We football fans are odd creatures, we proclaim our support till death for our team whilst we sit idly by and watch as our clubs are turned into entertainment commodities existing only to be bought and sold by foreign sports conglomerates, human rights abusers, American schmoozers, Baltic losers, Russian oligarchs, real estate sharks, Arab fake sheiks, local businessmen on the make, ego trippers and jumped up pantry boys- all in the name of profit. Don’t be fooled that football is the new money tree, it’s not; you are. We’re also happy with extended shopping trips on Saturday afternoons as consistency in kick off times is now as rare as winter snow, as Australian owned TV stations compete with Irish based international sports TV companies to show top class ..........
We have also acquiesced with having our terraces taken away from us. What's worse is that we even paid for it, as gross police incompetence led to the Hillsborough disaster. The government's knee jerk response saw the introduction of all-seater stadiums funded with huge wads of taxpayer money. The interior of most stadiums now resemble a police state as stewards march around in high visibility jackets ready to pounce on anybody committing the heinous crimes of standing or smoking in the open air.
As ticket prices become comparable with a short haul flight to the continent or a tank full of petrol many fans have simply reeled at the prices and have said no more. Those willing and able to cough up are increasingly becoming older and sedated with comfort and their own personal plastic seat. Moreover they have no interest in recreating the roar of the crowd, now sadly lacking in most increasingly bowl shaped football grounds, sorry I mean, stadiums. They are also indifferent to the frustrated demands from the manager for the fans to do what they used to be good at, acting as supporters supporting the team, rather than acting like bloated corporate entertainment seekers.
Recently a group of Bristol City fans have had enough of the loss of tradition and identity that modern football has done away with in its grasping for extra money and ill-thought out re-branding schemes. It started with an attempt to reclaim the Eastend, the traditional end for Bristol City fans had been long thought lost due to occupation by away fans and a bodged renaming operation involving some player nobody remembers watching and the now inevitable crass corporate sponsoring.
Despite reneging on promises that the Eastend would reopen to all city fans, and some spectacular flip flopping from club officials, the campaign has been partially successful with a new life being brought into the stand through a combination of West Country Wurzeldom and continental influences leading to the FORZA EASTEND movement by the Eastend Ultras. New songs, rekindling of old songs and fan organised events such as the large flag displays have turned Ashton Gate from a basket case into a ground much appreciated for its authenticity. The Eastend itself has also been converted from an underused stand which provided away fans with an opportunity to increase their racket inside its cavernous emptiness and low roof, into the beginnings of the
12th man for Bristol City. These beginnings were cut short by clumsy attempts by the police to smear the stand following their inadequate supervision of the away support at key games during the season, and complicity by the club unwilling or unable to understand the positive potential of city fans and the Eastend.
In order to provide an evidence-base behind demands for greater access to the eastend, City fans have conducted their own qualitative research. Ok the sample size may be small at 62 but that reflects the limited nature of current access to the Eastend with its approximate 260 [?] season ticket holders and current ticketing restrictions. The sample size is therefore generalisible to the population of Bristol City fans watching Bristol City from the Eastend. Cross sectional multiple choice surveys of this nature may have methodological limitations in that voluntary participation and convenience sampling does not allow for randomisation. A likert scale may also have allowed for greater depth to supporter reactions to recent events. However despite this there is little need for statistical analysis, as the results suggest certain common themes that are overwhelming and will ensure that the campaign for fair access to the Eastend will not go away.
It is clear fans are not happy with the club for implementing ticket restrictions. They also feel that the club was not open with them about season ticketing arrangements and that they do not receive equitable treatment with fans in other parts of the ground. They also feel somewhat let down by supporter organisations.
The answer to these frustrations are clear; open the eastend, stop treating city fans that want to go in there like second class citizens; and get lasting solutions to safety issues that are not subject to the incompetence we have seen so far at Ashton Gate this season.
Let the Eastend continue to regain its rightful place at the heart of Bristol City.
In the Future
Looking at the long term & turning to the new stadium and, hopefully, for old timers like me, The New East End (No doubt Sponsored By Blackthorn, for example) with the Three Lions Car Park at the rear (Only kidding Sean!!) wouldn't it be great if City became mould breaking and market leading by introducing safe standing & singing areas with all the HSE concerns correctly addressed??
