Elokobi connects with fans because he gets it – he knows football is for the people
GEORGE Elokobi did not like the message it sent when Maidstone United’s team bus split the crowds, rolled into the car park at Ipswich and a large set of gates closed behind them.
It made him uncomfortable to find his team within the sanctum of Portman Road and his supporters shut outside so he asked the driver to stop and summoned his players from their seats.
They all climbed off the bus, made their way back out through the mechanical gates and the Maidstone boss addressed the fans, thanking them for their support and urging them to ‘enjoy every beat of the day’, to ‘shout and scream their lungs out’ and take plenty of photographs and videos.
‘It is about them, our community, we are together,’ said Elokobi after beating Ipswich and rewarding those fans with an FA Cup upset they will never forget. ‘Without them there’s no Maidstone United. It was their day out not ours.’
Little wonder they adore him down in Kent’s county town, where they know how it feels to lose a football club. Elokobi gets it. Football is for the people.
Talking with FA Cup icon Tommy Hutchison last week, he made it clear the most fulfilling aspect of writing his book in 2022 had been to go back to some of the clubs where he played and reminisce with supporters.
Hutchison, now 76, revisited Alloa, his first club, Blackpool, where he signed his first professional contract and won promotion and the Anglo-Italian Cup, Coventry, where he played for eight years in his prime and is a bona fide legend, and Swansea, where he defied age, won the Welsh Cup and played in Europe at the age of 42.
One club he didn’t visit was Manchester City. It had been planned for this time last year, for the FA fourth round tie when Pep Guardiola’s team beat Arsenal, but it fell through.
Unlike other clubs, City were not prepared to pay his overnight costs when he came down from Scotland. They would pay his train fare but he would have to stay overnight and it would leave him out of pocket.
And, even though they wanted him to go into the lounges to glad-hand corporate guests they told him he would not be able to sign and sell his book, which was the whole point.
So, Hutchison said thanks but no thanks. He did manage Q&A sessions for a couple of City fans’ groups but was keen to share this story because he had been concerned some fans might think he was avoiding them.
Like Elokobi, he relates to the people. He connects. He, too, gets it.
When he finished playing, Hutchison worked for one of the regional councils in the Welsh Valleys delivering Football in the Community, using football to help and educate children that often came from underprivileged backgrounds.
He made such a success of it that Bristol City came calling. They wanted him to do the same in Bristol under a club banner, an opportunity he accepted but only once he’d made it clear he would not be part of a talent-spotting operation.
It had to be with no strings attached, using his football expertise to help children. Not on a clandestine operation to scout the best young players. These examples do not stand alone. Many clubs make a difference within their communities and consistently do outstanding work, much of it unsung because that’s the way it should be.
But every so often something happens to remind us where football’s priorities ought to lie. And often it is in the FA Cup, where everyone exists together in one competition.
Albeit a competition that has wound itself into a bit of a mess, with replays here and not there, VAR here and not there and 16 fourth-round ties spread across five days, kick-off times all over the shop.
Only four FA Cup ties kicked off at 3pm on fourth round Saturday, diluting the collective experience but maximising TV income, which is important because the rich clubs at the very top of English football refuse to agree a fairer division of the wealth so everyone has to scrap for what they can get.
What hope is there when Premier League boss Richard Masters dismisses nine-times champions Everton and twice European champions Nottingham Forest as ‘small clubs’?
Maybe it’s time to send in Elokobi to remind them all what really matters.