Punk Football

Jim Keoghan

Description

Punk Football tells the story of how supporters have made the incredible journey from the terraces to the boardroom. Initially intrigued by the rise of AFC Wimbledon, the supporter-owned club set up after Wimbledon FC's relocation to Milton Keynes, Jim Keoghan was drawn into a world in which ordinary fans have started new clubs, taken a stake in those they once followed and sometimes saved clubs from disappearing altogether. The fan-ownership movement has touched every echelon of the game, challenging the private model that has dominated football for over a century. There have been highs and lows, successes and failures, but through it all the dogged determination of fans to be more than paying customers has shone through. Regarded as a revolutionary force in modern sport, the story of Punk Football is one that will appeal to every fan who has ever thought, "I could run this club better myself."

Sujets

• Reino Unido
• United Kingdom
• Great Britain
• Royaume-Uni

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 04 avril 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781909626744
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2014 Pitch Publishing A2 Yeoman Gate Yeoman Way Durrington BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Jim Keoghan, 2014
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A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 978 1-90962-636-2 eBook ISBN: 978-1-90962-674-4
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 In the Beginning
2 Drowning in a Sea of Debt
3 Apathy to Activism (The Rise of Punk Football Part One)
4 From the Terraces to the Boardroom (Supporter Power Part Two)
5 Punk Football s Poster Boys: The Birth of AFC Wimbledon
6 Grecian 4000: The Exeter United Story
7 Life at the Top: Supporter Trusts at the Big Clubs
8 Manchester s Other United: The FC United of Manchester Story
9 Does it Always Work?
10 They Do Things Differently Over There: Supporter Ownership in Europe
11 Let s Hear it for the Board: The Owners Getting it Right
12 What the Future Holds: Reform of Football and the Supporter Trust Movement
Epilogue: AFC Wimbledon v Portsmouth, 16 November 2013
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
F IRST I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who agreed to be interviewed. Each person featured in this book has been exceptionally generous with their time and I hope that they re satisfied with the outcome.
Special thanks need to go to Kevin Rye at Supporters Direct for not only giving me a wealth of information about supporters trusts but for also patiently answering the many, many questions I have asked him over the past year. And also to Daniel Geey, who took the time to explain the intricacies of football finance regulation, much of which initially bamboozled me.
Several publishers have been kind enough to allow me to reproduce their work for which I would like to say thanks. These are The Guardian (interview with John Armstrong-Holmes) and Vision Sports Publishing (extract from Dick Knight s autobiography Madman ). I m grateful to Pitch Publishing for giving me this opportunity and would like to thank all those involved with the creation of the book. On a personal level, Emma and Jamie have proven to be a distraction that has been sorely needed, and one that I am eternally appreciative.
Most importantly though I save my biggest thanks for Nicky, without whom there would be no book. Not only have you read and re-read a subject area upon which you have no interest, you have also corrected my many spelling mistakes, supported me, and when necessary given me a much deserved kick up the arse (although a few more cups-of-tea wouldn t have gone amiss).
Introduction
G ROWING up in Liverpool, it s generally the norm that young kids choose one of two options when it comes to picking a team to support. To begin with, it was Liverpool who held attraction for me. Like lots of young lads, I was drawn to the colour red and at the age of four, that s pretty much all that matters. Coming from a family of die-hard Evertonians though, this was never likely to last. And sure enough, not long before the Christmas of 1980, I was pulled aside by my mum on one cold December night and calmly informed that Father Christmas doesn t visit Kopites. What child could remain loyal to their club in the face of such a horrifying truth? Certainly not me. I metaphorically crossed Stanley Park and switched teams immediately.
On the morning of the 25th I awoke to see the heap of presents at the end of my bed and felt not excitement but relief. I had been forgiven for my earlier transgressions and my mum s timely intervention had saved me from a lifetime of miserable Christmases.
Much later I of course learned that all this was a lie. Not only did Father Christmas hold no footballing prejudices, he was also a fictitious construct. From that point on the only morbidly obese, bearded alcoholic I would see at Christmas would be my Uncle Peter.
By the time I had realised the deceit it was too late. My attachment to Everton had become entrenched, the affiliation coinciding with an upsurge in my interest in the game and cemented by those all-important first experiences of live matches at Goodison. The dye had been cast and I was stuck with them, come hell or Mike Walker.
