Week 44:  The Shits Just Hit The Fans (Outside London)

First the good news; some football fans are finally being allowed back in stadiums.

As I wrote this, the government – after already giving us the above news during the week – were announcing the tiers that regions will remain in until mid-December and some sports clubs could have between 2,000 and 4,000 fans at games from next month.

For smaller football clubs that are literally on their arses and the many people (me included) who earn a living from the sport, then the news couldn’t come soon enough. For fans, who are into their eleventh month of not being allowed into stadiums to watch their teams, it will be a welcome relief and a step towards normality.

Now the bad news. If you’re not in London, then the above almost certainly doesn’t apply. Talk about giving with one hand and taketh-ing away with the other. With most of the country finding themselves with the highest set of restrictions until at least half-way through December, the initial fist-pumping has quickly turned to shaking them in Whitehall’s direction.

But it suggests that things are at least moving – albeit slowly – in the right direction. With the added positive news around vaccines developed in the UK and abroad in the last week, then there is a sense that clubs need to plan for having fans back very, or pretty, soon.

The numbers at this stage are largely immaterial. It is, as Brighton CEO Paul Barber explained, more symbolic than a financial boost as, with a limit of 4,000 fans, most clubs will still be operating at a loss (there are talks ongoing between ministers and the footballing bigwigs to try and increase numbers going forward) but at least it will give them a chance to engage with fans and also demonstrate – again – that stadiums are one of the safer places for people to be. The numbers (whether 2 or 4 thousand) aren’t really viable for top-flight clubs, but for lower league ones, who might only have averages crowds of below 5,000 then it makes a world of difference.

So, let’s pretend for a moment that the announcements haven’t just taken away the carrot that had been dangled and think instead about the return of fans when it does finally happen. The fact so many clubs will be exempt just gives them a little more preparation time but they still need to get their arses in gear quickly.

Some will have been preparing for this for months, others are already saying they aren’t quite ready but either way, after nearly a year of everyone getting out of the habit we are suddenly in a place where things are changing quickly. And if there is one thing we can nearly all agree on, it’s that things have to change. Like many parts of football, a return to the way we were with fans just isn’t viable either.

At this moment, the focus at the moment will be almost 100% on safety. It has had to be.

The health aspect is crucial, obviously, and there are all kinds of suggestions about what will and won’t be allowed at stadiums. The closest to anything concrete is the SGSA (Sports Grounds Safety Authority) guidelines that were issued ahead of the September test events, and that the EFL expect will apply this time around. These included:

  • Not shouting, singing or celebrating
  • Avoiding hugs, high-fives and close contact with people outside your bubble
  • Remaining in your seat at all times whenever possible
  • Avoiding face-to-face contact with others
  • Potentially wearing masks at all times (the venues get to decide)
  • Using hand sanitisers
  • Using one-way systems and separate entry and exit points
  • Using markers for social distancing if queuing
  • Not eating or drinking (the guide makes no mention of alcohol and doesn’t say if food and drink should be banned, but states that clubs ‘weigh up the risks’ that selling refreshments poses – they did also suggest that pre-payment and at-seat delivery could be introduced)
  • Paying via contactless methods
  • No programmes or other printed material

It concludes that organisers (clubs) should watch out for and discourage ‘”previously normative behaviours” such as “chanting, hugging or sharing beverages”. I’m not sure how many football fans share drinks with, or hug, strangers to be honest but the whole thing makes going to a football game sound not much more fun than going for root canal treatment.

In fact, if my dentist sold Balti pies and let me call the referee a wanker every fifteen minutes, I think I’d rather go there instead.

But to comply with the rules, clubs are going to have to apply most, if not all, of these measures. So they are already on the back foot and even more so if they follow the guidelines to the letter and ‘discourage’ fans from doing the ‘previously normative behaviours’ they enjoy so much.

Yet I’d bet that relatively little attention has been paid to the match day experience right now.

But it is key. Brighton’s Paul Barber also said that the ‘lightest possible touch’ on the fans normal matchday experience would be important for getting their cooperation.

“It’s a football match and we want people to come back and enjoy themselves again,” he said. “I would hope that people would respect each other and look after each other, but we would hope also that they would sing and shout in all the right places as they have done for many, many years before now.”

