While Blackburn (1-0) and Watford (4-0) basked in the glory of tremendous away performances on Saturday, the home fans of Arsenal and Birmingham showered their team with boos. Now, I know there’s a lot to be said for loyalty in the face of adversity, but a proper chorus of boos is one of the great sounds of football that sets it apart from other sports. You would never hear Centre Court greeting the end of a match with raucous boos and heckles of ‘YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING!’ , the match umpire requiring a police escort to exit the arena, cowering from a shower of strawberries and plastic champagne flutes.
The fury is unique to football, and it is a vital component. You can’t have the euphoric, exciting highs of live football without a few lows to balance it out. In the case of Arsenal and Birmingham, their fans were releasing a fury that had been building in recent months. But, while there is a time and a place for letting rip, we all know some fans just fucking love a good moan. You know the sort – Mr Angry, who spends the game targeting some unfortunate player who can do nothing right, or by screaming about injustice every time the referee blows his whistle.
A particular favourite of mine is the fan who leaves early, disgusted with what he’s seen, but pauses on the stairwell to send one final, scathing critique towards the manager’s dugout, which is about 100 metres away. For extra points, a good jabbing of the finger to illustrate the point is a classy touch, before turning and walking down the stairs, shaking your head as you go. That showed ‘em.
Some fans just want to be miserable. I once overheard two fans sat next to me at a Watford game discussing the future of then manager, Malky Mackay, who had been linked with the role of assistant manager at Newcastle. Watford were on a very good run and were giving Cardiff an almighty hiding when I heard this brief exchange:
‘See Mackay’s been linked with Newcastle?’
‘Yeah. He hasn’t said he’s interested, though.’
[pause in the conversation while both fans ponder this thought]
‘He hasn’t denied it though, has he? Judas cunt.’
Despite having no evidence of Mackay doing anything disloyal, there’s no way that fan was going to let him off the hook on a mere technicality. So, even when the team are performing well, the bitterness is always lurking in the background, ready to take over. Sometimes it’s just Mr Angry, but when the team really stink, everyone gets involved, as they did at The Emirates and St Andrews on Saturday. Most managers understand this. When asked to comment on the boos that follow a disappointing result, the manager usually says ‘It’s understandable’ or ‘It’s normal’. They get it and, most of the time, they can deal with it.
It’s widely accepted that football fans are fickle, but relatively speaking, English fans appear to be regarded as being more patient than some of their European cousins. Italian players who embrace English football often talk about the positive relationship they have with the fans here, in contrast to the highly volatile and suffocating relationship back home. Watford’s ex-Roma defender, Marco Cassetti, recently made the comparison in an interview with the Independent. Talking about football in England, he said:
“Win, draw or lose, the people know you give everything to win the game and they clap their hands at the finish, not looking at the result. In Italy it is not possible, in Italy there is only one result – winning – or you are stupid.”
A bit of booing isn’t that bad, is it? It’s no flying pig’s head, or flaming Vespa. No one wants to admit that their team suck ass, but from the fan’s perspective, there are limits to the amount of humiliation you can endure before the fury gets the better of you (For me, it was Watford losing 3-0 at home to Grimbsy in the pissing rain.)
There will always be hysterical over reaction in football; it’s part of what makes it fun. No one has forced you to watch. If you actually stopped in mid boo to think about what you were doing, you’d really have to question what you were-BOOOOOOOOO! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
