Face upon face of transfixed fans
(And don’t forget the tea ladies!)
Stare at this photograph long enough and what emerges from behind the action of a tottenham v Manchester United match from 1972 — where the White Hart Lane tea ladies chat as the match goes on — is face upon face of transfixed fans, their attention solely on the action.
these are supporters — men, women, girls, boys — with their eyes on the ball. they are straining to see its destination. they are lost in the music of the game. It is an image that captures what it means to be a fan.
that term ‘ fan’ stems from ‘fanatic’, a derivation that makes sense when you hear of 21 Gateshead supporters travelling 774 miles to watch their non-League team play torquay on a tuesday night in December.
this sort of dedication could be labelled ‘ savage enthusiasm’, which happens to be the title of a new book by Paul Brown on the history of football fans. Brown takes his title from a report in the
Pall Mall Gazette of the 1888 Fa Cup final between West Bromwich albion and Preston North end at the Kennington Oval in London.
there were 20,000 there, up from 2,000 in the previous decade, as football’s popularity mushroomed. the report referred to interest in the result far beyond Kennington — ‘in dozens of murky towns in Lancashire, Yorkshire and the Midlands, to say nothing of Scotland’. By 1901 there would be more than 110,000 for the tottenham v Sheffield United final at Crystal Palace.
Brown explains that legislation aided the boom with 19th century Factory acts shortening working hours and curtailing Saturday afternoon labour.
In just 20 years, football had become an essential part of the British way of life. ‘ For several months of the year, football is the chief, and in some circles the only, topic of conversation,’ the Pall
Mall Gazette added. By 1968 arthur Hopcraft was able to write in his seminal book,
The Football Man, these opening lines: ‘the point about football in Britain is that it is not just a sport people take to, like cricket or tennis or running long distances. It is inherent in the people.
‘It is built into the urban psyche, as much a common experience to our children as are uncles and school. It is not a phenomenon; it is an everyday matter.’
those gathered at White Hart Lane in 1972 will have understood these sentiments. they would also understand the views of Daniel Gray, a Middlesbrough fan, who last year wrote, Saturday, 3pm: 50 Eternal Delights of Modern Football. Gray has a chapter called ‘Belonging’. Here he says of being a fan: ‘It brings contentedness unexpectedly. there I am, waiting for a bus, when it swarms over me. I become aware that, no matter what happens in the many departments of life, I belong.’
Gray’s chapter 46 concerns ‘the hectic Christmas schedule’ in which he writes: ‘Football just feels right at this time of the year, in the same way that emailing or eating salad doesn’t.’
that Christmas schedule is upon us, and attendances will climb. Geography affects some clubs more than others, with Plymouth argyle fans asked to travel 230 miles each way to Milton Keynes on Boxing Day followed by a 640mile round trip to Blackpool four days later.
‘away fans are vital in bringing colour and noise to our football stadiums,’ said the Football Supporters’ Foundation, ‘and clubs and sponsors can and should do more in making football more affordable... they shouldn’t take away fans for granted.’
as the great Celtic manager Jock Stein once said: ‘Without fans who pay at the turnstile, football is nothing. Sometimes we are inclined to forget that.’