Charger Nation: In Defense of My Fellow Charger Fans

This past year in 2008, the Raiders and the Chargers faced off in another rivalry game in Week 14 in the beautiful city of San Diego. It can be safely said that no San Diego Charger fan would ever want to miss an opportunity to witness the yearly beatdown of our most hated rival. Prior to this, I had never been to a Raiders/Chargers game, so I was eager to attend this one. In addition, I was eager to go so that I could investigate the numerous claims the Raider fans have made about how Qualcomm Stadium was Oakland South.

I awaited my chance to see whether or not this Oakland South talk was nothing more than Raider propaganda. So I drove down there, decked out in my powder blue, Antonio Gates jersey. Upon my entrance into the stadium, I found it difficult to pick out the few black jerseys from the hordes of blue jerseys. Even though this may have been due to the fact that the Raiders lost the game 34-7, they were alarmingly quiet for the duration of the game, and I found myself having to search diligently for any black jerseys. I said to myself, "Where are the 30,000 fans that the Raider Nation claims to send into our stadium ever year?" In every section of the stadium, there were approximately 2 or 3 Raider fans. Nothing more than fake Raider propaganda.

The sad aspect of this is that even though many claims made by the Raider Nation are nothing more than lies, they, along with many other fans in the league, feel the need to belittle the Charger fanbase and our quality of fans. They have referred to us as fairweather, bandwagoner, unloyal, fickle, arrogant, you name it.

According to what everybody else says, Charger fans are the most unloyal group of bandwagoners in the NFL, next to the Patriots. They will seize every opportunity to depict us as a group of fickle followers who will immediately stuff our Charger jerseys back in the closet the minute our team begins to falter. In their minds, every Bolt-bearer is a fickle, blind follower.

Whenever teams like the Broncos, Chiefs, or Raiders find themselves unable to prove their team's superiority to us, due to how we recently won the AFC West, they resort to claims such as "You guys are all fake posers. I remember when Leaf was your quarterback, you guys didn't even have a fanbase."

Yet, despite all of the hatred, I feel it is my duty to stand up for my fellow Charger fans and to set the record straight regarding the quality of our fans.

Whenever rival fans want to describe our "disloyalty", they will refer to how the Chargers' home game attendance had decreased in the years of Ryan Leaf, and how Charger fans' support for their team had gone down a bit. Then, they will go on about how all current Charger fans supposedly hopped on the bandwagon the minute the Chargers won the division title in 2004, and how we will never back our Chargers if their play is below average.

However, when these Charger Haters spew these hateful comments, they forget and leave out a few important facts and details. From 1996 to 2004, was our attendance lower than before? Yes. Was our fan support as great as it was during our 1994 season? No. But something you all forget is that we went through 9 years of mediocrity and a horrible on-field product. 9 long years of suffering.

You all make it sound as if we turned our backs on the Chargers after simply one poor season. But did you ever stop to think that almost every NFL team would witness a drop in fan support and attendance if their team had endured what we had for those years? We had the biggest draft bust in NFL history quarterbacking our 1-15 team. 95% of all NFL teams would see a drop in fan interest if they had been in that situation. I hate to break it to all of you, but it's not that abnormal.

Whenever any NFL team falters and declines, the fans are not going to be as vocal as they previously were and they're not going to want to attend games as much. That does not make them unloyal nor does it give them the right to be labeled a bandwagoner.

In addition, I can recall many times in the last few years when I saw many empty stadiums of teams who claimed to have the most dedicated fans in the country. Yes Oakland, you're one of them. Oakland Raider fans claim to always be there for their team no matter what. Yet it is a known fact that Raider games have been blacked out more than any other NFL team, and how BizJournals.com ranked the Raider Nation as the least loyal fanbase due to their horrible attendance. So, Raider fans, enough with your nonsense about how Charger fans are fickle and how you guys stand by your team through thick and thin.

Another common weapon that our enemies like to use is the invasion factor. They will make claims regarding how easily Qualcomm Stadium is invaded, another false misconception. One person told me that Charger fans aren't dedicated because in our recent preseason game against Dallas, there were a good number of Cowboy fans in the Q. Yet what that poor soul failed to realize is that this occurs in every part of the country due to how the Cowboys have the largest fanbase in the league. In addition, as you read above, the myths of San Diego being Oakland South have long been disproven, so the Raider Nation can save that.

If all of those claims about Charger fans fail, Charger Haters will then try to prove their point by making comments such as "All of the Charger fans have brand new jerseys because they just became fans a few years ago when their team started to win." Well, to anybody who makes that claim, I would like to remind you that the Chargers received new uniforms 2 years ago. So, did it ever occur to you that those jerseys are brand new because many of the fans wanted to go out and buy the new jerseys with the new logo on it?

Everybody is so quick to point out that the Chargers allegedly had no fan support prior to 2004 and that suddenly, San Diego erupted with unwavering support of the blue and gold. Whenever any sports town waits and suffers as we have, and then suddenly becomes the AFC West champions in one season, how do you think the fans are going to react? So what, did the 49ers have no fans prior to their Super Bowl seasons of the 80's? Did the Steelers have no fanbase before their sudden surge of success in the early 1970's?

Every single team in the NFL has bandwagon hoppers. Every team in the league has fairweather fans. You cannot single out one team for having something that is prevalent in every NFL franchise. That's like singling out one middle school kid for having acne and making fun of him when nearly everybody else in middle school suffers from acne as well. We have our pimples, and so do the Broncos, Raiders, Chiefs, etc. Do not act like you guys are above it.

The San Diego Chargers have a fanbase just as good as any other fanbase in the NFL,  regardless of what you all say. Do we have our fairweather fans just as all NFL teams do? Yes. But regardless, we will stand by our team through the tough times, and whenever our hated rivals come into our house, the Lightning Bolt World Order will give them a "special" welcoming just as we always have.

Our love for the Chargers cannot be damaged by your hate. No matter how much you hate us, Ladainian Tomlinson, Philip Rivers, Shawne Merriman will be here for quite a while, and even after they leave, Charger Nation will be packing the Q to back our team no matter what.