If a crowd makes no noise in the stadium, is it really there?

The case for matchgoing regulars, and why a little more kindness may not go amiss. *This post also contains house music.

If you don’t buy the tickets, there are plenty more willing to take your place. That’s what fans are told whenever talk of boycotting matches because we’ve had enough comes up. We’re told it explicitly by cynical fans, and implicitly by complacent clubs and administrators. Resistance is futile, and all that.

They’re not wrong. But, also, they don’t get it. And the stirrings of a revolt against the way match day fans are treated are beginning to underline that.

At the Community Shield last weekend, the players of Manchester City were surprised at how quiet the end containing their support at Wembley was. According to sources, it was the talk of the flight back home. Where was the passion of the support they had come to expect?

The answer comes in the makeup of the crowd. Many of the club’s most passionate supporters boycotted the game in protest at the kick-off time (dictated by our old friends at the TV channels) and the cost of travel. But the tickets were still snapped up. City’s end was full. But not of the fans who create the atmosphere the ‘product’ values, and that the players feed off.

The story of this year’s charity shield, the boycott, City’s disingenuous dealings with its fans and the double standards applied is told in this excellent post on the Football Supporters’ Association’s website, written by City’s 1894 atmosphere group.

I’d also recommend an excellent piece by City fan Nick Clarke, who I had an enjoyable pint with at the FSA’s AGM this summer, which makes some great points about how fans can take a stand and reconnect with the values that built our game. Clarke says: “The cost of my seat at City has doubled in the last 15 years, it’s not hard to guess whether average wages in Manchester have done the same, and we’re not the only club extorting fans for the price of their loyalty.

“This environment English football has created, where the very supporters who make it the eye-wateringly valuable product it is, seem to be treated at best with utter indifference and at worst like club’s biggest enemies to further profit.”

Across the Premier League, as I pointed out in the last edition of this newsletter, supporters of some of the country’s most successful clubs are kicking back at the way their loyalty is being exploited. Not only are prices going up, but concessions are being eroded, food and drink prices are rising, travel costs are being pushed up by increasingly antisocial kick-off times designed to suit global TV audiences.

Matchgoing fans are becoming increasingly disillusioned, and increasingly willing to take action. It’s important at this point to be clear that I’m not arguing that any one category of fan is a better supporter than another, or that one fan is more deserving than another of a ticket. I find the use of the terms ‘tourists’ or ‘day-trippers’ to dismiss some supporters as patronising and unhelpful. Everyone should be welcome in our house, but there needs to be recognition of the role that those fans contemptuously dismissed as “legacy fans” by some of the self-styled leading lights in football play.

As The Athletic’s Kieran Devlin wrote, legacy fans are “two words that sum up the cash over culture view of owners”. And yet is is those fans who create the noise and spectacle that provides such compelling content for the media companies that they are prepared to pay billions to get a piece of it. Those fans who give the players the support and the lift that they need to get over the line. Those fans who fuel the passion that makes football a business like no other.

And yet, as Nick Clarke says, those supporters are viewed as a pain in the backside all too often. Because they attend many games, they refuse to see individual games as exclusive premium events like theatre performances. Because they give up a lot of time and money to follow their team, they expect benefits and discounts. God God, some even expect some recognition and respect!

It is possible to acknowledge that the hard-core loyalists who create the atmosphere, who fuel the passion and dedication, should be afforded better treatment without getting into some kind of ratings contest about how good a supporter you are. It’s time we turned our attention to those who run and fund the game and ask when the balance between give and take is going to be rectified.

Regular, matchgoing fans will almost be a minority of the global audience. But their absence, as the Community Shield showed, speaks volumes.

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Passion is a word that has been used a lot in this edition. So I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about another side to that emotion as we begin another season.

Like most regular matchgoers, I can think back to a number of times when I’ve ripped into a player during a game, calling them a useless so-and-so and worse. And I’ve been swept along in the kind of barracking that crowds regularly visit upon the heads of players seen not to be delivering. (Not, I hasten to add, anything that targets a player because of who they are). But recent events, and probably advancing years too, have made me think afresh.

As fans, we see players as symbols, ciphers, representatives, heroes or villains – but too often not as people. But because of the courage of an increasing number of players, most recently Dele Alli and Aaron Ramsdale (I’ve put Spurs and Arsenal together deliberately), we’re being encouraged to think, well, to think more of them as people, and so to behave more as people.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating turning football arenas into therapy sessions. But I am saying that we could all benefit from remembering that the players we are watching are people who may be having their own problems, problems that are far bigger than missing a tackle or sending a penalty over the bar.

It all comes down to having a sense of perspective. OK, players at the top level earn a lot of money and have many privileges. But does that mean anything goes? It certainly shouldn’t do, as another welcome initiative to counter tragedy chanting and improve behaviour on the pitch underlines. In the heat of the moment, it can be difficult to be measured when being critical, and I’m certainly not going to say I’ll never be too harsh on someone again. But I am going to try to remember that players are fallible people too.

Things are changing. Lauren James was guilty of gross stupidity when treading on an opponent and getting sent off in the Women’s World Cup game against Nigeria. Some tried to make comparisons with David Beckham’s petulant kick that led to a red card against Argentina in 1998, but the reaction has been nowhere near as extreme. That may be down to England coach Sarina Weigman’s expert handling of questions about the incident after the game, itself a demonstration of the greater emotional intelligence women display. And emotional intelligence is really what we are talking about here.

I certainly think that plays a part, but I’d also like to believe all of us – including me – are able to be a little kinder while still displaying the passion we all love in the coming weeks and months.

Photo by Victoria Prymak on Unsplash