But what is the nature of this attachment? Through the writing of this book, I ve been pondering what it means to be a supporter. There is a great quote about fandom in Ken Loach s 2009 masterpiece Looking for Eric . Delivered during an argument between two Manchester United supporters, one of whom has semi-abandoned Old Trafford in favour of the city s supporter-owned club FC United of Manchester, the quote goes, You can change your wife, change your politics, change your religion but you can never, never change your favourite football team.
Is that always the case? I have certainly met plenty of people who have switched allegiances or, more depressingly, supported more than one club. But I suppose that for many fans the singular uniqueness of following a team for life does hold true.
Objectively though, it doesn t really make sense. As an Evertonian, as my dad never tires of telling me, I was a very lucky blue during my early years of following the club. Before the age of 12 I had seen Everton win two First Division titles, one FA Cup, one European Cup Winners Cup and a handful of Charity Shields (the latter still mattered back then). I was there for Everton s Golden Age, witnessing more success in those first eight years of support than some fans of other clubs enjoy in their entire lives.
After the age of 12 though, all that luck seemed to dissipate. I was there instead for the mediocrity of the early 1990s, the horror of our flirtation with relegation during the middle part of the decade and the return of mediocrity as the century ended and the new millennium began. I have now followed the club for 33 years and during the last 18 Everton have managed just one piece of silverware. And yet my love for the club hasn t ebbed. On a Saturday afternoon I care just as much about the result today as I did all those decades ago. It is why I was at Goodison when we clinched the league title against QPR in 1985 but also why I was there when we almost went down against Wimbledon in 1994 and again against Coventry in 1998.
But why should this degree of loyalty be the case? In every other walk of life people are changeable. We go off friends, we split from partners and we alter our perspective on issues that once mattered so much to us. But not when it comes to football. We also use our leisure time to do things we enjoy. If a film is crap, we don t watch it again. If we go out to a restaurant and the food is indigestible slop then there ll be no return visit. If you went on holiday and found not an idyllic villa with a sea view (as promised in the brochure) but instead a half-finished shack with views of the local dump then it s unlikely that you ll be going back there anytime soon.
Football supporters commit to disappointment, pay to watch crap and forego the opportunity to enjoy happiness elsewhere. And they do this year-in-year-out, repeating the same cycle like an imprisoned zoo animal. As fans, if we were all rational consumers then every one of us would follow Manchester United, reasoning that such a choice represents the best shot at long-term happiness. But while thousands of people have done this (including many who probably shouldn t), most don t. The reality is that most of us who choose to follow a team, do so in the knowledge that success will be rare. I moan about Everton winning just the one piece of silverware in recent memory but for the followers of many clubs, that would be more than enough.
In the course of writing this book I have met supporters from across the leagues. Some, like the followers of Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United, have known success at the very highest level. Whereas others, like those of York City, Stockport County and Brentford, have had little to shout about during their long histories. But whether a glory-drenched supporter of a big club or trophy-less follower of a lesser light, the commitment I ve encountered is as dogged at the bottom as it is at the top.
But for much of football s history in England, this dogged dedication never extended to supporters wanting to become involved in the running of the clubs they followed. Unlike in other parts of the world, such as Spain and Germany, the average fan in this country was happy to see him or herself as little more than a customer, albeit one whose loyalty verged on the pathological.
Whereas our continental cousins immersed themselves in their clubs by becoming stakeholders, members with a say in how matters were run, over here supporters were content to pay their money at the gate, watch the game and go home, without any thought to getting involved behind the scenes. Punters might have lived and died for their team and chipped in money now and then to get the club through hard times but that didn t mean they ever wanted to run it.
Over the past few decades though, things have begun to change. No longer content to merely be enthusiastic customers, some football supporters in England have started to view their relationship with the club differently. Although the initial stirrings of change were first felt back in the late 1980s, it was from 1992, when a handful of fans of Northampton Town bandied together to form England s