The spirit world of football

Two weeks and more have passed since Bristol Rovers boss Joey Barton made a somewhat tasteless remark about the holocaust in relation to professional football. Many people were up in arms, many weren’t. Some urged a boycott of the club until Barton had left, others suggested fans should withdraw financial support to the football club. The vast majority of fans said ‘Meh’ and the football club now carries on as it did before. And, as ever at football clubs, any kind of crisis can be averted or ended by the team winning football matches. Which is what has happened at BS7.

It is at this point when we need to remind ourselves what supporting a football team is about. It is just that. Few supporters actually choose the team they support. They either simply arrive or it is inflicted upon them by parents and/or friends. I simply arrived at Eastville Stadium (RIP) around 100 or so years ago, or so it seems. I supported the team. I knew little about the owners other than the fact that they were rich blokes who sat in the posh seats and didn’t spend enough of their own money on players. I never thought deeply about anything beyond what happened at the match. I wish it had stayed that way.

Placing my broken record back on the turntable, my Big Mistake was getting involved, even at a humble, lowly level. In trying to help make the club better, I literally took my eye off the ball. While others were having a good moan, I was stupidly thinking I could make a difference. I could repair the irreparable. The obsession with the off the field stuff cost me my love of what was going on it. It was, with the benefit of hindsight, a stupid error and quite in keeping with most decisions I have made in my life. Which brings me back to Joey Barton.

BRFC is owned lock, stock and barrel by one man, the Jordanian businessman Wael Al Qadi. Everything that happens is decided by him. Whatever he wants to do, say appoint a wrong ‘un as manager, build a new training ground, run up record losses and even – you never know – build a new stadium or even sell the one we’ve already got, he’s the only man who can. If we think it’s our club, we can only do so on the basis that it’s ours in spirit only. The bricks and the green, green grass of Horfield is Wael’s. So, when he appoints someone like Barton, with all his baggage and his loose tongue, it does not matter what any of us think. He will leave only when he wants to or when Wael wants him to.

History suggests Barton will go on saying and doing things many of us find uncomfortable. If I was actually going to games – I haven’t been for over three years now – how would I feel about Barton being in the home dug-out? Awful, I suspect. Would I be able to cheer his team and so sustain his future as manager? The me of, say, 15 years ago probably would have. The team was all that mattered to me, not the owners nor the managers. But because my feelings towards BRFC changed, as a direct result of my own, in retrospect, foolish actions in deluding myself I had something meaningful to offer the club in terms of making it better. There are none so blind as those who will not see. Laser eye surgery did not change my blindness to what was happening to me at BRFC.

Boycotts and the like won’t work at BRFC. I suspect that apart from a few decent and principled individuals, the effect on the club has been smaller than a pin prick. And given the way things are, those who are unhappy are pissing in the wind and it’s time to decide. The options are these:

1. Support the team
2. Do something else

Yes, Option 1 does involve getting behind the manager and indeed the owner. It isn’t a case of burying your principles by taking this option because it was not you who sold the club to Wael (thanks, Nick) and it wasn’t you that appointed Joey Barton. In an ideal world, supporters would have some say as to how their club was being run but at BRFC, as with the vast majority of clubs, supporters have none. More than that, supporters at BRFC have resisted every single initiative to change that.

So, best meet your friends at the pub before the game, buy a pasty, watch the game, meet your friends at the pub after the game and let someone else worry about who’s the manager and who’s the owner. If I’d done that from the start, I might still be there. Having said that, I’m glad I don’t have to make the choice between supporting the team or doing something else because I am doing something else already. For all that. they’re still my team. In spirit, anyway.