Fanaticism That Spans the Globe : Football: Dean Preston is a rare bloke. He inexplicably falls in love with the Chargers and intensively follows them from his home in Great Britain.

He had a choice. He wasn’t born here, didn’t move here, never lived here.

So he could have adopted the 49ers, or sworn allegiance to the Giants or the Broncos. And if didn’t work out, he could have changed his mind and gone with the Raiders or the Dolphins.

But, no, meet Dean Preston--by choice, he’s an honest-to-goodness Charger fan.

By choice, this bloke comes here all the way from Jersey in the Channel Islands, which is near France and a long way from San Diego, to cheer for the Chargers. By using his own money.

“It’s my favorite team; I live and breathe them, actually,” Preston explained. “It started with a picture of Joe Montana; I saw him being tackled, I think by Lee Williams.”

That has the makings of a rare moment in sports history rather than the birth of a Charger fan.

“I can’t explain it; I think they’re great,” he said. “Everybody else supports like your Bears, your Rams and your 49ers back home. I didn’t want to join the mob.”

So Preston stands alone. Blimey, is he alone.

“I went to Acapulco with my fiancee last year on vacation, and left her for a few days to go to a Charger game,” he said. “I think that’s what finished the relationship.

“I had bought her a Charger T-shirt to ease the pain when I got back, but that was it. That was the end of the relationship.

“By the time I got back to Acapulco, the whole hotel had heard about me leaving her behind, and no one talked to me. Even the bar staff, they couldn’t speak English, but they knew who I was.”

While Preston and his fiancee had been together for four years, it’s difficult to say which upset him more: her loss or the Chargers’ one-point tumble to the Seahawks that week.

“I’ll never change my opinion; I think the Chargers are super,” he said.

Preston, 29, a loan clerk in a Jersey bank, arranged his two-week “holiday” this year around the Chargers’ back-to-back home games with the Raiders and Buccaneers. This week he spent more than $400 on Charger souvenirs.

“They charge me a fortune for the souvenirs when I go through customs,” he said. “Last time I came here I bought so much and had so much given to me, I didn’t tell them, and I got stopped and fined $200. It was still worth it.”

Preston spent Wednesday hanging around San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, “because it was fun,” but failed to win permission to watch the Chargers at practice.

“When I go back home I’ll tell all me friends I saw practice,” he said. “How are they going to know any different?”

The Chargers, while providing him with game tickets, also allowed him to stay on the sideline before last week’s game with the Raiders to take photographs of his favorite players.

“I take the pictures and then I get them signed and hang them in my flat,” he said. “When my fiancee left she took all her paintings, so that left a lot of room on my walls.”

Back in Jersey, Preston has to stay up until midnight to find out how the Chargers have fared. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep, if I didn’t,” he said. “Once I do, unfortunately then my Mondays are usually pretty gloomy.”

He will telephone the Chargers’ public relations department once or twice a month for more details, and at a pound a minute, he bills the calls, he said, “to me dad.”

He will attend today’s game against Tampa Bay before returning home to begin planning next year’s holiday.

“I’ve been here three times to watch the Chargers and haven’t seen them win yet,” he said. “(Today) they will. I can feel it. I just think we got to get points, don’t we?”

They bloody well better.