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FOOTBALL FANS UNITE AND STAND UP FOR FOOTBALL! 15-5-07
Peter Holmes
Inspiration for this rantacious missive comes from many varied sources as you the regular reader can attest. Though on most occasions 'writers block' can be lubricated into submission and transmitted into inspiration with that amber elixir of all ills - just follow the trail of small green bottles to the PC.
Recently though, an e-mail got me ruminating and pontificating. It was from a bloke I have a lot of respect for and whose opinion I value. Basically he was opining about his first season for many living back in Blighty, specifically, his arse polishing experiences on the red seats while supporting Boro.
Amongst other things, he mentioned in passing about how after coveting the experience in his mind's eye for so long, how he felt a bit dispassionate, almost cold, about his regular visits to the Riverside, how our club had come a very long way and yet you wouldn't think so.
Reading between the lines, he felt something was missing; a disconnection of sorts causing a lack of passion. Maybe it was heightened expectation caused by 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' syndrome. One thing is for sure - you cannot question his love or loyalty to Middlesbrough FC or to the various pie manufacturers of the North East.
So what causes this feeling of, 'this ain't all it's cracked up to be?'
I get to meet a lot of people from all over this globe, such is the melting pot of OZ, and they often express feelings that the great game isn't changing for the better.
I socialize with friends from all over the UK with guys who support Boro, Rangers, Celtic, Aberdeen, West Ham, Spurs, Fulham, Newcastle (phlegm clearance sound from throat), Chelski, Fulham, Man Utd., Liverpool, and err Grimsby Codheads. Quite a few give the same opinion about that feeling that something's missing appears to be firmly entrenched in a lot of supporters the world over.
Is Football, the industry, slowly dis-enfranchising itself from the very people who have ensured its iconic status in the minds of it's true believers, the backbone brethren who make up the diehard core of rank and file fans, abandoning them to sell it's soul to business no matter what colour, as long as it's filthy lucre green?
There's more to come because this supposed sport has had it's head so far up its own superannuated backside that money and the biggest bidder win every time, over-riding the thoughts and feelings of real fans.
Look at the financial self-proliferation of the Champions League, which in title is the biggest bloody misnomer ever as it's full of the teams who quite simply are not Champions, having finished second, third, and fourth in the big money leagues of Europe.
Dodgy buggers from all over the world are circling British clubs with alarming regularity and all sorts of shite goes down left right and centre in the corridors of power when they get the club into their money greedy mitts. Witness the Tevez/ Mascherano deal. Ask yourself as an example of corporate football; was that the iceberg or the tip?
I think we all know the answer to that!
The sport has got to take a very hard look at itself and decide who it wants to please; the sharemarket sharks or the fans.
Thankfully the backbone of the game has decided to flex. Over recent seasons there has been a concerted collective effort by real fans of Premiership clubs to shame their multi-million income earning teams to return a dividend to the people who really make a club what it is, the supporters, in the form of reasonable gate prices, season ticket annual subscriptions and the cost of merchandise.
When I hear about tales of games costing up to ninety squid in certain sections of some rarefied stadia I am left flabbergasted, as I frankly would want my knob massaged for the whole game and a free pint of Bovril for that price!
Ninety bloody pounds. That equates to approximately $235 Aussie pfennigs. For that money I could pay my Fox TV subscription for nearly five months and look what that buys me; live football, an immense knowledge of gardening makeovers, how to DIY, and Nigella's knockers on demand.
I'd rather be a stadium fan than an armchair fan any day, BUT, the prohibitive cost of firing up the red 'n' white liveried Lear jet of AirErimus every game is a little bit prohibitive, plus there's no hostie and I have to help mesell to the Dom Perignon and the jet lag plays havoc with my sperm production too!
The demographic of the average fan has changed totally in the last thirty odd years from the folk who used to populate the concrete cancer riddled terraces of Thatcherite Britain. In the seventies the game had a harder edge, some would say more sinister, and football grounds were very unwelcoming venues and in some places bloody dangerous, as in "do you like death" dangerous!
As a seventies away fan you didn't attend a fixture at Millwall's rightly notorious Den as step foot into a war zone. You would make it back to Teesside with battle scars and tales of ambush with pungent dark brown stains embossed on the back of your skiddies.
Memories of blue and white clad gorillas dropping from the heavens attempting to frighten the shit out of you ensured slumbertime nightmares for months after. Never mind the half-time music of English O-level failing Chas 'n' Dave crackling out such ditties as; Gertcha, One Fing an' Anuvver, and Sling Yer 'Ook (Pity you didn't take your own advice on that one Lads!). It was enough to make you leave for home before half-time whence you went for a rubber pie, piss-weak tepid Bovril and a face full of fists from some badly tattooed knuckle-dragging throwback from Lewisham.
Like a day out in Iraq? Save your money - visit Millwall instead!
Juxtapose that vision against the post Taylor report touchy feely 'money that's what I want' Premier League, with it's all seater spaceships clothed in pods of corporate boxes and prawn cocktail with the chilled vintage Moet. Gate prices so stratospheric that it's a toss-up decision on attending a game. It's either take the family to the relegation battle next week or have a fortnight in Ibiza with free breakfast.
I like to stand, there I am out, heart on sleeve, and in my humble opinion it's the only way to watch and soak up the ambience and atmosphere of a game. Sitting down is an alien feeling and let's be honest - after ten minutes on one of those hard plastic refugee chairs from the local Laundromat your arse begins to go numb and tingly like it's having an arse attack. Worse still it gets embarrassingly itchy and that's not a good look hawking at yer nethers under your denim and rummaging with the rubber chicken and date.
Standing is the only way to fill a ground to capacity regularly as you can charge less and its how the sport was designed to be watched. I mean look at the grass-roots of the game, for instance when you attend one of your tackers school footer matches, do you drag the armchair along in the back of the Mondeo and plonk it on the half-way line?
No! You stand with all the other "GowonmySon!" parents proudly posturing up and down the side-line, while tripping up the over-weight unfit poor bugger who is running the line.
Give the game it's soul back and let the people stand in low priced areas and let bairns under the age of ten in for free. It will return the passion and the fun as long as those fluoro clad buffoon stewards stay well away.
Don't give me that unsafe crap. We can send a gadgee to the moon, we can build a Channel Tunnel, we can genetically modify beasts and Mackems, yet we cannot engineer a safely segregated standing area.
Bollocks!
It's not the only answer but it's a start.
Stand up for your rights and the game!
Enough said,
ErimusRed.
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