Sports fans, Spectators or Supporters?

There has been much debate about the Morning Stars sports coverage. As a small circulation paper with a mission to promote socialist ideas should it dedicate so much space to mainstream sport? As someone who believes in the cultural importance of sport I see this as an important debate. I confess, I love county cricket, indeed the more meaningless the fixture the more I like it! I am also an ecumenical rugby fan enjoying League as much as Union. I have however fallen out of love with modern football. This is a complex issue and is perhaps something to do with the way football culture has become ubiquitous elevating players into celebrities.

I suspect it is because I don’t much like the people who play the game who despite their working class origins have become in the immortal words of Jonathan Meades, a “bespoke cast of gladiatorial yob-gods, wag-roasting Croesus kids, who once a week descend from their Parnassian blingsteads to run around for 90 golden minutes of bravura vanity”.

As the great CLR James pointed out when he said “What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?” The social, political and economic context of sport is crucial to its understanding. My belief is that the role that football plays in our society has not changed as much as Sky television would like us to think. After all in English Journey, his account of a tour of the country in 1933, J.B. Priestley describes a game between Notts County and Notts Forest:

“Nearly everything possible has been done to spoil this game; the heavy financial interests; the absurd transfer and player selling system; the lack of any birth or residential qualification for the players; the betting and coupon competitions; the absurd publicity given to every feature of it by the Press; the monstrous partisanship of the crowds (with their idiotic cries of ‘play the game Ref’ when any decision against their side is given); but the fact remains that it is not yet spoilt and it has gone out to conquer the world.”

Well it has most certainly conquered the world but what I believe has changed since 1933 is not the game itself after all one of the reasons for its success is that it is fairly simple. What has changed is the role of the spectator. Are you just to sit in our arm chairs as a Sky subscriber as if it watching a soap opera? Is the spectator to be a mere consumer or is the role of the fan to be more than just cheerleader?

This is the key question being tackled by Supporters Direct the organisation that seeks to promote sustainable spectator sports clubs based on supporters' involvement & community ownership. Since they were formed in 2000 they have changed the nature of the debate about who owns our sports clubs.

One of the shortlisted candidates for Co-operative of the Year at this year’s Co-op Congress was to give it its full title The Exeter City AFC Supporters’ Society Limited, which as an Industrial and Provident Society (IPS) is a bona fide co-op and is the owner of Exeter City. I have to say when we saw how much they were able to do in their community from the base of the football club I was bowled over.
FC United of Manchester have shown what can be done from a standing start raising over a £1million in their community share issue towards the new ground planned to be at Moston. Fan owned clubs are on a roll. Many will be watching AFC Wimbledon back in the football league after their club was kidnapped and taken to Milton Keynes. I will be watching Telford United back in the Blue Square Premier after being rescued by their Supporters Trust. Indeed Telford is a hot bed of co-operation with the local ice hockey team the Telford Tigers being the only co-operative owned team in the national ice hockey league.

Supporters Direct have a proud record with 150 Trusts at clubs up and down the country bringing £25million of new finance into football alone, with 26 clubs now in Trust ownership and 110 having shareholdings in their clubs. This trend I believe can only go one way. With the greatest club in the world, Barcelona, being in fan ownership what better advertisement for this model could there be?
But it is not just football, in Rugby League there are now supporters owned clubs such as Rochdale Hornets and Hunslett. Many cricket clubs too are in co-operative ownership, including Surrey, Lancashire and Glamorgan which all feature in the UK’s top 100 Co-ops.

Modern fans can be more than just passive supporters and fan ownership has to be the way forward after all who is more committed to a club and more hungry for success than its fans? Who are the only people who can be trusted to stick with a club through thick and thin when the sugar daddies that see clubs as trophy assets bringing them status lose interest or go bust!
I hope our sports coverage can cover more of the political-economy of sport. Ownership really does matter. Who is profiting from the business of sport? And to those who think this is OK for the minor league clubs but not for the Premier League giants - remember when the banks where too big to fail?