Week 33: We’re Gonna Need A Better Boat

The season – for what it’s worth – has allegedly began.

In England, it started exactly as it finished with Arsenal winning at an empty Wembley, but that’s about the only thing that feels familiar so far. The rest is as different as it gets when it comes to a new season.

It’s been a case of ‘not concentrating on the league’ in the opening weekends as the EFL have gone with a quick burst of cup competition to kick things off and get some games out of the way in what will be a condensed enough campaign as it is.

With Saturday afternoon kick-offs and no extra time in the League Cup as well as the dreaded behind closed doors, it’s certainly not like it used to be although the nostalgia pains were sated a little when both of Walsall’s first two games ended in penalty shoot-outs, making it feel more North American Soccer League in the 1970s, except without Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and er, Steve Hunt.

On one hand, being eliminated from a cup before the season has properly started felt like a new low, even by the standards I’m accustomed to, but on the other, we are never usually still in this cup by the first week in September so maybe there is a positive in there somewhere.

So, this weekend, with some teams already out of one cup and halfway to being out of another, the league fixtures begin on Friday night when Watford host Middlesbrough, with a full Premier League, EFL and FAWSL programme on Saturday and Sunday.

Interestingly, Sky have launched their Super 6 game with a one million pound jackpot, up from the usual £250,000. More money than sense? I think not. This season threatens to be one of the most unpredictable ever so their money is probably safe. The knock-on impact of the extended 2019/20 season, the long or short (depending on which club you are) pre-season and the late transfer window, as well as financial constraints and salary caps (for some) make it almost impossible to call. Almost anything could happen.

Strange things already are. It’s a fair bet that on Tuesday night at 9pm, Accrington Stanley fans that were following their 7-0 drubbing of a young Leeds team in the EFL Trophy would have expected it to be the biggest and most eye-catching result of the night. They, and most of the rest of us, wouldn’t have expected anyone to score eight; least of all Sunderland, but they did just that against Villa’s U21 side.

It smacks of clubs being in different places right now, with conflicting priorities and caseloads and an inability to cover all the bases. ‘We are all in the same storm’ began a wonderful analogy that I saw on social media this week, ‘but we’re just in different boats.’

A level playing field, maybe, but certainly not a level ocean. Here is a brief A-D of boats out there – see if you can guess which clubs they refer to:

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A ircraft Carrier – so big and powerful that it barely knows it’s on water at all. Prefers the Persian Gulf and won’t need anyone to bail it out even if everyone else’s budgets get trimmed. Able to carry out several attacks in quick succession and sure to be one of the top guns this time around.

B illionaire’s Yacht – moored in London, attracts lots of younger ‘players’ from home and abroad and is the place to be seen right now. Undoubtably cool to look at but no one is 100% sure how well it will fare when it ventures into choppier waters. Such as Sheffield, for instance.

C ruise Liner – from the outside, it appears majestic with a huge capacity that should make it one of the big boys but get closer and you’ll see it’s also stuck in the port, treats employees badly, has a bad reputation and most people outside of Bournemouth won’t go near it at the moment.

D inghy – still afloat for now but only just and hoping for a break to begin taking steps towards recovery. While so many depend on it for their football fix, it appears a largely forgotten and under-valued vessel by the bigger operators and if it isn’t careful, it will not only be unable to ride out the storm, but might end up going right up Shit Creek without a paddle.

* answers at end of article

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And because some clubs are better equipped to withstand wave after wave of uncertainty than others, expect a few more freak results before things start to settle down as the months progress.

It was the same situation when last season recommenced (for some) and while a few sides had clearly used the break productively, others were less sea-worthy and some, Hull City the most obvious example, sunk like a stone.

The other major difference to the start of any other season is, of course, the closed stadiums; a vast sea of empty seats and terracing.

It’s not only a leveller but a potential game-changer in itself. It effects the way some players respond (rugby player, Chris Ashton, said recently that the abuse from opposition fans makes him play better) and some are lifted by the support of their own. A side that is getting well beaten might, in the past, look at their band of loyal fans and keep fighting for them if nothing else. Now, in what resembles a training session with full kit, there isn’t any such motivation and it’s easy to see how six, seven and eight goals can fly in as heads drop completely.

After a few months of it, it’s clear that we can’t go on like this. No matter how much the clubs and broadcaster try to provide a digital experience to make up for the emptiness around them, much of it has proved to be the short-term gimmick that it was always likely to be. There is simply no substitute for fans. Zoom viewing, drive-ins, cardboard cut outs, piped in crowd noise and everything else; all honourable attempts to fill a gap, but a gap that is ultimately too big to fill.

The necessity of getting stadiums back to somewhere near their natural occupancy levels isn’t just a financial one – although the risks of not doing so haven’t gone away at all – but also one of sanity; fans need stadiums as much as the stadiums need the fans.

And despite the doom and gloom portrayed by a media and scientific community, who have not missed any opportunity to instil fear in the population, there were some positive shoots, when it came to getting fans back, as the week began.

On Tuesday, Cambridge United had 862 of them there for their win over Fulham U21 in the EFL Trophy. 2,500 should have been attending their opening league match versus Carlisle on Saturday, but this will now be scaled down due to rising infection rates. Other matches, under the 1,000 threshold, are being used as test events in Scotland at the weekend too.

The wider aim to get higher numbers back next month already seems on the point of capsizing as the Government announced they will review the original plans. As one Tweet put it:

Don’t think it’s looking good for fans getting back into football stadiums next month. Really don’t know how some clubs are going to survive this. Grim.’

Indeed.  And if and when the small number of fans do get to their seats, it’s also very different from what they are used to.

No shouting, no chanting, no singing; no enjoying themselves at all, then? Some reading this will probably be thinking ‘isn’t that what it’s always like?’ but for a lot of fans and clubs, the whole matchday experience is about the togetherness, the noise and the craic that accompanies the game. They’ve even removed refreshment kiosks in most instances too, so basically, fans are asked to arrive at staggered times, bring photo ID, wash their hands (naturally), don’t eat or drink, sit apart, wear a mask and be quiet for two hours after which they will be ushered out in a carefully controlled, socially-distanced manner.

I get all the focus on safety, of course, but isn’t the above more or less removing every reason for going to a game in the first place? How many fans will want to do that long-term even if the numbers allowed in get closer to the club’s natural capacity? How many will jump ship?

There has to be better solutions out there but you sense the leagues and clubs won’t even get a chance to try as Government ministers, scientific advisors and Dominic Cummings call all the shots from Westminster, mostly oblivious to the carnage that’s about to happen or if not, indifferent as it doesn’t directly impact on their lives or that of their fat-cat friends. If Astra Zeneca had an F.C at the beginning or end, you’d see a very different response.

But when almost every decision so far has been accompanied by either lies, incompetence, both or a dramatic U-turn when it goes wrong, why would we expect anything different – or better – with their handling of this?

After the ‘oven-ready’ Brexit deal and the ‘world-class’ Track & Trace system we’ve been promised and seen crash and burn, the ridiculous ‘moonshot’ suggestion currently being floated – to test 10m people a day (fat cat rubs hands together and smiles like Dr Evil) and everyone entering a stadium in a matter of minutes – feels about as realistic as getting any customers under the age of 30  in JD Sports to wear a face mask.

But we can’t just be expected to keep treading water indefinitely.

Because the biggest difference of all with this new season might be that half of those clubs that set sail are shipwrecked long before it’s over. And that’s not going overboard.

* Answers: A – Manchester City; B – Chelsea; C – Newcastle; D – every club below the Championship

words Darren Young, D3D4 columnist