How is lower league football unique? — The fans
If something costs more it usually indicates more quality, a meal that costs more should be nicer, and holiday that sets you back more should be more memorable. The rule is almost seamless, very few goods or services that possess any kind of premium are dearer to proportion. Business opportunities in Western culture are founded on monetising convenience or privatising what is currently public.
Football could be different. The average season ticket in League Two stands at £260, whereas the Premier League has sold season tickets at a price just shy of £2000. Yet, supporters of their local teams, regardless of divisions, scarcely come away dissatisfied with the quality of their days out. There are 92 teams in English division football, and everywhere you go you will find platoons of local supporters, all congregated and yet complete strangers. For many, Saturday is the only day that really exists for them, resonating with the ancient concept that football was created and loved by the working class, they tolerate the week by eagerly talking about the next matchday.
Matchday? Yes, matchDAY. The tradition of the local matchday is sacred among the diehard fans, speaking to Callum McDonnell (23), a student and a Pompey fan who lives across the water at the Isle of Wight, I got a step-by-step account of his typical Saturday watching the football. Portsmouth is the embodiment of a club that has fallen from grace and is now resided in the 3rd division of English football after being a Premier League team a decade ago. Despite this, they still have the 3rd biggest stadium in league one and one of the fuller stadiums at that. Callum spoke to me about his experience attending:
“What would happen is my friends from the Isle of Wight would come over, they’d get the boat say it’s Saturday, kick off is at 3, that is usually the games we go to. Then grab something to eat usually a Burger King, go to a pub, having a couple drinks, 3 or so. Then get a cab or train to the ground. If we lost badly and it was an important game sometimes my friends would then go home early, cos they’re disappointed they lost, so it does make a big difference when the team does win.”
At no point did he even pause to think, his routine was a close as it comes to a firm tradition. My experience of Premier League fans differs greatly, there are side activities, but it is usually online forums, fantasy football or discussion on Twitter. The academics of football congregate around the top level as you would expect, the interest centres predominantly around the intricacies of the sport, and the entertainment of watching astounding things happen on the field. He went on:
As an interviewer listening to this, up until winning or losing was brought up, it sounded like he was just describing a day out with mates. It seems like the concept of watching football is an activity designed to bond with friends, and to look forward to the weekend. The question arises, for some people, is football a medium for their social life, or is football what brings them together in the first place?
Speaking to Callum, it seemed like the actual football and having a good time were not necessarily mutually exclusive.
“I remember we won 3–1, and that was a game at home, and I went to watch at the stadium with my friends for the first time. When I first moved to Portsmouth for University I never actually went to many games, because I was near Fratton my friends would come over from the Isle of Wight and they invited me over to watch them.”
“The night out after that everyone was jolly and having fun.”
Whilst the industry isn’t worth billions or getting millions of views on YouTube, the basic premises of a desire to win wasn’t lost at this level. Just because the fans have lower expectations in a team in regard to conquering the entire world, it by no means eases a catastrophic loss or lessens the ecstatic mood and celebrations upon victory.
It’s a relief to see that football’s value isn’t defined by its price tag but could there even be aspects to lower division football, or in this case Portsmouth F.C, that exceed the experience of supporting a more globally known team? The biggest question of the interview was always to be ‘What is unique about lower division football?’.
Covering both practicality and by measure of emotions, it was important to ask Callum the penultimate question that was waiting in the wings.
What is unique about lower division football?
His first point was, of course, prices. He likened it to the Premier League, where the difference is staggering, but his monologue regarding his emotional ride puts things into perspective better:
“It’s nice supporting a team that’s on the rise, it’s not like a Premier League team that’s already there, they can’t really go much further. We beat Barnsley a few months ago, they’re a league above us and we beat them 4–2. When you beat a team in a higher league than you it’s so more satisfying, brings a lot of pleasure.”
It’s a huge part of football culture to support the underdog if you’re watching a game in which your team isn’t one of the competitors. When most of the following globally falls to huge clubs such as Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool, it is possible that not losing so often in the long run is robbing certain fans of some experiences in the game, to punch up every time your club triumphs in domestic competitions like the FA Cup. For want of a better analogy, one could imagine being born a millionaire wouldn’t be half as satisfying as seeing your business slowly develop from little funds.
