- Arsenal Transfers: 4 July. AFC sign twins!
- If it wasn’t for the world cup these people would still be alive
By Tony Attwood
“England fans treated like plankton with kick-off shambles” says a headline in the Telegraph, and although not of a right-wing persuasion, for once I agree with them. I don’t watch country internationals very much, and care even less about the results, but I do get annoyed when Arsenal games are moved around just to help the people who like to watch international matches.
The question is simple: why not sometimes move international matches for the benefit of those of us who like to watch league games? Not only has no one answered that, I have never seen anyone ask that.
League football is the lifeblood of our game, so why does it keep on being moved around for the convenience of Uefa and Fifa? Why are football supporters treated like plankton, so we can be gobbled up with matches moved around at the whim of advertisers?
Matches are announced for a weekend, and then we have to wait to see which games are going to change – and then when to. The old days of everything at 3pm on a Saturday have long gone, because games, as you will of course have seen, are spread out through the weekend. We might have friday evening, saturday lunchtime, saturday 3pm (for the left over games not moved) saturday 5.30, saturday 7.45, sunday lunchtime, sunday 2pm, sunday 4.30pm… and you never quite know which one each game is going to be on, until the match approaches.
Of course it is our dedication to support the club that gives the clubs the power. Yes, I do go and watch other clubs play, because I enjoy football matches, but my heart and soul are obviously only with Arsenal, and it is that which the Premier League, and through its refusal to stand up againsts them, Arsenal itself, that allows this nonsense to happen.
And that is a shame because the Premier League was supposed to be the clubs taking power for themselves. Now once again the clubs and their players are the play things of Uefa and Fifa..
Now I guess it doesnt matter too much to people who live close to the ground, and who have a regular 9 to 5 job, Mondays to Fridays. And I am not being dismissive of such people – there are a lot of them, they are the essence of our economy. But the fact is that such people know how their life is working out.
Plus, if they have no children, they won’t have to worry about family duties at certain times of the year. And if they have no parents who they visit on a regular basis, then that gets rid of another key issue Throw in annual holidays taken in June and July, and Christmas obligations that fall on Christmas day and never impinge on 23 December or Boxing Day, and that’s that taken care of too.
But for real people with children and parents and maybe grandparents too, who want to see their family at the particular time of year to share in the joys of Christmas, it’s a case of, can we wait until the TV schedules for December come out as there might be a match on.
And when said like that you can start to see how appallingly as football supporters, we are treated at the time of world cups too. Now I know that we have always thought of ourselves as fans and most certainly not customers, but maybe it is time to think on that again. Because most companies don’t treat their customers as badly as we get treated.
How would you feel if your local convenience store, or local supermarket or whatever sometimes opened on Sundays and sometimes didn’t. Sometimes closed down on Sunday afternoon and other times didn’t. Sometimes it was open for a special event on Boxing Day and other times not…
I guess with football most of us have got so used to this now that we hardly notice, but really, which other customers are so messed around in this way? If I want a haircut I select a time and date, and that’s it. If I want to watch a film at the cinema, I know what time it starts… if I want a meal out with some friends we book the table for a set time… they don’t phone me back and say, “That 3pm saturday haircut is now 1230pm sunday – take it or leave it.”
But football no, it is moved, moved and quite possibly moved again.
And why do we put up with this? In essence it is for one reason, and that is because supporters count for nothing. The TV companies, and by implication the clubs, know that we are committed to our clubs, and so we can be pushed around any way we like..
We are messed around like this because we are supporters. Because we are committed to our club. While I might go to one supermarket for my groceries, I might (and indeed I did) change for a while when that store closed down for redevelopment after somebody lobbed a home-made explosive at it, for reasons which now completely escape me.
But that was a rarity – even in my neck of the woods we don’t get home-made explosives very often (and it was a long time ago when there was a background of certain events which made the whole area a lot more prone to what the media called “terrorism”).
I like flexibility in life, and would hate to live in a country in which everything was shut on a Sunday – always. But the current level of flexibility is just too much. After all it is all very well having a draw for the third round of FA Cup and seeing that Arsenal are at home, but that doesnt tell me much as I then have to wait to find out if that games is going to be at 3pm on Sautreday, 4.30 pm on sunday, or lunchtime or …. well it will probaly be varied again next season.
Why can’t we just have set dates and times, all neatly laid down at the start of the season, and then stuck to? After all, I can tell you now that in the coming season Christmas is going to be on 25 December. Does that help with the scheduling?
