Tuesday, December 31, 2013

"It's hard not to feel...

...that the tsunami of money in English football has taken something from the game.  Here the heated arguments about the clubs future seem proof that the old fan culture is still alive.  A tiny ship of pirates in a sea of commercialism."

Monday, October 28, 2013

Scoreboard Paddock

“We’ve got too many out of town supporters… it isn’t helping generate the kind of support that the club needs…”.

“If you go to any stadium around England… the atmosphere is not there within British football any more.”

“There’s a myth about certain clubs.  The media will build up the atmosphere at St James Park or they’ll build up the atmosphere at Anfield but if you actually go to those places, apart from the big games, there’s no atmosphere there at all.”

Saturday, October 12, 2013

"It's heart that will get you through..."

"Being a jaded, glory-hunting Chelsea fan, I'm used to an uneasy dichotomy of crews of agitated looking guys in quilted jackets doing bumps of nasty gak off their season tickets, and guys in salmon pink trousers talking about the Mata issue over a Nastro Azzurro.

...

That despite "The Emirates Experience" or whatever obscure methods of branding and persuasion the clubs are employing to get you to spend £12 on a Tuborg and a Pukka, most football stadiums actually are like this: transitory settlements of corrugated iron, portaloos and boxed-in coaches.

...

But non-league fans aren't in it for the same reasons that most other football fans are. They're in it because they want to feel part of something. Big business football can be utterly alienating, and who wouldn't rather tour with Black Flag in a bus with no floor than with U2 in a private jet with no soul?"

Read more here:- Vice: Searching for English Football's Soul with Non-League Fanatics