Watching Football In Thailand
by Jonathan Fairfield
Thais certainly love their football. Or at least, they love the English Premier League, which is great news, for many expat football supporters who have chosen to settle in the Land of Smiles.
The truth is that few places offer a better opportunity to watch English football on TV than Thailand.
Here you can expect to find more EPL games on the box than you ever would in England. Whether it be via a cable TV subscription or by visiting just about any bar on a Saturday or Sunday evening (taking into account the time difference), the chances are you will be able to watch more than one Premier League game.
And I’m not just talking about bars in the big cities or areas popular with tourists. Even the smallest bars in the most far flung of places will regularly show games. Stories of tourists or expats, getting lost, finding themselves way off the beaten track, only to stumble across some bar in the middle of nowhere showing one game or another are not uncommon.
Domestic Football in Thailand
Now, watching all this English football on TV is great, but for many nothing beats actually being at a game, taking in the atmosphere of a match day and watching some decent football in the flesh.
The good news is that the domestic game in Thailand is arguably as popular now as it has ever been. And should you be in need of getting your dose of live football then a Thai Premier League game is the place to do just that.
Often overlooked, particularly amongst the expat community in Thailand, Thai football is very much on the up.
Many consider Thai league football to be very much in its infancy, but the truth is that league and cup football has been played here in one form or another since the 1960’s. However, it wasn’t until 2006 and containing only 12 teams, that the ‘Thailand Premier League’ was formed, which helped to lay the foundations for Thailand’s premier division as it is known today.
By 2009 Thai football underwent major rebranding and reorganization and it was from this point that Thailand’s top division was to be officially known as ‘Thai Premier League’, or TPL. This latest set of rebranding also saw the formation of the TPL Division 1 (Thai football’s second tier), as well as 5 regional divisions, containing between 8 and 12 teams.
Today, the TPL can boast rising attendances and revenues, ever improving stadia and of course, wildly passionate fans (more on these later!) Combine this with some good homegrown players and a small, but significant influx of foreigners then you have the makings of a pretty decent league. Comparatively speaking, it wouldn’t be unfair to say that in terms of the standard, the TPL is somewhat similar to England’s League 2 or Blue Square Premier League.
Attending a Thai Football Match
Where there might be a distinct lack of meat and potato pies and warm Bovril, what Thai football has in abundance is passionate fans, fanatical support and a fantastic match day atmosphere. It’s not unusual for supporters from both teams to turn up at the stadium several hours before kickoff, where they will start to sing and chant right up until the final whistle.
It’s fair to say that you don’t always find this kind of atmosphere at an English Premier League game, where ever increasing ticket prices have slowly but surely meant that the average man in the street can no longer afford to go an watch his team week in, week out.
This isn’t the case in Thailand, and as you can probably imagine, ticket prices for a TPL game cost just a fraction of what you can pay in England. And this isn’t in comparison to an EPL game either. Ticket prices in the lower leagues in England, relatively speaking, can be just as expensive as in the Premier League, where paying between GBP15 and GBP22 to watch a fourth or fifth division game is the norm. In Thailand you can expect to pay between 100 and 200 Baht (roughly between £2 and £4)
In England, particularly in the Premier League, the average fan has been replaced by a new breed, one where prawn sandwiches, corporate boxes and even a pre match champagne reception is all part of the ‘match day experience’.
One thing you haven’t got to worry about at a TPL game is bumping into anyone from the prawn sandwich brigade!
Let’s face it, it’s the fans that make football tick (or at least it should be) and what the TPL might lack in skill or ability on the pitch, the majority of Thai football fans are just as passionate any you will find in England, Germany, Spain or anywhere else for that matter.
Aside from a good atmosphere and cheap ticket prices, another reason to attend a football game in Thailand is the novelty (for fans for the UK at least) of being allowed to enjoy a nice cold beer in the stands during the game. It’s great, particularly in the warm weather and beats drinking Bovril any day of the week!
With beer (and sometimes whisky) being readily available in stadiums, you might expect this to lead to all kinds of problems amongst supporters, and being honest, occasionally it does. Recent weeks have seen a couple of incidents of bottle throwing and near rioting amongst sets of rival fans. However, don’t let this put you off; it’s far removed from anything ‘hooligan’ related that has been common place throughout most major leagues in Europe and incidents of this nature in Thailand are few and far between.
As with most places in Thailand foreigners are normally made to feel welcome and inside a football stadium is no different. Some clubs actually have quite large numbers of ‘farang’ supporters, especially around the areas of Thailand that has large expat communities.
Sounds Too Good To Be True?
So, Thai football is all about reasonably priced tickets, great atmosphere, ever improving stadia and drinking in the stands? It sounds too good to be true, right? Well, almost. There are some downsides to the Thai game and these can be found both on and off the pitch.
On the pitch, players can often to ground far too easily. Diving, cheating, simulation or whatever else you want to call it, unfortunately, is all too common in the TPL. This can then lead to a break in play, especially by the time a stretcher has been brought onto the pitch only for the player to jump back up to his feet moments later.
In the worst cases the whole flow of the game can be interrupted by players trying to gain an advantage through simulation. This whole problem is one that has sparked many a debate amongst expat fans and commentators from a number of different teams on Twitter, most notably between @swatcat_fc , @chonburi_fc and @BKKFootballBlog.
Another problem with the game in Thailand is the standard of refereeing. Now, what football fan doesn’t complain about the ref, its par for the course! But, it has to be said, the standard of refereeing at all levels of the Thai game is pretty poor. This combined with players diving all the time can sometimes ruin the game as a spectacle.
Off the pitch, it’s fair to say that things could be a little more organized. It’s not uncommon for a team to change the day of a game with very little in the way of prior notice. For example, a game might be changed from a Sunday to Saturday (or vice versa), with fans only being given as little as 24 hour notice, sometimes even less. It’s hardly ideal! As long as you don’t plan more than a week ahead, then you shouldn’t get caught out by some random fixture change!
Having said all that, the plus points to watching a live TPL game far outweigh the negatives and if you are a football fan living in Thailand who hasn’t been to a football game then you are missing out on a great, if not an altogether different, football experience.
If your town or province has a team then you should really make the effort to go and watch them play. Thai football is definitely on the up and watching a game live certainly beats watching a game on TV played in a league over 5000 miles away!
No comments:
Post a Comment