Football teams - a millstone round your neck forever

This is not particularly a football blogsite - but it's title needs explaining.
Like many fans all over Britain, the football team you end up supporting is awful chance, normally brought about by a geographical random event such as where your parents happened to live at that critical moment in your life when you were passionate about football, and actually deemed responsible enough to go and watch games.
In my case I had dabbled with Colchester United when I was 10 - but the damage was really done when we lived in Bury St Edmunds when I was 12, Ipswich Town had just been promoted to the top level, and I started going to see every home game. The REAL team I supported in those days was Man United of course - well who wouldn't have in those golden days of Best, Law, Charlton et al, when they had just won the European Cup. But like any football crazy 12 year old, I would go and see ANY football I could, and if I wasn't doing that, I was kicking a ball against a garage with my mate Clive, or playing Subbuteo for hours on end. Most kids who had Subbuteo had the proper ceramic teams. My set somehow was an 'economy' version, and the figures were cardboard. It meant they lacked substance. But it also meant they could do the most AMAZING swerves, if you gave them the right sort of flick.
Eventually I saved up for an all blue team - in ceramic! When I suggested to my dad I would like West Brom as well, he meticulously painted white stripes on the blue team with a pin head. He was good like that, was my dad...
So there I was watching Ipswich and the day came when my heroes came to Town. I got off school a bit early, to make sure I could into Portman Road ( we had Saturday morning school at King Edward VI grammar school) and rushed off to Ipswich, full of excitement. At 2.45 my heroes stepped onto the ground, alongside my familiar local boys in blue. The crowd roared and the ground shook - and the most peculiar mixed feelings crept over me as I watched. For I realised that I actually wanted Ipswich to win - those who I watched live every other week, had a far stronger tug on my affections than the lofty aristocrats from Old Trafford. Who were they to me? Nothing really. Ipswich won 1-0 - and my fate was sealed for the next 40 years.
40 years of struggle, hoping against hope - like so many other football supporters, for there is only so much success to go round.
I realise I was ruined, spoilt, at an early age. As soon as I got interested in football England won the World Cup. Two years later Man Utd won the European Cup - spectacularly. Easy this, supporting a football team lark, I thought. Sucker! Reality kicked in...with the 1970 World Cup exit after dominating West Germany - 3 years later we somehow failed to qualify against Poland. Baddiel & Skinner had it right with their "30 years of hurt" (make that 40 now please Mr B &S) - years of hope, bad luck and disappointment. Oh yes, I've seen it all. The only beacon of light in all this time was 30 years ago when a stylish Ipswich team won the FA Cup against Arsenal, under the management of the wonderful, passionate, Bobby Robson.
I'm sure most of you (who don't support Arsenal, Man Utd, Chelsea or Liverpool) have similar heartfelt tales, and can relate to this. It is a curse, in a way, the team you end up with. But maybe it's a metaphor for life - if everything was easy, you wouldn't appreciate what you gained. How can you really appreciate the highs, without the lows? That's why I could never quite get Buddhists - but that's another story. Keep the faith out there! We WILL win something, some day, somewhere.