S
St.Benitez
Guest
Fandom and Terrace Culture
Do we all look back on the football of yesteryear with rose tinted spectacles, when it's nostalgia more than anything else that keeps us pining for the past? Was everything really so much better in the pre-Premiership era; or do we just resist change in the same way your grandparents refuse to accept "it's not like in our day" or "they don't make them like they used to" when discussing anything from clothing to footballers.
Those of us that do hark back to days gone by can be accused of not being able to see the wood for the trees. We now have a Permiership that plays hosts to 4 of the best 5 sides in Europe, with the best players on the planet now plying their trade in our league. Whereas the top dogs of the 80's saw Italian football as the pinnacle; with the creme of the time nearly all seeking a transfer to the land of the lira, the top brass of today's game all head for these shores in search of financial happiness. The money our league now generates has drawn them here; resulting in the best players in the world playing for the best teams in the world right in front of our very eyes. Was it really so much better back then?
For me, it's not just about the quality of the football on display, nor the sightlines and size of the seat I'm now provided in today's ultra-modern stadia. Those developments are a god send for the spectator; but for the supporter they are a hinderance. The move away from supporting to spectating is the one change in the game I resent the most. Several decades of cleansing by the authorities in a move to stamp out hooliganism and tribal fandom have achieved sanitisation of the game and shut out the next generation of supporters. The moves that have taken place within our game have rendered fandom an endangered species.
Post-Heysel and Hillsborough, it was obvious changes needed to be made to our game. Football was being played in crumbling stadiums and all fans treated like animals. Thatcher and her army set out to change the face of English football; an evolution still gathering pace today despite having carried out all the essential works. This is where it's all going wrong.
As a child going to the game in the late 80's and early 90's, I would be taken on The Kop by my dad. We would arrive a few hours before kick off, queue up and pay into the ground for a relatively affordable amount. My dad was earning a modest wage but could still afford to take me to the game with him each week. I never felt threatened or frightened despite standing within a mass of around 16,000 people. I used to sit on the crush barriers along with many other kids and served my time growing up on The Kop.
Liverpool Football Club meant everything to me, and each week I'd go and mix with the very people that make the club what it is. The fans.
Our support had it's own identity and character. Anfield had 4 stands all different to each other. We sang songs no other team did and always tried to be different. Plenty of other clubs did the same and nearly all held some sort of character and uniqueness about them. Every ground in the country was different and the support within those grounds was reflective of the area and the people of that region. Individuality and tribal pride; which doesn't automatically mean hooliganism.
Fast forward to the here and now, and it saddens me to see these new build grounds popping up all over the country. It's as if the same company designs the lot; merely changing the colour of the seats and installing the same identikit stadiums up and down the country. These grounds have no character and nothing that sets them apart from the rest.
The fans now filling these grounds are also reflective of their designs. Identikit fans only wearing different colour shirts. Singing the same songs as every other side, just replacing the name of the club they support. They dress the same, they act the same and they have fallen for the great whitewash of falling in line; doing exactly as the authorities want them to. The clubs play loud music over the PA for them to dance and sing along to and they lap it up. The same happens in countless grounds in all divisions, and takes away the opportunity for each group of fans to impose their own characters and cultures on the club.
Add those changes to the difficulty kids have in affording tickets to watch their clubs these days. The next generation are not growing up as regular match goers that pick up and carry the cultures of their forefathers. The next generation do not have the opportunity to become engrained in a football culture specific to their own club and maintain those terrace trends. They have been forced out of our grounds and have become Sky supporters. Their football supporting cultures are now taken from programmes such as Soccer AM and other Sky Sports productions. The same message and culture beamed out to football fans nationwide. Is it any wonder the identikit craze is rife?
It frightens me to think of football in 20-30 years time, when those supporters that do still carry the flame for their clubs cultures and traditions begin to hang up their match going boots. Individuality will be lost forever; with each and every ground populated by identikit fans. Football will be dead.
The game will continue, probably generating more money than ever before, but the passion and the terrace culture that I fell in love with is in danger of disappearing forever. I didn't just fall in love with the green grass, the pace and trickery of John Barnes and clinical finishing of Ian Rush. I didn't just fall in love with the Liverbird and the red shirt, or merely choose to support Liverpool as they were the best side around. I had no choice. I was taken to the game from an early age by my dad, just like he had been by his dad, and he by his dad before. I was brought up engrained in that culture and fell in love with the The Kop just as much as I fell in love with the club. I looked forward to going to the game for the atmosphere and the people as much as looked forward to the actual football.
