Lockdown. Coronavirus. Covid19. Self-isolation. Furlough. Social distancing. Words that have unfortunately become synonymous with our daily lives throughout 2020. Not only has the current coronavirus disrupted our normal routines and habits, it has created hostility towards government, anxiety and sadness within the population, and wreaked havoc within the sporting calendar. After much toing and froing, the Premier League have finally realised a solution to enable Project Restart to commence on the 17th of June, starting with two matches involving clubs with games in hand. It has brought what threatened to be an endless saga to a conclusion. The money involved in the upper echelons of our game was inevitably the driving force behind that decision. No product (I hate that word), equals no money from Sky; and because most clubs are living beyond their means, that money becomes paramount. Couple the financial reasons with the clamour to have Liverpool, quite rightly, crowned champions on the pitch, then I guess it makes sense to resume now that the powers that be have deemed it safe to do so. Everyone is happy right?
There's been a huge surge in coverage over the past few seasons on the women's game in this country. BT have covered the WSL, bringing live games into our homes and we saw record viewing figures for the World Cup on the BBC. The women’s game is seeing rapid growth. In their infinite wisdom, the FA have asked us all to take the women's game seriously, so that it can be elevated to higher spheres where it rightly deserves to be; but how can we take it seriously when those that make the crucial decisions curtailed the women’s season far too prematurely? As quick as a flash, the season was done, and Steps 3 to 7 curtailed almost in an instant. No promotion for SAFC women either, even though they should have been elevated to a higher league twice in the last three seasons. Aston Villa ladies have gone up from the league above SAFC and Manchester United were placed in a higher division in their maiden season. It sounds like sour grapes but why so many inconsistencies? It's all to do with bids and funding we are told. Quite frankly, it stinks to the high heavens if you ask me. Yet, we're still supposed to take the women's game seriously. How can that be possible, when the powers that be can't take it seriously themselves? A quick decision to eliminate a problem, one that can be swept under the carpet in the hope that most onlookers won’t notice. A gamble on limited national coverage to highlight the issue. Unfortunately, that gamble seems to have paid off. Now those money matters and those dining at the top table can really be looked after. We know where the priorities lie, and it is all wrong. This pandemic has magnified how wrong it really is.
Which brings me on to decisions made concerning each of our divisions in our four-league professional structure. The Premier League are out on their own, in a different stratosphere altogether, from both a football perspective and financially. (They talk about a breakaway league; the PL play a totally different game to the rest of us already). They simply had to play on. Imagine the lawsuits if they didn't settle matters on the field? (There will be repercussions in Scotland from Hearts after their demotion to the Championship, you can be sure of that). Back in England, The Championship will play on. League Two have already called it a day with big decisions still to be made. They had no other choice. It simply wasn't financially viable to stage games behind closed doors, due to the costs involved. With no income stream, those clubs really had nowhere else to turn. Quite simply there is no help from the Premier League big boys down here. Quite what the knock-on effect for the smaller clubs down the pyramid in the coming months and years will be remains to be seen. There has even been tentative talk about a North/South regional split once again. League One is hanging on by a thread, but at the time of writing, unweighted PPG and the usual four team play-offs look the likeliest way of settling the 2019-20 season. It is incredible how all four tiers had to reach tailored decisions to implement what is best for their clubs. If that doesn’t highlight a problem, I’m not sure what does. We always hear about the gap in finance from the Premier League to the Championship, but what the Covid-19 crisis has highlighted is that the gap between Championship and leagues One to Two, seems to be just as stark. When football resumes surely it cannot or will not ever be the same again.
Like most football supporters, I was excited about the return of the German Bundesliga, albeit behind closed doors. Watching the Belarusian Premier League on the SkyBet app just wasn't cutting it anymore. I quickly realised how different the games are without supporters inside the stadium. It has a profound impact on the enjoyment of the game as a spectacle. Crowd noises have been piped into stadiums, which has improved the atmosphere somewhat, but of course, it is not the same. It's still Erling Haaland, Jaden Sancho and Robert Lewandowski out there on the turf, but it feels like sedated football; a cheap imitation. Players feed from the crowd and the atmosphere; these games are far from the Real McCoy, and for me personally, the novelty has quickly worn off. “It is better than nothing” I hear you cry, and yes, I suppose it is. Sadly though, I find myself skipping more matches then I watch. It just goes to prove how important football supporters really are. The game belongs to us after all. Not owners, governing bodies, chief executives, players or glorified FIFA administrators. They are all minding the shop so to speak. Football will always belong to its adoring public. The game will survive for as long as we are all around to fight for it.