So, how do we balance the safety aspects with the lightest possible touch? Here are some suggestions to how clubs could address this:

Fans Won’t Thank You For Making Them Safe

Have you heard those British Gas adverts on the radio? The one where someone talks in a voice that sounds like she’s addressing a classroom of five-year-olds and finishes by saying ‘and, of course, we follow all social distancing guidelines.’

So what? What are they going to do? Abandon all the rules and let the virus spread? Safety is a given and any establishment who ignores it shouldn’t be open to the public in the first place. So continually telling everyone how safe you are keeping them is pointless and eventually, irritating. It’s a given; in fact, banging on about it simply draws more attention to the way the experience is already so different.

It also runs the danger of misleading them, in the way that London’s Black Cabs have been found guilty of with their written claims in the back of their vehicles. No-one is 100% safe and there is always some risk, and when 4,000 people enter a stadium, it’s impossible to eliminate it entirely.

Some SGSA research (1,821 people who attended pilots for basketball, cricket, football, horse racing, rugby union and snooker) found that the fans had ‘high trust’ in the organisers to maintain their safety, so leave it at that. Putting clear information around the stadium and on the website will also give everyone an understanding and allow them to delve deeper if they want to.

But the majority will expect it and not want to hear repetitive messages telling them what not to do and what the club is doing.

And they won’t thank you for it either.

Things Are Different Now

So much has changed in the world in the last ten months and things will continue to be very different going forward. The most important step is to acknowledge this in the way that fans are treated.

Incomes will have been seriously affected, and less money will be available for leisure. Of course fans will want to come back but they might not be able to afford it. At the very least, they will be more careful with their cash, so trying to sell them items or increase prices are two ways that the ‘light’ touch can become an ‘unwanted touch’.

Also, remember that fans have been putting up with months of hardship and restrictions in all other parts of their daily lives and going to the match should be a form of escape from this, or it should feel like it’s a form of escape to them.

So consider how their matchday can make them feel this way, without removing any of the safety.

No one said it was going to be easy, btw.

Communication Is Vitally Important

The guidelines are pretty clear and they need to be, but that doesn’t mean that they have to be presented in the same way they are written.

They are full of ‘don’t do this’ and ‘don’t do that’ which will be tiresome for fans and hard for the staff in stadiums to enforce without causing further issues that could turn ugly.

So the way that communication is delivered (online, in person, over the PA etc) is crucial and a way that the whole experience can go one of two directions – great or awful – very quickly and easily.

Don’t can easily be flipped to a more positive message. Focus on what they can do and how they can do it but take care to make it friendly and informative; not condescending and confrontational. The use of the word PLEASE can go a long way but it’s not the only way that words can be added or reframed to completely alter the mood – for good or bad.

And simply adopting a mentality that ‘it’s for their own good’ and ‘if they don’t like it, stay away’ while the virus is still around won’t work. The long-term sustainability of clubs is just as important as the here and now, so creating division and making enemies of fans will have huge negative consequences long after things have returned to normal.

One of my positives of this damned pandemic was that, on the second week of lockdown, I was spoken to so badly by staff at the large Sainsburys store that I immediately stopped going there and saved – by a rough estimate – several hundred pounds since by shopping elsewhere. For Sainsburys, it was – with family groceries and petrol combined – a loss of about £4,000 and counting. I’ll not use them again now, so it’s not just this year but my lifetime value that they’ve really lost.

I wouldn’t compare football with food shopping when it comes to loyalty, but it also shows that people – and how they handle this – are so important and that losing a fan isn’t as difficult as it sounds.

Use This Time To Get It Right

Time will tell if this will be the green shoots we are praying for. In October, the 2,500 capacity limit re-opening was going to happen, then suddenly didn’t because of an increase in infection cases.

But if it does, or when it does if it’s delayed again, this period should be used as a time to work on getting it right in the longer-term. I’m not saying you can practice with 4,000 lives, but it does represent an opportunity to trial and improve parts of the safety protocols and match day experience in a relatively calm and manageable manner, before larger numbers provide a bigger and more difficult challenge.

Mistakes, or wrong turns, will be made but because it will be mainly season ticket holders and members, they will be forgiven a little more easily, especially with an apology and effective communication afterwards.

We’re all in this for the first time. No one is expecting perfection or that we’ll all get it on every occasion because this is the steepest learning curve we’ll have ever encountered.

It’s going to be tough, but it’s also going to be a new era in fan engagement and experience.

So good luck to all the clubs.

If they ever let you out of tier 3, you’re going to need it.

words Darren Young, D3D4 columnist