Should football fans keep it in the family?

Football writer Lee Coan recently sparked a debate by asking whether it was fair for parents to inflict allegiances to their less glamorous football teams onto their offspring, or whether they should be allowed to choose for themselves.

Ben Lammas, aged 34, from Stourbridge, freely admits that he started supporting Everton around 1987 simply because they were a popular and successful team around that time.

"It was the year they won the league, and the year after they had played Liverpool in the FA Cup Final in 1986.

"I wanted to enjoy a bit of glory, but I didn't want over-the-top glory, I chose Everton over Liverpool because I wanted to support the underdog."

However, he did begin to question his choice when he went to see them for the first time, against Aston Villa in 1989. "I went to watch them at Villa Park, and we had to sit with the home fans," he says.

"Villa beat us 6-2, and I did start to wonder whether I would have been better off supporting one of our local teams."

He says part of the reason why he chose to support Everton was down to the fact that he had no clear footballing tradition in his family.

"My dad wasn't really into football. Had he passed it down I would probably have supported Birmingham City because that was my grandad's team. My uncle is a football fan and lives in Portsmouth, in fact the first game I ever went to see was actually Portsmouth and Southampton."

And has he passed his allegiance on to his daughter Chloe, aged three? "She's an Albion fan, following her mum and her family."

Wolverhampton fan Ben Smallman, 34, from Bradmore was given his love for the Molineux men in the late 1980s when he says his dad noticed he was showing signs of an affection for the great Liverpool side of that era.

He said: "My dad took it upon himself to do two things: Firstly he brought me a fourth division, Staw Distribution shirt from Ron Flowers and then took me to my first Wolves game on September 3 1988 the following season against Reading

"Ever since, I've barely looked back, watching hundreds of games from that very year, right up to the present day.

"When I became a father 20 years later, I thought twice about taking my son Arthur to Molineux, such has been the frequent levels of depression I've suffered while watching them.

"However, when push came to shove, I decided that if I had to suffer it, Arthur would too!

"The notion of him wearing the red of Manchester United – or Liverpool for that matter as I once wished – filled me with dread, such is the tribal allegiance associated with a club that my great grandfather once watched.

"In many ways, Wolves has been something of a character building exercise over the years and their regular disappointments have kept me grounded, while appreciating the good times even more when they eventually arrived.

"With that in mind, Arthur was never going to support anyone else. I made sure of that. In addition, living in Wolverhampton means that his local team is the Wolves, which both the club and he can benefit from."

Wolves supporter Luke Thompson, 27, remembers his Albion-fan father Keith taking him to his first ever football match.

"I think it was Albion against Exeter, but it didn't make much impression on me at all.

"I lived in Wolverhampton, and it just made sense that Wolves would be my team. My dad then took me to a Villa game, probably hoping it would be anybody but Wolves, but that didn't work either.

"It was my uncle who took me to my first game at Molineux. He was a Villa fan, so it was pretty good of him."

Chris Allen has been a Shrewsbury Town supporter ever since he spotted the floodlights on at the old Gay Meadow more than 20 years ago.

He badgered his dad Ray into taking him to see what the lights were for and he watched the last ten minutes of a Town game through open gates. It was the last game of the season.

"And that was it," says Chris, who lives in Shrewsbury. "I was hooked. The following season, 78/79, dad took me along and it was a great season. I loved it." He added: "My dad used to go to the games in the fifties and he hadn't been for years and years. But because I wanted to go, he had someone to go with. It was something we could do together."

Stuart Burrows, from Oswestry, has been supporting Shrewsbury Town Football Club for more than 60 years. He went to his first match when he was seven or eight-years-old and was happy to pass on his love of football to his two sons. He took youngest son David to Shrewsbury Town to watch Kevin Keegan when Town took on and beat Newcastle United in 1982.

David, 40, has been a blue and amber supporter ever since. Eldest son Paul is a Liverpool fan. "We do give him a bit of stick but unfortunately they win more than us!" he says.

The trend of following your family's football tradition does appear to be on the wane in recent years. A survey around 10 years ago revealed that more schoolchildren in Birmingham identified themselves as being Manchester United fans than any of the West Midland clubs.

Ben Lammas says the increase in televised football during the 1980s probably influenced his choice, saying that these days it is not simply a case of following a local team because that is the only way to see them.

If that is the case, it probably spells bad news for most of the clubs in the West Midlands, who look unlikely to be vying with Manchester United, City or Chelsea any time soon.

But there is hope. Wolves fan Luke Thompson says his son Theo, four, is already being brought up in the Wolves tradition, and Luke does think it is generally a good thing to follow their parents' allegiances.

"It's about those father-son relationships, and I hope one day when I am in a nursing home, we will be able to talk about the shared memories."

Should football fans keep it in the family? Have your say in the comments below: