For Pats fans outside of New England

Hey Guys

This is for Patriots fans who live outside of New England and have no connection to the area. I'd love to visit Boston and the New England area soon and see a game, plus all that Patriots apparel sounds awesome! I've noticed that the team seems to have a very large fanbase outside of its home region and I'm curious to hear some of your stories about how you became fans of the team?

I'm originally Canadian, then moved to Iowa as a teen, and have also lived in South Carolina and now western Pennsylvania with my wife and son. My favorite sports teams are the Vancouver Canucks in the NHL, Toronto Blue Jays in the MLB, Toronto Raptors in the NBA and Saskatchewan Roughriders in the CFL. I cheer for my alma mater Iowa State in NCAA sports (Ellis Hobbs the lone ISU alumni I can think of that played in NE ). I didn't really have a favorite NFL team before the age of 8 or 9, kinda liking the 49ers, Raiders and Redskins. Around 1995 or 1996, I was out shopping with my Mom and we went to a sports apparel store. That's when I saw it.

A New England Patriots t-shirt, I just loved the look of it. Loved the logo (one of the few who might like the flying Elvis as much as Pat Patriot) but most of all, I loved the name! NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS. It just sounded cool. Plus they had a totally unique place name! No city, no state. But NEW ENGLAND, I thought it sounded so cool. From then on I decided this would be my team.

I tried to get familiar with the roster, and Drew Bledsoe became my favorite player. I also really liked Curtis Martin, Ben Coates, Lawyer Milloy and Ty Law. I had NFL Quarterback Club '96 for the PC and I really liked to be the Patriots. They had a solid team in that game. Then they made the Super Bowl in '96 and I got even more into the team! Sadly they lost, but I was a fan!

The next four or five years I didn't follow the team as well as I should have. But still monitored how they did. When I entered high school in 2001 I was bummed, thinking another horrible season was ahead after Drew Bledsoe got hurt in the 2nd game of 2001 and the team started 0-2. Then I remember watching the game against the Colts the next week and we throttled them! Tom Brady was the starter, I said "who? I thought he was third on the depth chart!" haha. Of course, the rest of the season was magical and I couldn't get enough of the team. That season, week after week, I became an even bigger fan and I was hooked for life. The Super Bowl win was the icing on the cake and I teared up after they won! The next decade and a half of course has been incredible with the team winning 5 more championships!!!

I get this all the time, "Patriots?!! why are you a Patriots fan?! Just because they're good?! Or "you're from the midwest, why do you like the Patriots?!!!" Because, it was destiny and there's no other team for me! Because of my fandom my Mom also became a huge Tom Brady fan and also cheers for the Patriots. So I have a convert I'm curious to hear your stories!! We are all Patriots!!!

I’m about in the same boat as you. I grew up in Washington State and I connected with the Mariners but never connected with the Seahawks. I even went to two games and I just didn’t care. I remember watching the Patriots on tv and instantly fell in love. I started wearing a Patriots jersey to school every Friday and got made fun of sometimes (but never like I do in PUBLIC now). I was in 9th grade for the 2001 Super Bowl and I didn’t entirely understand just how big of underdogs we were in that game because being a naive young kid I had that “Any Given Sunday” attitude 24/7. Everyone made fun of me at the Super Bowl party I went to and told me the Patriots didn’t stand a chance. I sat there gleefully with my customized Jersey that had my name on it and enjoyed the hell out of the game. Anyone that knows me knows I’ve always been a fan and I never get called a band wagoner.

I’m from the UK, and honestly I started to support them because they had England in their names, as well as I liked the colours too! I done a school report on them in when I was about 8 as well. Was the best project work I ever done, had all the history to the team, from the Boston patriots, the alternative uniform, Kraft buying the team, the super bowls

Sorry for double post

Grew up in Maine, followed the Pats since 1971, met my Long Island-born wife in CT in 1986, we moved back to Maine and raised our kids there. In 2011 we moved to Long Island because we wanted to be closer to her family.








Or more accurately, she’d suffered through 30 years near my family. Now it was my turn.

Grew up in Baltimore. Dad and mom had colts season tickets from when they were in the aafc. Mom gave up her seat to my brother and me, so we would each go to several games with dad. Kept those seats until that effer irsay stole the team on snowy night in March and snuck off to Hoosierland. Didn’t follow any team for a while, then my company moved me to New England in 1990. The Pats were terrible, but I fell in love with them. I have moved several times for work; to New Jersey, Maryland and now North Carolina, but I have religiously followed them. I have watched every game thanks to Sunday ticket from Directv. And I get all my Pats news right here on Pats fans

We live in southern Nova Scotia. We are so close to Boston that we can get radio signals in our car. Sports radio included. Most of our parents/grandparents followed Boston’s sports before Canadian teams existed. There are many Sox fans, but also Celtics & even Bruins fans.

