Herald religiously as a kid. Got all kind of newspaper cutouts of Bird and the Celtics during the 80s. Also was a huge baseball fan. Rice,Dewey,Lynn etc.

Read the football section one day and for some reason the Irving Fryar selection really peaked my interest. Started following the team and became a huge Stanley Morgan fan. Rest was history. Btw, if Morgan played with Brady he would be considered one of the best WRs of all time. just my opinion.

Since I moved to America in 2000.

Grew up in Toronto watching the CFL and Mini Mack Herron was tearing up the league with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. When he went to New England, I started watching the Patriots play, something that was easy to do since the Buffalo games were usually blacked out. There's a lot of Canadian fans in Ontario of my vintage because of that. Moved into my university residence and my best mate there turned out to be similarly maniacal about the Pats so we'd watch every game together. Absolutely loved the mid-70's and mid-80's Patriot teams, especially Steve Nelson, Mike Haynes, Ray Clayborn, Andre Tippett, Steve Grogan, Hog Hannah, Sam Bam, Russ Francis and Stanley Morgan. Suffered through the many bad teams along the way but I'm always loyal to my teams and was used to losers (ahem, Toronto Maple Leafs). Saw my only live Patriots game in Kansas City - drank way too much and we got killed.

Then I moved to Southeast Asia and had to follow the games through newspaper articles and magazines sent to me in the mail. Once in a blue moon I'd get to see a game on TV in Bangkok since there was no way I was coming back home from the tropics during football season. Then the internet finally reached us and I discovered Usenet as a way to keep up and discuss the Pats with other fans. It had the added benefit of being functional with the pathetic dial-up speeds we would be lucky to get back then in Cambodia. Now for the last several years we have games on TV (1 in each Sunday time slot plus the Thursday and Monday Night games) and can stream the ones we don't get. It was amazing to be able to watch them play again and I was up pretty much every single Sunday from that point on, either from 1 to 4 AM or 4 to 7 AM watching the game. Now I've moved back to Canada so I can watch on TV and at the proper time - that's nice. Hope to finally get to Foxborough to see them play live at Gilette while I'm here.

Couldn't believe it when we won the Super Bowl against the Rams. I screamed when the field goal went through and scared the crap out of my wife, seeing as it was early in the morning and we were in bed in Vietnam at the time. Can't believe how great it's been with Kraft, BB and Brady over these years.

1979

I was born in Boston and loved all the local teams as a kid, primarily the 80's Celtics, until the mid 80's when the Raymond Berry-era Pats had their nice run. My interest in the Pats ebbed and flowed for the next several years until catching the '94 Kevin Turner game when Bledsoe threw for 426 yards in an overtime win. I don't think I've missed a game since then.

Bob Dee and Jim Lee Hunt

YOU may be old as dirt...I'm positively ancient. I think I went to BU in '69 because of Nickerson field when I was 9.

I've lived in the Bay Area all of my life. In my childhood years I was a big time soccer fan (still am). Was not really into football and everyone around me was a 49er or Raiders fan. I became a Patriots fan after the 01 Superbowl caught my attention due to 9/11 and the whole country being patriotic in a difficult time when I was 11. Guess you can say I am a bandwagoner but been following them ever since.

Like a few others I sort of became a follower years before becoming a fanatic!

Growing up in Scotland I wasn't a fan of any of the American big 4 sports at all - there was hardly any coverage but what was available was just ignored in our house as we were all soccer mad. (As well as golf, snooker, rugby, tennis) It was at a time (early to mid 90s) when soccer clubs in Scotland started to fall behind the other European leagues but it was just when soccer from the big European leagues (England, Italy, Spain, Germany) became a lot more available. I would watch soccer incessantly all week and couldn't get enough.

I didn't really have a desire to follow American sports and to be honest didn't really have a great desire to visit America (unlike a good majority of Brits!) I was more interested in Europe and the exotic cities that the European teams I watched came from. My best mate and older brother though had convinced me to go with them to Boston in early 2002 when I was 18. We got ridiculously cheap flights at the time (possibly due to sept 11) so I was in. When we arrived there was pats Super Bowl gear everywhere. Meant nothing at the time. We spent 2 weeks in Boston with trips to Vermont and New York in the middle. We all just much preferred Boston to New York and being sports fanatics we all decided to adopt the 4 'Boston' teams. Which being Scottish was difficult in some respects. It meant following a team with England in it when our natural instincts are to support anyone playing against England in any sport! It also meant following a team with the name Celtics. We have a soccer club in Scotland called Celtic and I did and still do despise their very existence with every fibre of my being (and their disgusting city neighbours Rangers!!)

Maybe with this in mind the three of us followed the Red Sox and Bruins more than the other two initially and it was just a fleeting interest in the pats until I got completely hooked in 2009. I remember watching the game that shall not be mentioned and for the first time getting irate at an nfl game. I was gutted but it wasn't until the first season that Brady came back that I started watching games. Since 2009 I have hardly missed a game. The season we went 14-2 was so much fun and I still can't believe we lost to the jets at home.

Despite following the team very casually since 2002 I feel like I missed out on the glory years of 2002-5 because I wasn't emotionally invested. Made me appreciate 49 so much more though!!


TLR

2009!!!

1984 and haven't looked back since #ukpatriot

In the 50's my friends father introduced me to the NFL.. we used to watch the epic battles of the NY Giants, Chicago, Cleveland, Green Bay and Detroit.. They were Cleveland Fans and I followed along what was not to like about initially Otto Graham and then of course my #2 all time fave, Jim Brown..

After the 1st Superbowl started to pay attention to the Pats and have been a follower ever since..