A friend of FF writes (in bold):

As for picking an English team to support, no doubt you saw Bill Simmons' recent article on this topic. His reasoning was, for the most part, sound.

Yep, saw and loved the Sports Guys' stuff. I had the idea (shortly after my FSC discovery) in advance of the Sports Guy's column, and, incidentally, have had the "have an idea about sports, then shortly thereafter SG writes it up" many times in the past. This probably says a lot about the type of fellow I am, but I love it when that happens. Having your sports thinking vindicated by the SG is very pleasing.

If I were starting from scratch (which I'm not; I support the Gunners) I'd want a team with some history, with a decent shot at winning someday, and I'd want to be safe from accusations of bandwagon-jumping. One obvious problem is that, arguably, there are four teams that would see you accused of bandwagon jumping (I don't think I even need to name them), and they might be the only teams with a realistic shot of winning the league for the foreseeable future. So in the short term at least you might need to satisfy yourself with cup wins and the fight for European places. Anyway, going back to my original point, if I were picking a team at this point I'd go with West Ham, although Simmons' selection of Spurs also makes sense. Still, if you decide to pick an established winner, Arsenal has a lot to recommend it - tons of great young players, the best striker in the world, a great book about them, a brilliant manager (whom you'll end up hating if you support any other team) ...

Agreed -- although I may have trouble living up to the "no frontfunner rule" for three of the four:

1. As a neutral, Chelsea really are marvelous to watch. So many talented players, many of whom seem not to be sh**heads (except Robben, perhaps, although I'm basing that entirely on the look he has on his face and nothing more). Then there's the unbelievable Jose Mourinho, who appears to engage in as much self-worship as William Shatner, in equally hilarious fashion. Unfortunately, choosing the current two-time champions as your team virtually qualifies as a tort.

2. Arsenal are excellent (Arsenal-Barca CL final was terrific), and I'm particularly eager to see how USA killer Tomas Rosicky will do in the EPL, but Henry's lack of clutch performances (given his outrageous talent) are troubling in an A-Rod/Peyton Manning type of way.

3. It might be impossible to avoid rooting for Liverpool. I think Gerrard is the best midfielder in the EPL, and I'm partial to midfield skill. Liverpool also reminds me a bit of Pittsburgh, an NFL team I've always respected. Finally, I'm inexplicably fascinated with oddman Peter Crouch, the skinniest professional athlete since Manute Bol. I keep expecting his limbs to collapse in a pile. After "Crouchy," one of his many nicknames apparently is "Crouchinho," which made me wet my pants the first time I read it, and still makes me laugh every time I think it.

4. Like I said below, I'm not even considering Man U.

FF