Real fans?
- Posted on January 28, 2007 11:10 PM
- 0 comments
By Matt Kileen
It's 4.47pm on a Saturday. It's full-time and we have just put three past our nearest rivals. We sit astride the division of delusional name like a colossus, or at least a medium sized colossus in a world with larger colossae off in the distance. I get a text from my brother who has been to the game. It reads: "Oh that was good. I think I remember what I saw in all this."
Now under no circumstances can my brother be described as a fair weather fan. He sat through every home game of our dire, spiritless and treacherous relegation season the previous term, often alone as he did today because poverty denies me the petrol money for the 300 mile round trip on an increasing number of Saturdays. The other 20,000 season ticket holders did likewise and come the end of the season, they protested in the only way they could - they did not renew their tickets. These are not bad fans or pretend fans. They did what they did because what their club had done to them, in the hands of the players representing them, was so dreadful, so horrendous, that the pain was just too much.
The leagues are strewn with other examples, like Sunderland, who struggle to fill their stadia because what they're watching is just too terrible and too expensive to witness, especially compared to the recent past. The best fans in the gameâ„¢ usually need to renew their season tickets to get a seat at all, and didn't have the same following in less successful years - yes, Newcastle United, I'm looking at you.
The empty seats of the last few seasons, particularly during cup matches are not because of failures in the various competitions involved. The idea that the Carling Cup has lost its importance and is in its death throes is a creation of the media, mostly Mark Lawrenson, to describe other factors impacting the game.
To pretend that we're 'concentrating on the league' is just self delusional - it's what fans tell themselves to cope with the misery. I hate losing games, any games, especially cup games, mostly because of the finality. I don't go to all of them (although I have in the past) because the tickets are too expensive, the distance too far and the horror of listless defeat too profound and all consuming.
Fans have differing responses to this existential misery. Following a team, any team, involves it, and it's usually down to recent form. You might be a Champions League contender or struggling to stay in the league - losing games hurts and badly. You might boo the team off, ring 606 and be left on hold for an hour but eventually, if the performances hurt you enough, you can't take it any more. The degree is just relative, like league position. For 85 league teams the idea of winning the whole shebang is ridiculous. A spammy league cup almost certainly represents the pinnacle of historical achievement for about 54% of match going fans. You just pretend it doesn't matter.
The lords of the game in their ivory towers have seized upon this simple coping mechanism and manufactured an excuse to throw matches. It also has the effect of obscuring deeper issues within the game - ticket prices, alienation from players and the ever diminishing chances of winning anything ever, unless you support a team owned by the self same lords of the game. The players, usually overpaid, mercenary and detached from notions of loyalty and passion, are given a reason to phone in their performance, if they're called upon to play at all.
The fans, always ready to make their complicated footballing lives better, happily play along, fulfilling this most self-fulfilling of all prophecies. They tap pockets containing £25 that can now pay for a warm and dry evening out and sigh at the empty stands which witnessed a drubbing at the hands of Arsenal reserves.
At no time are they 'not real fans'. It works because they are.
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