It saddens me that my young lad might never experience that. I'll try my best; but deep down I know that it's gone forever. I can't wait to see his face when he first enters Anfield and his eyes catch hold of the greenest grass he'll ever see. I can't wait to see his smile as he stands for You'll Never Walk Alone for the very first time. But I'll be saddened when I look around the stand and realise that he'll never experience what I did, and he'll never fully understand why I fell so in love with this club and the game.
So while successfully stamping out large scale hooliganism and bringing the best players to these shores, the changes made over the past two decades have all but killed the future of fandom and terrace culture.
The authorites have used the events of Hillsborough; not just to make football a safer place for us all, but to price out and exlude the very people that made the game what it is. We all know change was needed, and the death trap stadiums of yesterday had to be replaced; but look to Germany where they now watch their football in the most modern and safe stadiums in world football. They have the highest attendance figures for any league in Europe. The tickets are affordable and accessable to all, and as a result their safe standing areas are populated by the young and old, male and female, and allowing the next generation to bloom and carry the flag for their club's future.
The atmospheres generated in those stadiums are the best in Europe. Fandom and terrace culture across Germany is at an all time high, while all the time our own is in rapid decline.
I'd swap the footballing super power this country has now become in an instant, if we could replicate what Germany have done with their football. It's not just about generating the most money for the fat cats and the players. Football is not just about winning at all costs. It's about enjoyment, identity and belonging for me as much as any trophy.
Those German supporters are still seeing their club's win leagues and domestic trophies each season. They are no longer European heavyweights, and that could be attributed to the relative lack of money within their game in comparison to ours; but is a sacrifice of European success for a handful of clubs worth it if it improves the match going experience and enjoyment of an entire nation? Without doubt.
So while millions of German fans are watching their football each weekend with smiles on their faces, and taking their kids along to become a part of their clubs; our children are sat at home watching on the TV as the rich get richer and the suits get to applaud another success on the field, latching onto a club they probably had no interest in 15 years ago, and certainly don't understand what made the club so glamourous and appealing in the first place. The odd European trophy is the only difference between the success of our clubs and the likes of Bayern Munich.
If the price of that success is excluding the next generation of fans and killing fandom for good; then I'd rather not have it.
Paul Jones
Do we all look back on the football of yesteryear with rose tinted spectacles, when it's nostalgia more than anything else that keeps us pining for the past? Was everything really so much better in the pre-Premiership era; or do we just resist change in the same way your grandparents refuse to accept "it's not like in our day" or "they don't make them like they used to" when discussing anything from clothing to footballers.
Those of us that do hark back to days gone by can be accused of not being able to see the wood for the trees. We now have a Permiership that plays hosts to 4 of the best 5 sides in Europe, with the best players on the planet now plying their trade in our league. Whereas the top dogs of the 80's saw Italian football as the pinnacle; with the creme of the time nearly all seeking a transfer to the land of the lira, the top brass of today's game all head for these shores in search of financial happiness. The money our league now generates has drawn them here; resulting in the best players in the world playing for the best teams in the world right in front of our very eyes. Was it really so much better back then?
For me, it's not just about the quality of the football on display, nor the sightlines and size of the seat I'm now provided in today's ultra-modern stadia. Those developments are a god send for the spectator; but for the supporter they are a hinderance. The move away from supporting to spectating is the one change in the game I resent the most. Several decades of cleansing by the authorities in a move to stamp out hooliganism and tribal fandom have achieved sanitisation of the game and shut out the next generation of supporters. The moves that have taken place within our game have rendered fandom an endangered species.
Post-Heysel and Hillsborough, it was obvious changes needed to be made to our game. Football was being played in crumbling stadiums and all fans treated like animals. Thatcher and her army set out to change the face of English football; an evolution still gathering pace today despite having carried out all the essential works. This is where it's all going wrong.
As a child going to the game in the late 80's and early 90's, I would be taken on The Kop by my dad. We would arrive a few hours before kick off, queue up and pay into the ground for a relatively affordable amount. My dad was earning a modest wage but could still afford to take me to the game with him each week. I never felt threatened or frightened despite standing within a mass of around 16,000 people. I used to sit on the crush barriers along with many other kids and served my time growing up on The Kop.
Liverpool Football Club meant everything to me, and each week I'd go and mix with the very people that make the club what it is. The fans.
