What did you do on
August 11th?
So, this is the way
seasons start these days.
Saturday morning I treated myself to a lie in. I
lounged around in bed, then got up, pulled my Burnley shirt on, drunk some coffee, had
breakfast-cum-lunch and read the paper a bit. Watched a Hitchcock film on BBC2.
All very nice, but all very… Sunday.
At 2.20 I cracked and switched Radio 5 on. That
was when it hit me. For almost all Nationwide League clubs - professional football's
majority - the season started today, on August 11. Most supporters got an opening day of
the season. They got the chance to dream their dreams, to feel hope or fear for the new
season, and perhaps to allow optimism to flower. Tonight, some of them will be ruing those
dreams, while others will be thinking that, yes, this might be their year. And that's what
the game's about, if it's about anything: hopes, dreams, fears.
Well, not for us. We didn't have any of that
today. Not for us even the prospect of scoring the season's first goal or seeing the first
sending off. Today, we passed the time. Tomorrow, we can only look forward to setting off
for Sheffield at a weird time, followed by getting home unacceptably close to a Monday
morning back at work. And, to endorse the sentiments of Bob
Lord's Sausage, it stinks. Our opening game has been moved, but more than this, our
participation in the opening day ritual has been cancelled.
Ritual is important to football. A lot of us go
because, well, we always have, haven't we? Going to football is something we do, a habit.
An important factor in encouraging that habit has been predictability: football took place
on three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. Given this, going to football became a matter of
routine. In moving matches around to be played at all times on all days, this ritual is
challenged. Rather than going to the match as a matter of course, your attendance becomes
something to be considered. Do you want to get home late? Do you want to take an afternoon
off work? Can you get home the same day, come to that? Football supporters are asked to
make a conscious decision on whether they want to go to a match - and a match that they
could, perhaps, watch on tv. I would offer the recent example of the FA Cup, which has now
been so comprehensively messed about with that it no longer seems to matter as it once
did. Having lost its tradition, having ceased to be part of the season's ritual, it has
lost its importance - and people have stayed away. It may sound far fetched to suggest
that this could happen in the league, and I am sure that many of us will claim that moved
matches will not challenge our staunch attendance - but ask yourself, why haven't we sold
that many tickets for Sheffield Wednesday away?
If reports are true, there won't be that many of
us in Sheffield tomorrow. Compare this to last season, when at three o'clock on a Saturday
we filled the away end, or indeed, the opening game of last season, when we turned up in
our numbers away at Bolton. Why will there be fewer people at Sheffield Wednesday this
season than the season before? Because some people have asked themselves the above
questions, and have decided to stay at home. The habit of going to games has been
weakened; the ritual has been eroded; the bonds have been made looser.
The justification for all this is, of course,
money. We're told that tv companies have invested millions into the game, and for this,
our inconvenience is a small price to pay. Hmm. It seems that the people who go to games,
as opposed to those who watch on tv, are a class of customer that can safely be ignored.
But aside from this, I'm not convinced that more money helps anyone. Does injecting more
cash into the game's economy actually do any good?
Every year football seems to need more money to
sustain itself than the year before. Fortunately, in this bubble economy, so far there has
always been some company to provide more cash, albeit usually not without attached strings
that risk damaging the integrity of the competition. But common sense says that nothing
will boom forever. Not many clubs are making money even now. Most clubs pay a huge and
unsustainable percentage of their turnover on player wages. This always provides the
justification for the next deal, for the next injection of money. But more money tends to
mean higher transfer fees and higher player wages. More money means greater outlays, which
in turn means the need for yet more money. It's an inflationary cycle. Sense could
intervene, but this is a sport, which mean clubs will try to outdo those they compete
against. There will always be one prepared to go that little bit further, pay that little
bit more, in the hope of finishing higher. The bar is only ever raised. Wages only ever go
up. Does anyone expect this new chunk of tv money to be put to any other use? Clubs will
blow it like they've blown money before, and then will look for more money to feed the
cycle. Bigger deals mean yet more compromises, and more power ceded to those that call the
tune. We won't have got anywhere.
I concede that there is little supporters can do
to change this. We can protest and complain, but we are unlikely to influence those who
made decisions without any thought for us in the first place. That said, we should bear in
mind what happened in Germany, where supporters put pressure on the football authorities
(rather than the tv companies) to reverse many of the changes.
As it happens, I think 6.15 football will prove
to be an unsuccessful experiment, as was seen in Scotland. Fewer people will go to the
games. Not many people will watch. This does not make it an attractive proposition for
would be subscribers or advertisers. I pin my hopes on 6.15 football being a damp squib,
and being quietly abandoned. Late at night before the start of our season, that gives me
some cause for optimism. It's just a shame we'll have to suffer while the experiment
fails.
Ah well, here's hoping you enjoyed whatever you
did on August 11, and wishing Burnley and the supporters a good season - when it,
eventually, starts.
Firmo
11 August 2001
As with all articles on the site, the
views expressed in the comments section are those of the individual contributor, and do
not necessarily reflect the view of the Burnley FC London Supporters Club.
