Our passion fans flames as clubs try to stay alive

YOU DON’T have to slide too far down the English footballing pyramid before you leave all the glamour and glitz behind. Long before you reach the foundations, the landscape takes a dramatic turn as surroundings become a little less comfortable and names a little less familiar. But while the facilities and abilities may offer less gloss, the passions stoked by these clubs burn no less furiously, whether your particular place of worship is the Emirates Stadium or Edgeley Park.

Over the past nine months fans have been absent from stadiums, yet never has the importance of football’s beating heart been more apparent. Now, their role in the future of the game is one asked by journalist Michael Calvin in thought-provoking film Ours [BT Sport].

The film opens with what should be a warning to many, one of the most depressing footballing tales of recent times; that of Bury, the famous old club and former FA Cup winners who found themselves expelled from the

English Football League in 2019 for financial mismanagement.

The impact of Bury’s demise on fans and the local community has been immense and the sight of the club’s old home, Gigg Lane, standing like ‘an untended grave’ is testament to that. However, not content to sit back and watch the team they loved disappear from the footballing map a group of fans got together and from the ashes a new one emerged, AFC Bury.

They are not the first to flex their muscles in a remarkable testament to what fan power is capable of achieving. Just look no further than AFC Wimbledon, another phoenix club formed by a determined bunch of devotees who refused to be kowtowed after their beloved Dons upped sticks and moved to Milton Keynes.

Fan involvement in the ownership and running of their clubs is growing, certainly in the lower tiers and now the involvement of the internet and formation of clubs like Hashtag United is influencing a new generation of followers and how they view the game.

It is not without its problems, as the story of Ebbsfleet and their ill-fated experiment with fan ownership proves. But as pressure grows on clubs without the big bucks of the top flight to stay afloat, then embracing new ownership models may, for some, be the only way forward.