Supporting two football teams increases the pain involved most of the time. This is sometimes because I feel that I've let down one team by attending a game when the other team are playing at the same time - even though I know its impossible to attend both games. Sometimes I can assuage this guilt by keeping up with the score via the television or social media.
Occasionally, there are commitments outside of football that can't be avoided and then you've let both teams down. Admittedly these are rare, mainly due to a very understanding family. If there's the possibility of missing a game I will try to get family members involved at any opportunity: "your family would love it as they're all from round here", "you could just zone-out while the game is on", "let's go along and help clean-up the ground before the game, it'll be great exercise", "it will be a chance to see somewhere new".
Aside from the away shirts, supporting two teams paid off in the form of what might be considered a lottery-style win in May 2011. MCFC managed to reach a first FA Cup final in 30 years to face Stoke City. Cue a desperate scramble for tickets by contacting everybody I'd ever known, many of whom I hadn't spoken to for years.
Then an e-mail was posted on the DHFC website stating that the club would receive six tickets for the final due to their membership of the FA and inviting applications from supporters. I had always subscribed to the view that a larger percentage of tickets should be given to the supporters of participating clubs rather than the FA 'family'. Now I found myself as a very distant member of the FA family, I was immediately on to the club to press my two-club supporting credentials. "Well the Chairman's taking a couple, but you might get two tickets if you can get up here now with the cash". The reality was that it was only due to both clubs being unfashionable. "If it had been Tottenham v Liverpool, you wouldn't have got near them". So, for once supporting the two teams had really paid off.
Interesting stuff.
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