Liverpool supporters may have really started something with their 77th minute walk out at the Sunderland game last Saturday, when protesting about ticket prices. For what (little) it’s worth, I totally support them. Supporters almost always end up with the club they deserve in all manner of ways. Sit back, accept all the crap that’s handed down to you and expect you to be grateful, or stand up, activate and change things.
You cannot change things without numbers, though. Liverpool’s fans had large numbers and made the news and jolted the boardroom who quickly made a U Turn and an extremely embarrassing one at that. I remember during my days of involvement at Bristol Rovers, I was part of a small team of people who were all, without exception, more talented and dynamic that I was. We tried to change things too, but failed to change hearts and minds, didn’t attract sufficient support, were unable to convince enough supporters that change was needed and really bring forth a better day. We failed, but we weren’t wrong, as the club went into free fall, save one season when they gained promotion, and ended up in the humiliation of non league football. All, I would argue, the direct result of a complete absence of any form of planning, no leadership and an inability to provide competent governance. Eventually, as we tried to say, running the club on the basis of boom and bust would have dire consequences and eventually it did.
Obviously, making changes is easier when you have a powerful, well-supported supporters’ organisation. Bristol Rovers used to have one of these, but now their role is purely to act as an arm of the football club, representing the owners rather than the supporters, especially the two house-trained puppet directors who not only do what they are told by the real directors, they sit with them too.
In the coming years, I believe supporters will have far more significant changes to deal with. For instance, I have no doubt that there will be moves to isolate the Premier League from the rest of ‘English’ football. Most clubs in the top flight are owned by foreigners who are not there our of the kindness of their hearts (and don’t believe anyone who says otherwise). Their bottom line, always, will be money. And there is a lot more money to be made from football. A Premier League with no relegation to the rest of football is surely a matter of time now, given the obscene sums being thrown at it by, well, people like me who pay our money to Rupert Murdoch’s TV companies. Then add to the pot a European Super League, including clubs like Manchester United, regardless of where they finish in their own national league. It will be little more than a European Invitational League but the TV companies won’t care much about that and neither will the oligarchs and rich companies who own the clubs. And it won’t matter to anyone whether the grounds will be full because the TV money will be so great. This will, I am quite sure, if fans let it.
I fear that the victory of Liverpool fans will soon be forgotten as the rest of the clubs aim for the holy grail of even more money. We are not talking about a comradely organisation of mutual love. Football is as much the people’s game as the FTSE 100 represents the people’s top companies.
I have certainly been convinced that fan ownership, or at least an element of it, is absolutely essential in order to sustain football in the long term. It works well enough in Germany, although the horse long bolted over here. In lower league football, the likes of Wimbledon and Portsmouth have shown it is possible to exist and thrive when fans own and run the club. That has to be the way forward.
Whether the Premier League literally separates from the rest of football is largely irrelevant because in many ways it has gone already. Unless lower league clubs secure billionaire investors they will never be able to compete with the likes of the owners of Manchester City and Chelsea, or even Leicester or Newcastle. My old club Bristol Rovers, even if it gets things right on and off the pitch, will be very lucky to reach and stay in the Championship and who is to say that one day that division might cut itself loose from the rest of the leagues?
No, isolated efforts like those at Anfield are only going to achieve so much. Sitting back and doing nothing will not change anything but to be honest, I am not convinced that many people do want to change anything. Most supporters, it seems to me, wouldn’t give a toss who owned their club as long as they thought he would throw tens of millions at it. Mushrooms, really. Kept in the dark and fed shit.
