Intracity Sporting Rivalry in Valēka: Difference between revisions

'''[[Valēka]]''', the most populous city of the [[Kiravian Federacy]], is home to two teams that compete in the Federated Fieldball League, the highest level league for Kiravian-rules gridiron football (commonly called "fieldball"): The Valēka Metropolitans and the Valēka Emperors. As in any city hosting multiple professional sports teams in the same league, the sporting allegiances of Valēka residents are split between the two teams. However, in Valēka, rivalry between the two teams and their respective fanbases, termed the "Blues" (''Ávrikuya'', Emperors fans) and "Greens" (''Kérmikuya'', Metropolitans fans) after the colours of each team's uniforms, has developed into a unique and pervasive phenomenon of social division, manifesting itself in {{wp|segregation}}, political polarisation, and sometimes physical violence between fans of the opposing teams. This divison has some correlation with other, more ordinary social divisions such as class, neighbourhood, ethnosocial group, and recency of arrival in Valēka, yet eludes simplification to any of these divides. Both rich and poor can be found on either side of the divide, as can recent immigrants to the city and descendants of its first settlers. Many Coscivian ethnosocial groups and non-Coscivian immigrant communities have a pronounced preference for one team over the other, but these are rarely absolute, and most ethnosocial groups are divided along team lines to varying extents. Perhaps most surprisingly, the rivalry has not only endured but rather ''intensified'' despite multiple waves of migration to the city, increased social and residential mobility, and Valēka's relative cosmopolitanism.  Efforts by the city government and the State of Kiygrava to break down barriers between fans of the two teams have had negligible success to date.

The Green-Blue rivalry radiates outward into the many sattelite cities, suburbs, and exurbs that make up the wider [[Valēka metropolitan area]], but their social and political effects become less pronounced the further one ventures from the city. Institutionalised residential segregation disappears completely outside of the city limits, and team loyalty does not have any bearing on municipal, county, or state politics in other parts of Kiygrava and Niyaska.

The bulk of the population in Downstate Kiygrava, North Niyaska, and Róvidrea is descended from people who at one point lived in Valēka. As such, these people mostly inherit their team loyalty patrilineally from their Valēkan forebears. People without ties to Valēka who move to these areas often choose one of the two teams to root for based on which one is more popular in their local area or social group, and their children and grandchildren most often identify with the predominant team in their area. However, such people are often less attached to their chosen team than "cradle fans" and typically do not treat it as anything other than a sporting preference. There are also substantial minorities of people in these areas that root primarily or exclusively for non-Valēkan teams and thus do not participate in the rivalry.

[[Holden Island]], a condominium jointly governed by Kiygrava and Niyaska, has a Green-majority (~65%) population, with a Blue minority (~25%). Social segregation is practiced, though to a lesser extent than in Valēka. During disagreements over governance of the island between the two states, newspapers in Cantrasar and Valēka have sometimes reported that Greens support Kiygrava State's position, while Blues support Niyaska's, though islanders themselves have contested this claim. Holden Islanders can register their cars with either Kaviskan or Niyaskan authorities, and an informal study by a County Manôt, Niyaska newspaper pairing licence plates with team-related bumper stickers found no significant correlation between having a Mets sticker and having a Kiygravan plate.

Counterintuitively, the Metropolitans' practice facility and "base of fieldball operations" is located in predominantly Blue North Niyaska (although the town containing it has gradually become a small Green enclave), while the corresponding facility for the Emperors organisation is located in the predominantly Green suburb of Esdrasar in County Astorin, Kiygrava.

Despite being well outside the Valēka metro area, the island of Åstor, currently part of the state of [[Harma]], is a bizarre outpost of support for the Metropolitans. Åstor was within the colonial boundaries of Kiygrava when it was first settled in {{H:title|1056 AD|20236}}, but was reassigned to Harma in {{H:title|1385 AD|20565}}. The islanders, who have objected to the transfer for centuries, began a movement in the early {{H:title|1980s AD|21160s}} to root for the Metropolitans (the dominant Valēkan team at the time) in order to show their opposition to the Harman mainland (populated mainly by Bérasar Blues fans), honour the island's historic ties to Kiygrava, and express the desire among a large minority of islanders for Åstor to be returned to Kiygrava (rather than become a state in its own right or simply gain more autonomy from Harma). In recognition of this, the Emerald Civic Alliance has called for "self-determination for the island of Åstor within the Kiravian Federacy" towards the bottom of its official manifesto since {{H:title|1992 AD|21172}}, and has maintained party-to-party relations with the autonomist/secessionist Åstor People's Party since {{H:title|1997 AD|21177}}, over the vociferous objections of the Harma state government. Ꝡioỽur Ꝃaꝛaꝟon, an Åstor native who became a dockworker and later a labour leader in Valēka, represented the ECA in the Sardēmur Canton Council during the 21190s and currently serves as the Canton President.

{{H:title|2006 AD|21186}}, Kiygrava Governor Adhran Kilikas, a native of [[Caridosar]] and Evira Cougars fan who had been elected with strong support from the parts of the state outside the Valēka metropolitan area, announced that definitively ending the Valēka sporting rivalry would be a priority for his administration. After his appeals to the ownership of both teams and to the FFL to move one franchise or another out of the city were rebuffed, Kilikas resorted to political pressure, auditing both teams' finances and subjecting them to intense regulatory scrutiny, racking up millions of saars in fines. Kilikas' actions were poorly received in Valēka and its environs, and was (unexpectedly) somewhat successful in causing Blues and Greens to unite in their opposition to Kilikas, with supporters of both teams organising protests during the Governor's visits to the city and pelting him with expired produce. The effort came to an abrupt end after the ''Daily Bants'', a Valēka-based tabloid known for having a loose relationship with the truth, obtained a photograph of Kilikas wearing a blue scarf at a Emperors home game in {{H:title|2001 AD|21181}} with Strobilus Palūstrin, a state political strategist who had consulted for Kilikas' failed first gubernatorial campaign but mostly worked for ACU candidates in Valēka. The ''Daily Bants'' ran the photograph on its cover the day that Kilikas was scheduled to give a speech supporting Wintergen irredentism outside Wintergen House on Tandhurin Island, accompanied by a headline suggesting that the Governor's true intention was to force the Metropolitans out out of the city. Xrysippus Kálvēler, a street vendor and devoted Metropolitans fan from Canova who was selling grilled sausages from his cart on the north end of Tandhurin that day, saw the tabloid while purchasing cigarettes from a nearby convenience shop, retrieved a pistol he kept in his cart for protection, and then proceeded halfway across the island to Wintergen House where he shot the Governor in the face.