If you take a non-soccer fan to a professional soccer match, it won't be long before he or she asks, "What's with all the scarves?"
Whether it's 35 degrees or 105 degrees outside, soccer fans all over the world show up for matches draped in the most neck-warming accessory of all. The history of scarves at soccer matches is long, and there's no reason that they should be viewed differently than any other piece of team-focused apparel.
The scarf got its start as the must-have soccer accessory in pre-World War II England. This was an age in which sports fans everywhere dressed more as if they were going to church than to watch a game. Dark coats and hats were the norm for the men, who were most of the fans who went to soccer games.
Options for donning a team color were slim. Plus, as a wintertime sport, those Englishmen had a good reason to stay warm. The scarf, knitted by someone's kindly grandmother, was the natural solution. With alternating bars of color, in the days before ubiquitous team-licensed merchandise, the scarf was practically the only way to indicate your support of one side or the other.
Fans found other uses, too. A group of fans, holding them up at the same moment, created a wall of color, similar to old-fashioned card-display sections at college football stadiums. Twirling them around one's head was a natural celebratory expression. And there certainly were more than a few scarves that were used to hide the wearer's face, in that age of hooligan behavior at soccer matches.
As textile manufacturers got in on the act, and clubs began to realize they could sell their own scarves at their own club shops, officially licensed scarves spread throughout the rest of Europe. For American soccer fans, the scarf — like the sport itself — felt like something different from what they'd seen from traditional American sports. Scarves became a part of soccer culture here, like singing and standing throughout the whole match.
It's tempting to make fun of soccer fans for their consistent loyalty to an article of clothing that carries a distinct whiff of pretentious Euro-snobbery. But when you think about it, it's hard to see how scarves differ from any other article of clothing that shows team support. Plenty of Twins fans who wouldn't dream of departing for Target Field without donning a baseball cap, no matter whether the sun is out. People who would not bat an eye at a grown man wearing a tank top-style basketball jersey to a Timberwolves game — the most nonsensical sartorial choice of all — have no good reasons to make fun of soccer fans' choice of neckwear.
The scarf doesn't actually mean anything. It's like any other team-supporting piece of clothing. It's just one of those things that makes soccer feel like soccer.
