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Fair weather Irish fans no match for loyal English supporters
By Ciaran Cronin
IN the last few minutes of Saturday’s FA fifth-round tie at Old
Trafford, there was a nice touch of humour from the travelling Arsenal
supporters who at that point must have been totally depressed at what
they had just witnessed.
“We’ll race you back to London,” was the chant aimed
at the Manchester United fans streaming towards the exits to avoid traffic
jams, train queues and what not, proving that it’s not only me who
has a disdain for United bandwagon jumpers from all parts of England,
Ireland and indeed, the World.
And those Arsenal fans had a point. The last train from Manchester Piccadilly,
which I just about managed to catch despite a near heart attack while
running to the platform, was an even mix of Arsenal and United supporters.
Just in case you were worried about the safety of a Tottenham-supporting
journalist in the midst of all this, you can relax, the train was designated
“dry” by the cops so not only could you not buy a drop of
alcohol on board, the local constabulary practically checked the contents
of your underwear to make sure you weren’t trying to smuggle a shoulder
of whiskey in amongst your privates.
But I digress. Sitting on the train amid this posse of Arsenal and United
fans — dads, sons, groups of young fellas, husbands and wives —
I began to ponder England’s unique supporting culture.
Whatever else you might say about the English, and here is neither the
time nor the place to start that discussion, they possess an incredibly
active loyalty to their clubs, something that is almost wholly distinctive
from any other supporting culture around the world.
On my journey up and back from Manchester on Saturday I saw, aside from
Arsenal and United fans, a group of Charlton fans step off a train at
Euston, a Coventry City father and daughter combination waiting to catch
a train towards the Ricoh Arena, a group of about 11 Ipswich Town fans
heading off for Portman Road and two Norwich City supporters on their
way to Leicester. And that just represents the ones I recognised because
they were wearing some kind of club merchandise.
Of course, London is a capital city and by its nature it’s bound
to have a lot of people from around the country living there but the dedication
football supporters based in the capital show towards returning home for
games is incredible. I can remember watching a short piece on BBC a couple
of years ago about a pair of Newcastle supporters who travelled 570 miles
return trip by coach, about 11 hours, every second Saturday to watch their
team play at home.
The point of the piece, though, was that this pair weren’t in any
way unique, there were hundreds of other Geordies travelling the same
journey from London when Newcastle played at home. These guys were neither
freaks nor the norm but somewhere in between, just like thousands upon
thousands of supporters every weekend who travel crazy distances to watch
90 minutes of football.
In this regard, English supporters knock spots off us Irish sports fans.
We are, despite our own self-publicity, mere dilettantes when it comes
to supporting our sporting teams. The prime examples, but not the only
ones by any means, are those who claim to follow Munster rugby and Dublin
football. In fact, you can extend that last one to supporters of senior
county hurling or football teams around the country.
Now, there are exceptions to what I’m about to say and those exceptions
are the very people who are going to get worked up about the fact I’m
saying it. But it’s not you I’m talking about, you Munster
supporters who attend each and every Magners League game. Or you Dublin
football fans who go to Parnell Park, and even around the country, to
watch your side play in the National League.
It’s the others I’m pointing the finger at, the thousands
of Munster fans who shelled out a few hundred euro to go to Cardiff in
May 2006 but who haven’t been to a Magners League game in Limerick
or Cork since. Or the tens of thousands of Dublin fans who only stick
on the light blue shirt when the sun’s out and their team are playing
at Croke Park.
We are the ultimate fair weather fans, moaning about ticket prices and
train prices and whatever else inflicts upon our day out. Most of our
supporting decisions are made based on three separate and not completely
independent criteria: One, what competition our team is playing in, two;
how much it’s all going to cost; and three, whether it’s likely
to rain or not.
Meanwhile while we ponder that complex equation, across the water our
English cousins, most of whom haven’t been touched by an Anglo-Saxon
version of the Celtic Tiger, pay their money and follow their club no
matter what. There aren’t many ways in which I would recommend to
copy the English but in terms of how they support their teams, it’s
the perfect template to follow. There are, of course, a few Neanderthals
who give their supporting culture but trust me, in this day and age, these
are less than 1 per cent of people who attend football on a weekly basis.
The other 99 per cent are prime examples of what we should strive to become.
ciarancronin3@eircom.net |
