We football aficionados just adore a slice of misty-eyed nostalgia occasionally. How wonderful it is to watch footage of – or simply think back to – a bygone era from time to time, when pitches were like mud baths, and the players were proper hard men, sporting jerseys with sewn-on badges and socks rolled down round their ankles.
Goals used to be celebrated with a hearty handshake and a firm nod of the head. Of course, much has changed with the Beautiful Game in recent years, some of it obvious – pitches like bowling greens, fouls given for minimal contact, referees laden with technology and average players earning the equivalent of the GDP of small countries, etc.
But the thought occurred to me, as I watched goals from some matches from the 1970s the other day, that there was something else, something fundamentally different that was nagging me. Then it hit me: crowds.
Yes, crowds. In the good old days, grounds were fit to bursting with fans, swaying masses of folk pressed shoulder to shoulder on the terraces, loving every goal, every bone-crunching tackle and every goalmouth scramble. But somewhere along the way, that changed, certainly in Scotland. These days, it’s blindingly obvious the crowds have diminished considerably.
You don’t need a statistician in an anorak sweater to provide the evidence. Turn on the television, or get along to a match, and you see row upon row of empty seats, and lethargic ball boys taking an eternity to retrieve the ball from within acres of nothingness.
So, to repeat the question once famously put to George Best – as he lay in bed beside Miss World, supping champagne and drawing stylishly on a Havana cigar with wads of cash scattered across the duvet – where did it all go wrong? Clearly, the loss of terraces at certain grounds has had an evolutionary effect in reducing capacities, but the lower crowd sizes go beyond this.
The usual suspects – saturation coverage on TV; admission prices are too high for ordinary fans; the general quality of play has reduced; and – in Scotland at any rate – too many fans travel lengthy distances to support either half of the Old Firm as opposed to their local team. These reasons are all trotted out from time to time, and I guess they’re all valid points to some extent.
Either way, the fact remains that the game has lost its looks. It’s still narcissistic, but many of the fans just don’t fancy it any more. When football used to look itself in the mirror, it caught a reflection of Jimmy Johnstone leaving defenders spinning uncontrollably, or Jim Baxter playing keepie-uppie at Wembley. Now, it’s more likely to catch a glimpse of Cristiano Ronaldo sprawling theatrically towards the turf, following the unexpected arching of an opponent’s eyebrow.
It appears as if kids aren’t as hooked on the game as they used to be, either. Nowadays, how many youngsters excitedly swap football stickers with pals, and then meticulously slot them into their albums? How many plead with their mum to sew yet another badge on to the scarf before match day? How many even bother to play the game – pitches and public parks sit empty, the redundant goalposts facing each other with nothing in between.
So, what do the fans that have stopped going to matches do of a Saturday afternoon? Whatever it is, I think we should be told. I hate to think they’re doing something hugely life-enhancing, something soul-enriching, and are refusing to let us in on the secret.
More likely, however, is that they have fallen out of love with attending the game. Rather, it’s more likely that they while away Saturday afternoons in the living room, watching the final scores filtering through as Jeff, Charlie and the gang whoop and holler and gasp about not a lot. Do me a favour, guys.
As a long-suffering devotee to the cause of Raith Rovers FC, I recently had the honour of sharing a chat with team manager John McGlynn, and we discussed falling attendances at Stark’s Park. Despite a relatively successful season last year – Rovers narrowly lost out on promotion to the SPL despite being top of the league for most of the campaign – crowds are down on corresponding fixtures from 12 months ago by about 20%.
Rovers’ difficulties are sadly typical, as most other Scottish clubs are in the same boat, struggling to make ends meet as fewer paying customers go through the turnstiles. A quick glance at the weekend’s attendance figures tells you all you need to know – in the first division (where most clubs have predominately full-time players and have aspirations of promotion to the top league), the average crowd was a paltry 2,250. Even SPL clubs such as St Mirren and Kilmarnock couldn’t attract as many as 5,000 to their home matches.
This is a worrying trend, even allowing for the tough economic times where fans might have better things to do with their money than go to matches. Steps need to be taken to halt the decline, and for starters, introducing reduced admission prices must surely be high on the agenda for most clubs.