“Your support is f**king sh*t”, “Your ground’s too big for you” and even the introspective “Where were you when we were sh*t?” are some of the familiar songs belted out at grounds up and down the country every weekend without any sense of irony or self awareness.
There’s a lot of debate and oft derision about low crowd attendances home and away amongst football supporters.
If you watch the Pathe films on t’internet or similar sentimental footage that gets reeled out on Football Focus it is common to see packed out stadium full of rattle- waving, rosette- wearing men and women jostling for position in vast crowded stands.
So why the decline? Surely now the average football fan has more leisure time and expendable dough than ever before and certainly more than in the black and white era of rosettes and flat caps?
The difference from those days and now are that back then is that those scarcest of commodities, time and money, are actually rarer now for many than in days gone by.
.
Whilst people probably had less money years ago they also generally had less expectations of expenditure and certainly didn’t have exotic foreign holidays, two cars and all the expensive mod cons that a lot of people wrongly feel pressured into paying for in modern life. People have got themselves into debt by getting everything on credit in recent times to satisfy these perceived necessities whereas that was unheard of in previous generations where the common ethos was “If you can’t afford it you cant have it”.
The cost of games has increased disproportionately too. Whilst before ticket prices were more affordable it is the whole package of going to football that has become a pricey affair nowadays.
Charlton has always been good value for money even during our pinnacle in the Premiership yet even following the addicks is a costly duty for many but even so a £300- £500 season ticket is still out of reach for many.
It is not just the initial lay out for a ticket that hits the wallet. There are costs involved before you even set foot in the stadium.
With more people moving away form the areas of their roots and out of the built up inner cities to suburban dwellings clubs now draw a lot of their support from further afield. Whereas before the majority of West Ham followers may have inhabited the East End and other areas a stones throw from the Boleyn Ground many of their faithful now reside out in various parts of Essex. Same with Charlton who now find a large proportion of their fan base travel from the commuter belt of South East London and even deepest darkest Kent. Travelling to home games for many is no longer a half hour walk down the road at 2pm but a train or car journey which isn’t gratis.
I’ve heard tales that back in the day many South East Londoners would go to Charlton one week and up the road to the Den to watch Millwall the next when Charlton were away and vice versa. This practice appears now to be extinct (for a plethora of reasons I would imagine) and many people choose to follow their “one” team around the country which in itself is very expensive.
Once you have bought the ticket, travelled up to whichever Northern outpost the boys are playing at, had a few pints and a dodgy black pudding pie the bill is usually near the £100 mark.
A home game for example may cost £20 a ticket, add this to said beers and travel and God forbid a programme then you are looking at around £40 a game.
So on average with 2 home games and 2 away in a “quiet month” it will cost in the region of £300. In a busier month, for example we are scheduled to play 5 times in September and 6 in November the cost of following Charlton will be around £320- £380 and £420 respectively.
Even if you can afford the initial outlay of a season ticket and therefore null that cost you would still be looking at about £200 to £300 and month on away games not to mention the further cost- incurring cup games that crop up frequently.
Now when you consider the demographic and income of the average football supporter of Charlton, Millwall or Crystal Palace the cost of attending every game their club plays becomes somewhat unachievable without purging themselves further into debt.
Additionally time, or lack of it, is a key factor in the decline in attendances. Many folk are now working longer hours every day than before to secure much needed overtime or just because their jobs have evolved whereby they are wary of leaving at 5.30 on the dot for fear of giving their employers any reason to satisfy criteria for redundancy. Many self – employed football fans have to work 6 or 7 days a week to even keep their heads above the water. And this is all before they fulfil their commitments outside of work to their families, friends and other elements important to their lives.
Traditionally games were scheduled for 3pm on a Saturday allowing the largely working class supporter to finish up their graft on Saturday morning before heading to the pub for a well earned pint before heading on to the game.
Gone are the days when small clubs like Millwall could get dispensation for late kick offs to allow their dock worker support to finish their shifts and make their way down to watch their team. Now the fixture lists are dictated by Sky, the Police and other authorities and the common fan has to fit their lives around it rather than the games being organised for their convenience as before.
Now to attend every away game over the course of a season often involves the use of numerous days of holiday for midweek evening clashes in awkward locations followed by a day of work after a few hours of sleep or negotiating the ever so efficient Sunday service so helpfully provided by the national rail network.
Whilst it is inevitable that there is an element of “plastics” who turn up for the big games or when a club is entertaining world class players on opposition teams in the top flight this perceived crowd swell is often deceiving.
Whilst Manchester United and Chelsea may enjoy revenue- inducing sell outs at every home league game it isn’t definite that the 60,000 in attendance each fortnight are the same punters. Success attracts interest and whilst they may be sold out each game I very much doubt that it is the same 60,000 die hard, life long supporters from Salford and Shepherd’s Bush filling those seats each time. More likely is that they have garnered enough custom through their years of success to give the illusion of a consistent faithful but the reality is it us unlikely that the average person could afford to pay the extortionate price of going to Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge each week which would surely run into the thousands each year.
Added to this those fortunate souls, many of whom will have only boarded the football bandwagon post Euro 1996, and whose substantial income allows them this luxury are more likely to be drawn to the success and glamour provided by the big clubs rather than parting with their cash to provide much needed income to grittier clubs such as Charlton, Millwall and Palace. If you were a late comer to the game and didn’t have a club “in your blood” like we do then it’s academic that watching Drogba and Lampard battle against Torres and Gerrard is, albeit superficially, a more enticing proposition than spending your hard earned to witness a season of hit and hope affairs against Scunthorpe and Tranmere.
I am currently part way through training to be an accountant. The hours and studying are long and cut into a large part of my time and the remuneration isn’t rewarding at present but in two years when I hopefully qualify I will be in a position where I can financially afford to follow Charlton home and away without fail and so the attendance at Huddersfield will increase from 450 to 451.
At present I don’t have that ability and instead spend my Saturday afternoons and many weeknights glued to Charlton Life with the radio on in the corner hoping result goes are way and holding my breath every time the commentator says lets go to X now for an update on the game between X and Charlton Athletic.
As much as I would love to be up among the small number of faithful wherever and whenever we play, to share first hand both the joy of a win, despair of a loss and indifference of a goalless draw, I simply can’t afford it at present.
If that makes me or others in similar situations less of a supporter than those who can afford it or sacrifice other things in their lives to ensure so then so be it. But to say that our support is better or worse than Millwall or Man United is based on numbers and doesn’t give the bigger picture.
Give me those 450 who made the trip to Yorkshire yesterday over a ground full of tourists at the Emirates any day.
No comments:
Post a Comment