Thai Football – Not a Fad

Last week I posted an article about expat fads. I was pretty close to adding Thai football to the list. Roughly six months ago there seemed to be a huge spike in expat interest in the Thai league and I thought it would be over pretty soon. However, after attending a few games myself I’ve changed my mind.

I support Reading and had a season ticket for nine years. I went home and away for many years and saw us play in League One, the Championship and The Premier League. I made the journey to Blackburn when we were one goal short of reaching Europa League qualifying. I felt the passion of promotion and the heartache of relegation but I can still appreciate the game here in Thailand.

I was invited to a couple of Muang Thong games last years and enjoyed the beer and company more than the football. The standard wasn’t far off the Conference South in the UK where I used to watch St Albans whilst at university. However, I didn’t feel compelled to commit to a team.

When I first arrived here in Thailand I did a teaching course and I met a guy called Dave. He’s been following Port FC and writing on their fan site, the Sandpit for a while. I’ve followed his articles there for a while with interest. The problem I found is that Port are the easy team to follow here. Being in central Bangkok it’s easy to get to their stadium but as someone who’s supported a lower league team I didn’t want to follow the trend.

I was fortunate enough to get an invite from Phil at Ajarn.com to come and watch Samut Prakan. I’d heard about the team via Phil’s tweets but the stadium was located miles away from the BTS, it seemed like an effort to get there. I actually live on the Bangkok / Samut Prakan border but even so it looked years away on the map. I’ve since found out that two buses from my road go there and the taxi ride isn’t terrible. Most importantly, the games have reminded me of my love of live football.

The walk to the ground involves going through a few side alleys and a street, it’s kind of like Millwall away but without the agro. There’s currently a festival going on in the area and around 100 food stalls selling meat on sticks and beer, great stuff.

The people at the only official drinks stall in the stadium are friendly and joke with foreigners. It’s just nice. There’s no swearing, no racism, no hassle. It’s a place where you can watch football, chat and have a good time. Afterwards there’s plenty of places to grab a beer and chill out too.

So, this is the day when I’ve decided to support Samut Prakan, I enjoy the games, I can get to home games after work and it’s just fun. Thanks to Phil for getting me into it.

I’ve enjoyed talking with other foreigners at the game and on Twitter about it.

It’s perhaps the hobby I’ve needed. There are a few other foreigners there to watch games too. If you’re near Bearing, Bang Na or On Nut get in contact, it’s easy to get there. Go Samut Prakan Go!