Passed down, like the kids in NE...

@WHPats

I think that there are a fair number of people like myself that are originally from New England and then moved away.

This website quenches the thirst for detailed analysis and opinions on our favorite team from afar. It can be like sitting on a barstool at the local pub, talking with the other townies about the team we grew up cheering for and going to see play.

My family is from the northwest but my dad was a submariner. We lived in Portsmouth and Groton during my youth so I developed my allegiance then. I moved back to the Boston area as an adult for awhile but it was too far from family and moved back. I live in Eastern Washington now. Deep in Seahawks territory.

Wow, some other Pacific NW folks. I grew up in Portland, OR (named after Portland, ME--would have been Boston had a coin toss gone differently--true story!), and in 1977 as a 10ish year old, decided they were my team. They were good and in the running, but not an obvious choicer to pick as a winner. I hated the Raiders and knew they had a very controviersal loss to Oakland (Sugar Bear Hamilton roughing play), though I did not start watching football until t5he SB that year.

I liked the name, logo, and thought the fact they represented a whole region was cool. I also wanted a team no one else i knew pulled for. I first say a picture of the team on TV or in a magazine, can't emember for sure, and was drawn to them. Also, I could also never see them play on TV, so when I could, it was a real treat--and I would eagerly wait for the score updates scroll across the team as I was watching regional games of West Coast teams.


Besides all of this, they had Russ Francis at TE, and he had set a national high school javelin record growing up in OR (though I found out about that after I started rooting for them). They also had a center, Pete Brock, from the Portland area.

So if you're born and raised in Butte or Waikaloa, is it you can't root for an NFL team, you have to root for the team that's closest though many hundreds or even thousands of miles away, or you get unrestricted validation to root for any team?
Do you have to be from Switzlerland to be a fan of Federer? From Jamaica to be a Bolt fan? From the Phillipnes to be a Manny fan or Russia to be a klitschko(?) fan? From the USA or specifically California to be a Tiger fan? Or is the rule individual sports are wide open while team sports are geographically restricted?

If that kind of logic is required to be a fan, it kind of throws the whole 'being a fan' thing on its head. My take is: one who would make someone feel odd for choosing a geographically located team to root for is the odd one themselves (likely just another Patriot hater). Me? It was 80 degrees here today in south tampa and I am just fine rooting for the Patriots right where I am (if they played regular season games in the summer I might feel different about the weather ).

I'm from Vancouver. I watched a little football in the early 90's but was really taught the game by a very good friend who was from Boston. He patiently taught me all about the game I love so much now. I started rooting for the Patriots in 93 (I was in my early 20's) more out of association as he introduced me to football and he loved the Patriots. I remember him saying to me ' are you sure you want them to be your team, they're not very good ' and I said, I don't care I love the underdog ! lol, I loved their uniforms and thought why not, I have to pick some team, why not them.?He was very high on this kid " Bledsoe whom I grew to love and then Ty Law was picked a couple of years later who became one of my favourite players of all time. I remember being so upset at Max lane for not protecting Bledsoe in the SB of 96. Oh and I loved Bruce Armstrong.
I cried when Bledsoe was traded as I thought Tommy Boy was a one year wonder !!!! I cried when Ty was cut and I was pissed when Willie went to Cleveland. I was also a huge fan of Coates and I loved the old uni's. In 99 I went to the old Foxboro for a game. I have never been to Gillette. I plan to change that this season (hopefully ).
Since Brady became the QB, I have seen the Patriots about 6 times, all on the road. A couple of times in Buffalo (lived in Toronto for 3 years), a couple of times in Seattle, once in San Diego and of course went to Indy for the game that Willie stopped Edgerrin at the 1 yard line .
That's my story, not been a fan as long as some of you but still long enough to know that they will always be my team, no matter what .

I grew up in Toronto. I love the Raptors, Leafs, Jays. I love all my Toronto teams. I never watched football until I moved to Northern Virginia around 2002.

Where I live is Redskins country because it’s a suburb of DC. I effing hate the Redskins and their owner. So while getting into the game I just loved how Belichick was and the Pats style and I knew about Brady’s story. I also hated Peyton Manning because even back then everyone was slobbering all over this guy and I never understood why. I started to root against Peyton and loved how the Pats crushed him every single time so I became a fan. I’ve been to many Pats games at Gillette and other cities and I just love them. I grew up on other sports but they all take a backseat to the Pats.