For fans, football is much like watching films, or playing games. It is somewhere to go to experience the peaks of human emotion, journey and struggle where your life just might not offer those raw experiences naturally. It must be said however, that in that list, football is the example that affects your mood the most in real life. I would highly recommend any individual that fancies an argument to say ‘it’s only a game’ to someone close to them after their team has lost to a rival.
Wycombe Wanderers fan, Craig Singleton, and a huge fan at that, supported a Premier League team in his youth like Callum, then delved into the unique experience of lower league football. I wanted to get an initial sense of why that decision was made by Craig:
“The main and obvious thing is that Arsenal I went to one game a season, usually against Sunderland or Bolton or something like that. Now I go to 30–40 games a season to watch Wycombe and you can go to lots of different places around the country.”
Again, costs just continue to be a factor to football fans, and often the large bulk of the football fan population grow up believing football is something to be watched on television. Craig went on to talk of his experience attending the ground.
“Arsenals stadium was notorious for not having any atmosphere, arguably Wycombe’s doesn’t really either but because there’s less people, the more passionate fans congregate easier and also there’s less tourists if you like.”
There was a clear insinuation that he felt closer to the community at Wycombe when he was at the ground. I probed at this concept and he gave his opinion:
“On a basic level there are less fans, so if there are only 5000 in the stadium there’s going to be more of a connection, than if you’re further away. When we celebrated promotion couple of years ago, it was all together, we went on the pitch. I would say there’s a good rapport between the two.”
You would imagine that the rules and regulations at Premier League grounds are more stringent, what with the number of people, and the profile of the celebrities on the pitch. Whilst these are understandable, you can sympathise with a fanbase relishing a more relaxed view on pitch invasions. After all, who would want to tamper with the memory of that special day when he witnessed the promotion of his side through a Dom Gape strike against Chesterfield. He also had a couple of recollections from when he was face to face with the players.
“Walked past one at the service station the other day, hugged Fred Onyedinma when we got to Wembley on the pitch invasion.”
Anyone who witnessed his tone whilst giving the account would find the humour in how instant and casual, he spoke about seeing people, who to most club’s supporters, would be A-list celebrities. Twitter has often been looked on fondly by how it breaks the barrier between players and fans, even if it is only virtual and you may not get seen. It just goes to show how desperately far the gap is in this sense. A clear incentive for supporting lower division sides is showing through on the back of these discussions.
Growing up in public schools, its practically tradition to declare which big Premier League club you support on the first day meeting your classmates. Few schoolkids have decided to support one of the mediocre clubs in that league, fewer still have an allegiance to any club in the division of the championship or lower. The magic of course is trying new things, nothing exciting can be expected of life without it, but it’s a route us habitual creatures have trouble wanting to go down. I wanted to know from Craig about the transition from the massive Arsenal F.C was dropped in favour of League One’s Wycombe Wanderers.
“Dad took me when I was like 9, and kept taking us I think, and by the time you keep going you feel more of a connection, and the Arsenal ends are bad, and one that really did it was when we nearly got relegated out of the football league, went out of business, then we started going every week over that.”
I was intrigued hearing about the surge in commitment after seeing the clubs struggle, you forget that a key element in football is battle and total empathy for the club, as if you’re literally part of it, and in a way you really are.
Craig’s team and Callum’s team, for context, are at quite similar levels of football, perhaps Portsmouth has a bigger following, but it remains that they will find themselves locking horns in the season. I expected similarities between the two interviews but found that they find enjoyment in different aspects of local supporting. All elements of it eventually come into play and become a reason why you go, but it seemed the initial reason on Callum’s part is that it was a perfect excuse to have a meet up between friends, along with the convenience of living local to quite a large club. For Craig it seemed more so that the loyalty his dad had for his hometown, and a desire to be part of the crowd.
This article may be an insight in why making this switch could be a drastic but wonderful change in your enjoyment for football. Even if it’s only one game, the prices are affordable, and give lower league football a chance in your life.
