As the football season around
Europe got underway, two stories relating to match-going fan behaviour and
social media hit the headlines. At Old Trafford, Manchester United announced
that fans would not be able to bring IPads or other tablets into the stadium,
citing rather unconvincing security concerns. Meanwhile, Dutch club PSV
Eindhoven were announcing what they thought would be welcome news – the arrival
of Wifi in their stadium. However it was this second policy that drew to most
complaints.
Both stories tapped into the
concerns of many match-going fans about the continuing gentrification of football
support. Many United fans reacted with delight that tablets were being banned –
although in their view not for the right reason. The sight of ‘tourist’ fans
holding up IPads and filming matches has annoyed many fans who believe that
football support should be about getting behind the team rather than taking
videos to prove ‘I was there’. At PSV, fans orchestrated a protest at the
introduction of Wifi, making a similar point: football fandom is about actively
and vocally supporting the team, rather than spending the game checking Twitter
or uploading selfies. The PSV fans also protested against stewards telling them
to sit down at matches, again claiming that this was lessening the ‘atmosphere’
at matches.
Traditional match-going fans
have been resisting the commercialisation and gentrification of football for
many years now, and protests and organisation fan movements to improve
atmosphere in grounds are becoming more common (for example the recent
introduction of a ‘singing section’ at Old Trafford and the activities of
Crystal Palace’s ‘Holmesdale Fanatics’ and Celtic’s ‘Green Brigade’). The
number of fans standing at matches is also on the rise, as is the use of
pyrotechnics – an irritation to the authorities but potentially also the start
of a wider fan rebellion against ‘modern football’.
We should not forget of course
that these fan groups are just a small sub-culture within the wider match-going
support of clubs – many fans want to be able to check the internet at matches
or upload photos on their tablets for their friends. However, in European
football at least, it is the traditional ‘home-and-away’ match-going groups (or
‘carnival fan’ groups) who dominate football culture. Their voice is always
heard the loudest, as well as usually being respected by other fan sub-cultures
who may not join in but enjoy watching the match in a colourful, noisy and
vibrant atmosphere.
The irony in both the PSV and
United stories is that actually these carnival fan groups are typically big
users of social media to encourage atmosphere, arrange meeting points at
matches, secure tickets, build internal social cohesion, and actively promote
their mode of fandom as being ‘authentic’ to a wider audience. For re-living
previous matches and building up to the next fixture, social networks and the
internet are now essential, it’s just that on the whole they would prefer
match-day focus to be on the ‘serious business’ of getting behind the team on
the pitch.
Dr Geoff Pearson
Director of Studies (MBA
Football Industries)
Senior Lecturer in Sports
Management and Law
University of Liverpool, Management School18/08/2014
An ethnography of English football fans is now available in paperback in the New Ethnographies series.
