by Peter Reeves
27th June, 2016
During my Chonburi v Chiang Rai Utd match report last week, I considered attendances in the PLT. Therefore, I thought it would be a good idea to look a little more closely and this time focus on the fans. They were there in numbers at Pattaya Utd v Chonburi on Saturday night. Those that turn up, spend their money and look forward to their ‘matchday experience’. What is this matchday experience? Well it falls into 3 categories. The match itself over which the management of a club don’t have direct control (we hope) only that they hope the team put on a performance win or lose. Secondly the fans experience inside the ground and finally the external social experience. Numbers 2 and 3 can overlap a little.
Most reading this I suspect will be from a European background. Used to football run and played a certain way. We supported our teams for a variety of reasons, mostly geographic, and had our hopes and dreams. Experienced elation and despair. All a part of being a ‘fan’. But that was ok it was all part of being associated and identifying with your club. Note I say club, not team. The team is just the visible manifestation of the club, important as that is. For me it was a kid climbing over the fence to get in at a very undeveloped QPR with school friends. But I also went to Watford again with friends.
My first matches at maybe 6 or 7 were down the road at little Ruislip Manor FC. About 30 of us watching in total. I was ‘dragged’ as a little one to Highbury in the late 1950’s and early 60’s because my uncles played on the wings for the Gunners. Then later when I went to work in Holland, to Ajax. Could never quite put my finger on why I love it there so much. I loved the way they played, the way I was treated at the stadium, the packed house, the facilities, the attitude of the fans, the deafening support from the ‘F’ side. Football can take you to another place. A wondrous place.
In later years when the ‘ArenA’ was opened it went up a level. Still the same hopes and dreams. The elation and sometimes despair, but you always felt like you belonged. Beating Barcelona 2-1 in the Champions League with 10 men, who then and probably still are the best team in the world. Unforgettable. We all have these memories at whatever level we watch our beloved football. Working in the game only gave me a greater understanding of what it should mean to be a fan as I looked at it from the other side of the fence. When I came to Thailand I wasn’t expecting much. Didn’t really think about it.
We live within a few kms of the ground so I thought lets go and see Nakhon Ratchasima. The football was quite poor, but the fans amazing. It was non-stop. I went a few times, not because of the football but because of the fans. The matchday experience. I realized we are all the same wherever football is played. We all invest in it emotionally, personally, and financially and we hope the club recognizes that and appreciates it and acts accordingly in giving us a good experience. It brings friends together, closer together, gives you stuff to talk about. It is important.
I don’t go anymore. I began to realize that the attitude of the club to its fans was bad. You can get in with a knife but not a drink. Buy a more expensive ticket and get told to go somewhere else. The issues began to mount. The fiasco with Buriram when 30+ thousand were let into a stadium that holds 24, 000 to ‘get a record’ ignoring safety and the welfare of fans. Not for me. A badly run club, I am not giving them my money. My neighbour, a Buriram season ticket holder who doesn’t even go anymore. This season they are not doing so well. I’ve watched and seen a half empty stadium. Fans deserting. Not being given what they want and it’s not just success, though it does help. I began to realize it was not only Chonburi and these 2 clubs. I’m not going to spend pages referring to issues at other clubs. We all know.
Now I just feel sorry for the fans. Denied what we have had in the past. Oh they get excited, experience the highs and lows, the reaction of Sharks fans on Saturday showed they care, but they have never really felt ‘the experience’ I suspect. Never ‘belonged’ to a club. Yes they turn up with their shirts and scarves, bang their drums, girls scream, men shout, but somehow it’s not the same. They are supporting a group of players. They are not having the ‘club’ experience. So why not? Well simply put the owners who run the show in the majority of cases are not in the game for the game. They are in it for what personal profile it gives them. Therefore they don’t care about the fans. They don’t even seem to care that only 2 or 3 thousand turn up. Money comes from somewhere to keep it all going (sometimes). So where do the fans fit in? Nowhere. Not considered it seems.
Are Chonburi fans happy? It appears not though tonight they go home with a smile. As an official from another PLT club told me “we have a hardcore that always come, a good following” Now he watches as his good following has dissipated from 10,000 to about 2-3,000. I did warn him what can happen, but he knows best. I, like many of us, have seen it happen before. He couldn’t see it, his blinkers got in the way. But look at Aston Villa and Newcastle. Two clubs in crisis but still getting 30,000 and 40,000 minimum respectively every week. Yes, some are season ticket holders but in both cases those season tickets were purchased on the back of bad seasons before, but they still bought them. They love their clubs if not the owners. Would that happen here. Of course it wouldn’t because fans support the team not the club. Bad results, people don’t go. Aren’t the fans the customers? In any other business treat customers badly and you have no customers. No customers equals no business. Doesn’t seem to matter here.
I look every week at PLT clubs with 2000 people watching. Someone must have very deep pockets keeping the club alive. Are the owners intent on making their clubs better, filling stadiums, offering a good day out for the family. Doesn’t look like it. So these ridiculously loyal fans, those that still go, are denied what we had. And the ones that have just given up and don’t bother anymore? I feel sorry for them. If they are Thai they don’t really know probably never having had the ‘club’ experience. If they are Europeans they do know but they are probably just fed up with the way the clubs are run.
Fans need to ‘feel’ the experience as well as watch it and even if you are not a fan the atmosphere can sometimes overwhelm you. I’ve had it at Aston Villa and Newcastle both in dire straits now. At Glasgow Celtic and at Portsmouth, the Nou Camp, PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord. At Wembley with Ajax, Barcelona, Crystal Palace and Brighton, at QPR and many other places. Overwhelmed by the emotion of the occasion, the experience. We all have the memories don’t we. Matchday experiences. Will it ever change here at club level? Can it change?
Well it could but it’s going to take one brave person to start it all off and be the first. In 1965 an 18 year old player marched into his Chairman and said “this is not bloody good enough”. We don’t train properly, Have to work in the daytime, have no juniors, where are the fans? If other clubs can do it why can’t you? It changed at his club and then changed at all the clubs in that country because it had to. League champions the next year. In 1967 he did the same thing with the country’s governing body. Marched in one day unannounced and said “this is not bloody good enough”, players are not paid for playing for their country, don’t get time to prepare for international matches, there is no recovery time given, you don’t care about the national team-sort it out. They did.
World Cup finalists a few years later. That’s what it will take. It could be a fan or group of fans, could be a player, could even be a coach. Someone. Someone who cares enough about it, has access to these owners and recognizes that things could be so much better and has got the courage to go in to the Chairman and say “this is not bloody good enough” (maybe without the bloody). This is what we can do. Why don’t we do it? I want to do it. I want to make this the biggest club in SE Asia, not just Thailand. I want the stadium full. I want the fans to love the club. I want this clubs name known all round the world and I want you to lead us and it’s going to cost you less than the salary of one foreign player. Will you do that?
Is there someone, anyone, with the courage of that 18 year old- Johann Cruyff- here? For the benefit of these wonderful fans at Chonburi and the fans all over Thailand I hope so. I really hope so.
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