I've been a Patriots fan since late 1975. I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly of this team in those early years. I have also seen our team go from the lovable losers, or even the laughingstock, to the Flagship franchise of the NFL. I feel we old-timers have earned this.

Hometown: San Mateo, CA Currently Reside in Agoura Hills, CA (down the street from the Rams HQ)

I was traveling to Boston with my family back in '85, I was about 10 years old. I became pretty sick while on vacation and ultimately ended up spending a month in Boston Children's Hospital. I recall the Patriot propaganda being pretty relentless while I was there and I loved it. However being a Bay Area native my heart was with the 49ers. But all the Patriot stuff just stayed with me for years after leaving Boston and my love for the team continued to grow. Then back in the early 90's I would visit my buddy at WSU and caught a few Bledsoe games which was awesome, then he was drafted by the Pats and that was even more awesome. When I thought my love for the team could not get better, some young punk from my hometown gets drafted by the team in the 6th round. Little did I know what was about to happen. It became fandom overload. Fast forward about 10 years and I'm moving on to my second marriage. In 2009, my future wife (who went to woodside high school) tells me that my team just drafted her quarterback from when she was in high school. I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes

Born and bred in the UK, but lived in Boston from 1995-2002, hence my allegiance.

I knew I liked NFL in the early 90's so needed a reason to support a team, more than just going for the Cowboys or the 49rs because they were good. My family are all Irish and my mum spoke about the Irish connection in Boston. Also, we had just drafted a guy called Bledsoe who the very cursory analysis on our 30 minute NFL highlights show (I think it was Blitz with Mick Luckhurst, an English kicker for the Falcons) said was the best prospect coming through. I was sold then, but never expected what transpired.

Due to last 90's coverage being a bit scarce (there was no such thing as NFL Gamepass and very few shows about the game) I was always blown away by Bledsoe, not realising what Boston fans did that he could be erratic and not so great on short passes. Even extended highlight packages at the time showed him as a human highlight reel, so when Brady came through, I couldn't understand it.

Now I am 40 and the world is a lot smaller. For that I am thankful. The internet can be annoying, but now foreign fanbases can not just have the love for the team, they can also have the knowledge.

If my daughter starts to like it, the UK NFL world she grows up in will be a land of milk and honey.

I am from Poland so the begining of my adventure with football is a bit weird because in my country football in 1990's was a totally anonymous sport. Everyone hearing I was watching this "football" looked at me like a weirdo. First I was a huge fan of Bills in Kelly and Thurman Thomas' era but since Brady has entered the NFL you know what happened next . He "bought" me and has converted to a Patriot fan. I am lucky I have been a witness of the great story has been written by this amazing team and organisation.
BTW footbal is getting more and more popular. Of course it is far away from being at the same level as soccer,volleyball or handball but many people are asking about the rules, are curious "what it is",why the Americans are crazy aboit it. I am glad I am on this board, I have opportunity to get much useful information about my favourite team and football itself.

Still a relative newbie to the NFL as a sport. My first taste of an NFL game was Super Bowl XLVI in early 2012. I didn't know any of the rules or players, and was just sort of making it up as I went along whilst watching it with a friend. As the game went on I found myself pulling more for the Patriots and although they didn't win I'd seen enough to know that I could enjoy the sport and didn't buy into a lot of the prejudices that the sport has here in England. NFL is no doubt on the rise here but it can still be a hard sell to many who say "it's too stop-start" and don't have 3-4 hours spare to watch a game.

I started a new job in March of 2012 and my boss was a big Packers fan. Even though I enjoyed SB 46 I can definitely credit him with making me take in the next season and becoming the huge fan I am today.

Whenever I speak to other fellow fans around here I'll get all the 'bandwagon' 'glory hunting' 'you only follow them because they're good' stuff when, actually, I had no idea how successful they were until I decided to follow the sport properly. I did a lot of back research and watched a lot of old games through Gamepass to get up to speed.

I'm fully aware that i'm spoilt at the minute, in 6-7 years of fandom I've seen 4 (or 5 depending on if you count 46) Super Bowl appearances and 3 victories. I know this won't last but my answer to that is that my local 'soccer' team is Newcastle United (they aren't very good), so I am more than equipped for following a bad team if that is what the future holds for the Patriots. For the short term at least, I want seven.

I'm originally from Iowa, so I was (naturally) a Bearlies fan back in the day. On Valentine's Day 1998, I moved to Missouri (yes, I remember the exact day), where everyone was either a Rams (at the time) or Chefs fan.

Lo and behold, I climbed aboard the Pats bandwagon in the SB vs. the Eagles (or the Panthers; the line is kind of blurry). Been on board since.