You will Never Walk Alone: The Case of Eskişehirspor and MKE Ankaragücü Sport Clubs’ Fans Identification

Football is an important factor connecting people throughout its history. The relationship between everyday life and football has an important role in the creation and spread of the concept of “being a fan”, which reflects individuals’ identities they wear as “dresses”. The team identification or level expresses a psychological bond of the individual towards a sports team. An individual’s being a team fan can be explained with the relationship which has been created with the emotional bond that has been established throughout the years depending on the factors such as the social circle and family of the individual. In this sense, the purpose of the research is to analyze fan identification levels according to some variables such as the fan age, fan group membership, reasons of being a fan and the education level of the individuals. The study involved a descriptive and relational research methodology employing a survey and “Fan Identification Scale“Fan Identification Scale” and personal information form which have been developed by Wann and Branscombe (1993), adapted into Turkish by Günay and Tiryaki (2003), have been used as a data collection tool. The studyused convenience sampling method in a total sample of 2133 membershat who are the fans of MKE Ankaragücü and Eskişehirspor sport club. According to the results obtained a considerable part of the participants have become fans of a certain team under the influence of their family members, a majority of them have been fans of the teams they supported before they were 18 years old. Besides, it has been detected that as the fan age and education level decrease, the identification level increases.