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I'll assume that we're talking here about gentle ways of annoying rival fans that aren't going to cause genuine offence and/or violence! I live in the UK so, here, we wind up friends over our version of football (what Americans would call soccer). However, the wind up techniques are basically the same no matter what code of football we're talking about.

1. Put a curse on their new stadium.

Southampton F.C. had plans to build a brand new state of the art stadium. Some of the builders that they hired, however, were fans of their deadly rivals, Portsmouth. The Portsmouth builders apparently placed Portsmouth scarves and shirts, etc, in the foundation of the ground. When Southampton started badly at their new stadium, it was claimed that these Portsmouth artifacts had placed a curse on the stadium!

2. Buy a replica shirt and get it emblazoned with the new of titles that your team has won versus the number that your rival team has won. A good example in the UK would be Liverpool and Manchester United. Liverpool have won 5 European cups versus United's two. A Liverpool T-shirt stating Liverpool 5 Man Utd 2 would irate United fans considerably. Of course, this strategy will only work if your team has been more successful than your rivals.

3. Text or e-mail friends who support rival teams when your team's doing well and their team's not.
An obvious one but works well. If you're e-mailing them, why not cut and paste a copy of the league table showing your team sitting proudly at the top whilst theirs flounders hopelessly at the bottom.

4. Plaster photos and videos of your team's successes on your blog/website.
If you have a website, why not include video clips of your team scoring a famous touch down or goal against your big rivals. And include photos of your team celebrating or, even better, their team's players crying!

5. Engage in friendly banter of Internet message boards.
Winding rival fans up about their team performance, style of play, or any misfortunes they may have suffered can be amusing. Just be prepared to receive some stick back as they are sure to have ammunition against your team too.

I think it's important to keep things in perspective. Ribbing your old college friend over how inept his team are is usually fine. Ribbing your six year old nephew is perhaps not! Make sure you have a reasonable idea of how your audience is likely to react and how much of a sense of humour they have. I've seen lots of wind ups in pubs which can very quickly go from friendly banter to quite hostile.

Learn more about this author, Simon Wright.
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