I didn't want to turn this piece into a negative ramble about the parts of our beloved game that are broken. We had our suspicions all along, but it's taken a global pandemic to highlight the football’s misgivings and to prove the discrepancies and inconsistencies within the game. The truth is, sport pales into insignificance when we are losing loved ones and the need for strong family ties and bonds is as important as ever. “Football is the most important of life’s least important things”, words once spoken by Italian manager Arrigo Sacchi. Never has a quote resonated with me as much as it does today. The truth is, I feel worried. Worried that I do not recognise the game I love. Worried that I'm becoming detached and uncoupled. I worry I'm heading for footballing divorce, yet I quickly push back those thoughts, but they still bubble to the surface, prickling at my mind throughout each day. Absence is supposed to make the heart grow fonder. I'm excited yet terrified at the same time, yearning to push myself through a turnstile on game day; but anxious as to what awaits me on the other side. What feelings and sensations will wash over me? Will the magic return? Is it lying dormant in the far corners of my heart and mind? Or is it all over? Has football won? Have I finally been ground down? The thought petrifies me. I won’t know the true answer until fans can return to matches.
We often hear of others growing disillusioned with the game; packing in their season tickets or simply being priced out of the game as a football tourist takes their seat in the ground where they once sat for 25 years. I often scoffed at such remarks. “That will never be me”, I used to think. Now, part of me feels that it is indeed on the cards, and that scares me. The essence of watching twenty-two players slug it out for three points on a Saturday is the very fabric of the game. Whether it's Liverpool going for the title, or the Dog and Duck reaching their first cup final, that same fabric will never change. It is why so many love our national sport. However, it's what comes with it that creates disenchantment and disdain. Corporate types. That ‘fan’ we know who supports three clubs. The football tourist. A £60 match ticket. Multiple TV subscriptions to watch various leagues around the world. That innocence really has gone. The purity of the game has gone. It is why many have turned their back on the game they once loved or seek out non-league ventures to really feel that football as they once knew it, still exists. Some would now prefer to watch the Dog and Dock win a cup than to watch Liverpool steamroller Burnley at Anfield.
In my area, South Shields have reaped the rewards of investment, their attendances swelling as both Sunderland and Newcastle supporters attend their home matches. I know a South Shields fan who said that, despite the recent success, he preferred it when they were further down the pyramid. “It’s not the same as it was five years ago.” Let that sink in for a moment. Even money is spoiling the game at non-league level. It will if we let it. When will it all end? The game has been tainted and replaced by pound notes. To chase a dream, to build legacies and reach the promised land. I once though that the humble fan had been turned into a consumer. Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, I have realised we are not even that. We are an afterthought for some clubs, particularly the ones at the top of our game. TV money drives transfer fees and wages, not ticket sales. Club chairman couldn't care less if it was me in row 24, seat 167, or some guy from halfway around the world, complete with a half and half scarf; his selfie stick at the ready. It makes no difference to the powers that be, as long as that seat is filled, therefore supplementing the vast financial income that swells the clubs’ coffers.
Sunderland AFC have said that should the entirety of next season be played behind closed doors; I will not be entitled to a season ticket refund. Instead, for my £400, I will be given a streaming pass for home games. The same streaming pass that is available to other supporters for £110. I am been taken for a ride. It saddens me that my own club couldn’t care less about its fanbase, but I am not surprised at all. It still makes me, and thousands of others, very angry. Furthermore, when I see column inches once again devoted to the likes of Paul Pogba, and Timo Werner’s impending multi-million-pound transfer, it makes me sick. Not only another kick in the teeth to the average football supporter, but to Joe public who is being furloughed throughout COVID-19, been made redundant or has sadly lost a loved one. The last thing he wants to read about is another footballer earning £200,000 a week. There have been many heart-warming stories from around the football world, that don’t get half the attention they deserve, but unfortunately, that wouldn’t sell a red-top newspaper or cultivate the required clicks on an online article, such is the world we live in.
Football needs to change, but will the powers that be listen? I wouldn't hold your breath. I’d argue that the governing of the game has gotten worse throughout the coronavirus crisis. The EFL were woeful in their handling of the Bury and Bolton Wanderers affairs, they’ve lurched from one crisis to another since then. The amount of indecision at times has been ludicrous. Despite all of that, I still long for the day where I can push myself through the turnstiles at the Stadium of Light to watch my team play once again. It will be a scary and uncertain time. I remember my first game at Roker Park; in 1994 against Southend United as an excitable 8-year-old. The hustle and bustle, the smell of Bovril hanging in the air. Friends greeting each other and “swapping judgements like Lords of the Earth.” Climbing the steps in the Clock Stand and the plushness of the green pitch as it dominated my senses. The noise of the crowd and the songs they sang. The crunch of a tackle and the thud of a cross-field pass. I was hooked instantly; to me, it was all absolutely magic. I hope and pray, that when the day comes, that same magic remains.
Stay safe.
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