There's no contradiction and there would be no inconvenience to our friends who prefer the corporate match experience, in fact they would gain from not having some "Herbert" who wants to stand in a seated area, jumping up and down in front of them blocking their view.
A football club both thinking of and catering for all its fans? Isn't that the future we'd all like to see? It's the one that I make no apologies in asking for. It's a future that's sustainable and good for the game in the long term and a club that'll be a major part of my life long after the current crop of players & manager, with all respect to them, have long gone.
I won't be in there, but Football MUST cater for ALL of its fans, not just those with thicker wallets if it is to have any future beyond that of a souped up TV game show.
Someone once said, be nice to people on the way up because you'll meet them all again on the way down - Never was that more true than at BCFC where times are good, at present, after years in the Doldrums. As sure as eggs are eggs, we'll be back there one day, hopefully, not for a long time. At that point, the fans will give the club the same consideration as the club affords them on the way up.
Food for thought or a pipe dream?
You judge and time will tell.
FORZA EAST END- FROM THE DOLMAN
I'm not an East Ender currently although for many years, as a younger man & boy, I was. Stories from that era are probably best left for the pub and not the Internet where men are men and most of the women are as well!!
Suffice to say, I've done my shift, home & away and the people that need to know, know and the others don't matter.
I've been a City supporter for forty two years, so it really has been man and boy and in that time I made the right of passage that saw most of my contemporaries & I move from the East End to the Park End then the Enclosure (All Standing) and then up into the Williams (Grandstand) and finally, I have, As befits A Grumpy Old Man, "progressed" to The Dolman where I now sit in Block C, paying £455 for the privilege of having my view blocked by those people with such wonderful houses that they can't wait five or ten minutes longer to go home!!
If there are standing areas at Ashton Gate, you won't find me there save from an odd trip down memory lane when I feel nostalgic. The club has been a major part of my life for many years and many of my best friends are City fans who I wouldn't have met and don't very often see, apart from Matchdays. I was born in central Bristol, not BS3, but South Bristol feels as much of a home to me as St Judes. I'm always made welcome there by "proper people"…….once again, if you're one of us that needs no further explanation.
Being a football fan has changed in recent times and there's no doubt that the quality of TV Sport on the whole is vastly improved from what I endured as a boy. A few grainy highlights of Test Cricket on Sportsnight with Coleman from the other side of the World has been replaced with ball by ball commentary with fourteen cameras showing every event, in every sport, from every continent and from every conceivable angle. It's great and, when you compare it to the price to attend even a lower league football match, it's really affordable……..and there's your problem.
A whole generation of fans could well be lost to the game and instead of my Uncle Dean taking me to Ashton Gate so I could watch live football, Uncle Dean sits little Shane down in front of the box after he's just played out a cup final on his computer to see his Manchester based heroes take on Pompey with a 12.00am kick off, live in the comfort of his own home. Not for Shane, the stop start bus ride from Old Market on the old football specials
It's not the same. That lad may never watch his local team and I can still remember the smells & noises from that time and all the characters that inhabited places like Crackers Corner. They were mainly harmless eccentrics and that football is short of them now, saddens me. Not that many of them would even be let in these days and once in, there's be no guarantee of the staying put!!
One thing that football is in danger of losing is what was once described as the "terrace fan" until Lord Justice Taylors report was sacrificed on the Alter of Sound Bites and just came to mean "All Seater Stadia!" Football decided that it was standing that was unsafe, not bad behaviour irrespective of the accommodation and so places like our beloved EE became seated areas.
Albeit seated as an afterthought, in a right hurry because grounds would close if they weren't all seater……Of course, none ever were as long as they promised a new stadium as football, once again, fudged things to suit the bigger clubs especially.
That same selfish attitude still prevails and people in this country aren't allowed to stand in football grounds-Why? Well, it's dangerous, isn't it?
Is it? Well, it can't be dangerous abroad because, whilst they got rid of terracing on the European mainland, they thought outside the box and came up with what was actually needed. Safe Standing & sensible segregation, not thousands of empty seats due to segregation & affordability.
Forza EastEnd
