ABSOLUTELY FAB-ULOUS
Graham Potter once said that “the most important relationship at a football club is the one between the supporters and the players”. For all his innovative, troubleshooting, possibly slightly dry characteristics as a tactician, GP is clearly someone who gets the perils of modern football. His interview and indeed use of the word “oligopoly” after the announcement of the European Super League not so long ago clearly spoke of a man tuned into the geopolitical landscape. And he is right. What you see on the pitch tends to reflect how things are behind the scenes. At that wonderful United game several weeks back, it wasn’t hard to see which fans felt the greater connection with their team and club.
When I first started watching Brighton and Hove Albion, the fans were stuck. The men in charge of their club were stood on the outside of the tent pissing very much inwards. We were circling the plug hole and action was needed quickly. Stadium sale, Hove race track, Gillingham ground-share, Sports Division. Buzzwords of a bygone era. One of my first ever games saw a 1-0 win over Carlisle rapidly followed by a pitch invasion. A clueless youngster, I just thought this was what you did when you beat Carlisle…
During this era, fan involvement in club affairs was less ‘awkward selfie with a frozen Pascal Gross’ and more ‘storm the pitch and literally break the goal frames’. It was a roiling political movement and it was organised, coordinated, often good-humoured and intelligent. It was actioned by a fanbase that had been pushed too far. It made us who we are and gave us an identity. A situation imposed on the only people that could reverse it led to the halting of a seemingly inexorable slide into the abyss of liquidation. It was real.
Recently our club Twitter commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Hereford game with a full stream of the match, replete with anachronistic Twitter content. “Love it, Robbie! 👏”, “Good afternoon, Kerry! 😎”. Had such things existed back then you feel it might have in theory been easier to rally support for our cause. But would there have been mysteriously anonymous bods with account names like ‘Ian Baird Supremacy’ or ‘Kevin McGarrigle Era’? Would the current celebration of ‘individuality’ have permitted the success of a fan-led movement that was really about the collective? Given how close we were to fading away it really does make the current state of fan discourse seem beyond trivial.
A full Football Twitter confessional would be enough to make even the most devout cardinal seek out a cleaning job at Number 10. But one of the insidious irritants of this world is an obsession with ‘content’. Young, often decent people who are just showing their passion for their club are reduced to expressing themselves with ‘content’ and the genuine belief that every thought that pops into their head is worth sharing to their audience. Arsenal fans destroying home furniture after an unfathomable collapse against Newcastle, head-smashingly stupid transfer rumours given the light of day, carefully curated spats with anonymous fans of rival clubs. And this is what social media does; an illusory sense of individuality empowers thousands to create a flood of vacuous, coiffured data. It’s just not real.
In this landscape, fan participation in the running of football clubs feels almost problematic. Enter BHAFC’s new Fan Advisory Board. On seeing the announcement of this initiative it is quite hard not to instinctively imagine a dystopian Love Island-esque series of glittery election campaigns. “I’m Gary and I promise that every time Joël Veltman scores I’ll stick my knob in a python’s nest! My wife has left. Please vote for me.” Putting the fun in non-fungible.
If properly executed, it is a good idea (the FAB, not the python thing…) The post-Bloom era will arrive one day and it will be far less scary with a quorum of good fans enmeshed in the organisation. They’ll need the stomach to deal with one of the more cantankerous fanbases; coordinating the think tank on whether wooden or plastic forks would be better in west lower, dissuading anti-GP types from burning bearded effigies after we finish 6th, assembling a focus group to discuss Solly March’s best position. They will also nonetheless have to listen to their blue and white counterparts. Putting ‘Proud member of @OfficialBHAFC Fan Advisory Board’ on one’s Twitter handle simply isn’t a good enough primary ambition.
This is a good idea if we get real Albionites with longevity in their minds and BHAFC in their hearts. It seems odd to say but what the fans have done for this club is facilitate the era of Dick Knight and then Tony Bloom. In the last 24 years we have never been truly fan-owned; instead, our owners have been fans. And in a landscape where content and stuff trumps all, it is an interesting time to welcome supporters into the boardroom. The brand-ification of human beings discussed above means that we’re no longer necessarily engaging with individuals. We’re forever in a state of potentially engaging with the followers and online sway that these people come with too. We should not see this as a chance to feed the bloated football Twitter cloud with yet more word salad. We should see it as a tangible body that is representative of and sympathetic to the wider fanbase.
Edward Woodhouse // @edwardwoodhouse
