https://twitter.com/robbohuyton/status/1388936831174070278A piece from Gareth Roberts:
THE biggest football match in the English calendar.
Arguably its most saleable asset, given the worldwide audience that tunes in for it, cancelled due to supporter protest.
TV companies around the world left filling and flapping, laying bare how far out of touch they really are with football supporters. Tell you what lads, speak to them. I imagine it would have been more interesting than claiming oligarchs and billionaires are true football fans and good for the game, but maybe that’s just me.
Today shone a harsh light on how far people have been wrung out by the modern game. Forgot where it was and who was doing it, this is people like us, who love their club, and love the game, at the end of their tether with owners that care about nothing but cash.
Values? Culture? The city? The fans? History? Loyalty? The name of the football club and what it stands for? None of it. They just want more noughts in the bank.
We had a taste of it with Hicks and Gillett. It was like sipping battery acid. They have been living through the Glazers’ ownership for 15 years plus. We’ve been lucky.
The Super League plans were just another twist of the knife. Here we can decide for ourselves what we think of our owners, minus Gary Neville dishing out orders on his high horse. The consensus — for now — is what are you going to do to fix it, Boston? And that it needs to be something meaningful this time.
There, they have had enough. They have played nice. They have sent letters. Waved scarves. Sang songs. Campaigned via the internet. All the stuff the clueless suggested they should be doing again today.
So what was the next step? Today. Today was the next step. It’s created a huge story. A global debate. And surely some of that will look beyond the tabloid and ask why this time. Because that question has been lacking for so long. Not just not answered. It wasn’t even acknowledged that it was asked.
As long as there are bums on seats, right?
Or, the other one — ah, it’s just football fans. Bit mad them. Let’s throw a few stereotypes around. Move on.
No, don’t. Stop. Think. Listen. Take us seriously. Because we’re serious.
Protect clubs. Protect them as community assets, which is exactly what us supporters think of them as. Do it now and do it properly.
This could and should be different now. It can be a catalyst. Give the Government reform real teeth. Don’t paint supporters who have dedicated decades of their lives to supporting clubs as the bad guys.
And pundits. Ex players. Journalists. Ask. Talk. Listen to the concerns of the people who have clicked through the turnstiles for generations.
Leveraged buyouts, debt loading, fleecing of fans, and proposed changes that take the sport out of sport. The killing of clubs through bad financial practice and management. The tearing up of tradition. The tax on loyalty. The squeezing of every last penny.
There was always going to be a tipping point. Today it tipped for many.
We should be better over here than turning to the tabloid of all this when the tabloids have stitched us up, too. Was some of it out of hand? Undoubtedly. Did most of it make a point that desperately needed to be made? Absolutely.
Don’t kid yourselves into thinking it couldn’t have happened in Liverpool either. Once upon a time similar protests and similar ideas around disruption of TV games were discussed. Then, like now, it was born of frustration, born of anger, born of the perennial pisstake that much of football has become.
Today was a message. A disruptive protest. A display of feeling. There is a reason why fan groups, supporter organisations, even fan media, have grown and grown in recent years. Many feel our voice has got lost, drowned out by the ringing tills; silenced by the clatter of the gravy train. So we’re working together to make it louder. It was on 11 today.
Now, surely, clubs, the government, football organisations; surely they have to listen, to engage, to have meaningful conversation; to involve the people who truly love the whole damn thing.
People haven’t done what they’ve done today lightly. They’ve done what they’ve done today because they felt it was all they had left. That’s the story behind the story.
Ask why.
Keep asking why.
And then you’ll know.
If only they did that. If only.
Up The Reds,
Robbo