Yet another Chicagoland Fulham fan

My name's Steve and like many on this site, I am living in the Chicagoland area. I grew up in DuPage County (in the West suburbs of Chicago) and my first love was baseball and the Chicago White Sox (only natural, since I'm a third generation fan)- it still is, but studying abroad in London in 2004 got me really excited about "the beautiful game" and it's moved into a close second among my favorite sports. I lived in West London for the fall semester and nearly became a Chelsea fan (I lived a little closer to Stamford Bridge), luckily a trip to Craven Cottage sorted me out. When I'm not watching the Cottagers, I'm geeking out over books, music, baseball or beer; cooking when I have the energy and traveling whenever I get the money or time.

I've been lurking on this site for a little while and seeing Tom's guest blog on ESPNSoccernet inspired me to take the plunge.



I actually have a longer story about how I became a Fulham fan (and how supporting Fulham indirectly helped me meet one of my best friends), but I'm hoping there's a thread somewhere for that because I'm interested in hearing others' stories as well and I don't want to ramble too much in my first post.

Also, given how many of us are in the Chicago area are there ever meet-ups to watch matches at the Globe (or somewhere else)?

I briefly glanced through the "News and Gatherings" section and didn't see anything, but it was a pretty brief look so I might've missed an obvious thread.

 

Welcome Steve! Very nice way to introduce yourself. Sounds like you had a close brush with the dark side, but you're safe with us now. What were you studying in London?

 

Cheers Steve, glad to have you!!

 

Welcome Steve

 

Welcome Steve, where in the western suburbs are you from? Glad you didn't go to the dark side when you were studying in London.

 

Welcome Steve...where is ChicagoTom when you need him?!

Glad you made it to the site but think a few of us are more interested in your story on how you became an FFC fan. Hit us with it...

 

What Mike said...
I promise not to nod off... 8)

 

Welcome to FUSA Steve.

 

Welcome, sir.

 

Welcome, and let your story be known!

 

Thanks for all the warm welcomes, guys. I think I might post my story over in the Fan-dom section since it doesn't entirely relate to how I started supporting Fulham (although did sort of guarantee that I would always be a fan). (Aside to Clevelandmo: It also relates to just how close I came to the dark side). To SoCalJoe, I live in Lombard right now (also grew up there, so a recent return to the hometown).

It might be a few days before I post my story though, because my girlfriend is in town for my birthday/Valentine's Day and I've been showing her around the Chicago area- so my time on the internet is sparse. I was pretty thrilled that Fulham got a resounding 3 points on my birthday (the other two teams I support that played on my birthday: AFC Wimbledon and the Chicago Bulls also won, yay!).

Anyhow, thanks for the welcomes and I'm sure I'll be seeing more of you virtually soon.

~Steve

 

Welcome Steve, where in Fulham did you live?

 

Truth be told, I actually lived in the borough of Kensington & Chelsea in Earls Court (along the border of K&C and Hammersmith & Fulham) a couple blocks East of the tube station.

~Steve

 

So you lived as an Australian