Football supporter issues wrap: Feeder clubs, rainbow laces and Yid debate
It’s been increasingly evident over the last couple of years that football supporters increasingly need to make themselves heard to safeguard the game. If it wasn’t the case, we wouldn’t even exist.
Since then, we’ve been to parliament to add our voice to the MP debate on Safe Standing, we’ve marched with supporters of other clubs to the Premier League offices in London to protest about the rising prices of the game to supporters, and we’ve challenged the puzzling ban on the use of the ‘One Stan Petrov’ banner with a petition of over a 1000 supporters asking the club to see common sense on the matter. These are just some of the many calls to action.
Over the upcoming weeks, on a regular basis, we’ll look into all the football supporter issues that are doing the rounds, as it’s important to know what challenges teams are facing. After all, knowledge is power and as football supporters, regardless of club loyalty, we all have to come together to protect our game.
Fans show their support for Andre Villas-Boas of Tottenham Hotspur during pre-season training session at Hong Kong Stadium on July 23, 2013. (Getty Images)
Finally some sense on the ‘Yid Issue’
Prime Minister David Cameron stated that Tottenham fans should not be charged for the use of the term ‘yid’. The common sense stance is backed by Spurs boss Andre Villas-Boas. “I think it was what the Spurs fans want to hear. It was clear,” said AVB.
It’s a controversy that typifies the zero-tolerance line that the politically correct brigade has recently been pursing, but they must mitigate it by having some understanding of ‘terrace culture’. Football supporters are tribal to their cultures and geographical area. In the case of the ‘Yid Army’, it’s a self-proclaimed title, so it’s bizarre that they should be told what they can and cannot call themselves.
The song that has also provided a bone of contention in the media recently is the one aimed at Brighton supporters – “Does your boyfriend know your here?” Is it a homophobic chant? Compared to the historical/stereotypical chants against other sets of fans, it could be argued that it is delivered in the same spirit as fans would sing songs about Norwich and Ipswich fans being farmers/tractor drivers or songs aimed at Liverpool for the city’s historical unemployment and theft rates etc, etc.
Do Brighton fans like it? Of course not. That’s the idea, it’s called football banter, which is used to wind-up opposition supporters. Isolated, as a song, it’s not delivered with hateful malice. To some extent, it’s like a comedian telling a politically incorrect joke. After all, there’s nothing wrong with being gay. However, there are other songs that Brighton supporters have endured that are totally out of order and shouldn’t be tolerated.
There is a balance to strike and it’s not so clear-cut.
If the words to every chant are scrupulously scrutinised literally and supporters are dictated to in what they can and cannot sing as a result, it’ll only build resentment amongst fans and sanitise the experience of matches.
The ‘live match experience’ is something that is sold to tourists (and written on those half-and-half scarves) and the atmosphere of Premiership games is a product that international TV markets pay top dollar for the rights to screen, but if stadiums became totally soulless environments, then the game’s appeal would begin to wane.
Racism is normally delivered in football grounds by individual idiots and these are the people who should be targeted. Traditional banter should be considered, as just that. Spurs fans not being able to call themselves yids was bordering on repression.
Supporter behavioural contracts
The Football Supporters Federation announced on Twitter it had accompanied a football fan to a successful appeal hearing against a club ban.
No football banning order was issued, but the fan was instructed to sign a ‘Supporter Behavioural Contract’ – essentially a re-iteration and reinforcement of the ground regulations that you accept on purchase of a season ticket.
It seems a little over-the-top. Still, there is a simple way around it and that’s to behave in the first place.