Our support had it's own identity and character. Anfield had 4 stands all different to each other. We sang songs no other team did and always tried to be different. Plenty of other clubs did the same and nearly all held some sort of character and uniqueness about them. Every ground in the country was different and the support within those grounds was reflective of the area and the people of that region. Individuality and tribal pride; which doesn't automatically mean hooliganism.
Fast forward to the here and now, and it saddens me to see these new build grounds popping up all over the country. It's as if the same company designs the lot; merely changing the colour of the seats and installing the same identikit stadiums up and down the country. These grounds have no character and nothing that sets them apart from the rest.
The fans now filling these grounds are also reflective of their designs. Identikit fans only wearing different colour shirts. Singing the same songs as every other side, just replacing the name of the club they support. They dress the same, they act the same and they have fallen for the great whitewash of falling in line; doing exactly as the authorities want them to. The clubs play loud music over the PA for them to dance and sing along to and they lap it up. The same happens in countless grounds in all divisions, and takes away the opportunity for each group of fans to impose their own characters and cultures on the club.
Add those changes to the difficulty kids have in affording tickets to watch their clubs these days. The next generation are not growing up as regular match goers that pick up and carry the cultures of their forefathers. The next generation do not have the opportunity to become engrained in a football culture specific to their own club and maintain those terrace trends. They have been forced out of our grounds and have become Sky supporters. Their football supporting cultures are now taken from programmes such as Soccer AM and other Sky Sports productions. The same message and culture beamed out to football fans nationwide. Is it any wonder the identikit craze is rife?
It frightens me to think of football in 20-30 years time, when those supporters that do still carry the flame for their clubs cultures and traditions begin to hang up their match going boots. Individuality will be lost forever; with each and every ground populated by identikit fans. Football will be dead.
The game will continue, probably generating more money than ever before, but the passion and the terrace culture that I fell in love with is in danger of disappearing forever. I didn't just fall in love with the green grass, the pace and trickery of John Barnes and clinical finishing of Ian Rush. I didn't just fall in love with the Liverbird and the red shirt, or merely choose to support Liverpool as they were the best side around. I had no choice. I was taken to the game from an early age by my dad, just like he had been by his dad, and he by his dad before. I was brought up engrained in that culture and fell in love with the The Kop just as much as I fell in love with the club. I looked forward to going to the game for the atmosphere and the people as much as looked forward to the actual football.
It saddens me that my young lad might never experience that. I'll try my best; but deep down I know that it's gone forever. I can't wait to see his face when he first enters Anfield and his eyes catch hold of the greenest grass he'll ever see. I can't wait to see his smile as he stands for You'll Never Walk Alone for the very first time. But I'll be saddened when I look around the stand and realise that he'll never experience what I did, and he'll never fully understand why I fell so in love with this club and the game.
So while successfully stamping out large scale hooliganism and bringing the best players to these shores, the changes made over the past two decades have all but killed the future of fandom and terrace culture.
The authorites have used the events of Hillsborough; not just to make football a safer place for us all, but to price out and exlude the very people that made the game what it is. We all know change was needed, and the death trap stadiums of yesterday had to be replaced; but look to Germany where they now watch their football in the most modern and safe stadiums in world football. They have the highest attendance figures for any league in Europe. The tickets are affordable and accessable to all, and as a result their safe standing areas are populated by the young and old, male and female, and allowing the next generation to bloom and carry the flag for their club's future.
The atmospheres generated in those stadiums are the best in Europe. Fandom and terrace culture across Germany is at an all time high, while all the time our own is in rapid decline.
I'd swap the footballing super power this country has now become in an instant, if we could replicate what Germany have done with their football. It's not just about generating the most money for the fat cats and the players. Football is not just about winning at all costs. It's about enjoyment, identity and belonging for me as much as any trophy.
Those German supporters are still seeing their club's win leagues and domestic trophies each season. They are no longer European heavyweights, and that could be attributed to the relative lack of money within their game in comparison to ours; but is a sacrifice of European success for a handful of clubs worth it if it improves the match going experience and enjoyment of an entire nation? Without doubt.
So while millions of German fans are watching their football each weekend with smiles on their faces, and taking their kids along to become a part of their clubs; our children are sat at home watching on the TV as the rich get richer and the suits get to applaud another success on the field, latching onto a club they probably had no interest in 15 years ago, and certainly don't understand what made the club so glamourous and appealing in the first place. The odd European trophy is the only difference between the success of our clubs and the likes of Bayern Munich.
If the price of that success is excluding the next generation of fans and killing fandom for good; then I'd rather not have it.
Paul Jones
