Sparks fly but it’s time supporters realise abuse will not be tolerated
IT was one of those head-shaking moments life throws up all too often.
As soon as the transfer deadline passed, Bradford City chief executive Ryan Sparks had to change his phone number because of the abusive calls and text messages he was getting from Bantams fans unhappy with their club’s transfer window.
Football is a passionate game and the day it stops being one, many of us will be finished with it. Thankfully, that day will probably never come.
Voicing dissatisfaction is every fan’s right, but phoning or texting abuse goes way beyond it. So does throwing things at a linesman whose decision you disagree with, as happened when Rotherham United were at Crewe Alexandra on Saturday.
When a team is losing – not that Rotherham were at Gresty Road – anyone who gets in their way can bear the brunt. Even the local journalists who cover their teams home and away do.
My colleague Joe Crann of the Sheffield Star tweets prolifically, especially about Wednesday, the team he covers, but has now pretty much cut out interactions, worn out by the constant arguments rather than discussions he faced on the platform. His readers are poorer for it.
Anyone who wants to tweet to tell me why they disagree with what I have written – in this column or anywhere – is more than welcome to, and people do. To all those who have, a sincere thank you. Not only is it not a problem, it can help to read other views so we do not get stuck in an echo chamber.
If you dish out criticism, it is only fair you should be prepared to take it so long as it does not stray into unpleasant abuse.
Everyone with half a brain knows the poison poured on Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and Jadon Sancho for missing penalties in the final of last summer’s European Championship was wrong, but last summer’s events has not made enough people stop and think.
It seems every time there is a live match on the television – which is most of the time – the name of the commentator and/or pundits are trending on Twitter and unless they happen to be the brilliant Ally McCoist, it is filled with people telling the rest of the world how bad they are at their jobs.
Debating their merits is fair game in a free society, but is it really necessary to copy them into the conversation to make sure they know how much you dislike them? And God help them if they happen to be female.
Treat fellow human beings like that and all they are likely to do is delete their social media streams. What does that achieve?
All this abuse is going to do is drive good people out of the game.
At a club with an absentee owner, Sparks is an important bridge to the fanbase, keener than most in his position to engage with them and canvas opinion.
Sparks makes bad decisions – like you do, like I do, like every chief executive who has ever walked the earth has.
Backing Bradford’s manager – a manager with a track record of success in the division Bradford are currently in – in this month’s transfer market is not one of them.
Some will argue appointing Derek Adams was a mistake, though few did when it happened, but having removed the head of recruitment to give him more power the failures of this transfer market and the successes belong largely to Adams. That is how it should be, and surely how the Scot would want it.
But whilst they can – and did on Tuesday – sing from the terraces about how bad they think the football his team plays is, not many fans have Adams’s mobile phone number, so Sparks gets it in the neck instead.
He would not be human if he did not at least think about engaging less with supporters more. Fortunately he is passionate enough about his club and how to run it that the thought will probably pass for now, but the more fans push at him, the more chance he will turn away.
In 2020 Manchester United “fans” attacked executive vicechairman Ed Woodward’s home, throwing flares and smoke bombs and chanting “he’s gonna die”. They were back the next year to protest against the European Super League. Supporters were entitled to be disgruntled at Woodward’s contribution to the decline of their club and to be furious at the idea for a breakaway league, but not to endanger him and his family.
How many talented wouldbe football chief executives will see the treatment meted out to Sparks or Woodward and decide to go into another industry where their judgement calls will not be held against them like that?
This country is facing a shortage of referees because of the violence – not just threats of it – in parks football and the verbal abuse hurled at even child officials. Who would see a coin, a piece of chewing gum or whatever it was thrown from the Rotherham section and sign up for a human coconut shy?
Referees, linesmen and women and video assistant referees can drive you up the wall but we would not have a game without them.
If we insist on pouring poisonous abuse on wellmeaning people who work in football out of their love for it and/or their club, we will end up with the people we deserve: talentless souls prepared to work in our game or at our club only because they cannot get a better job elsewhere.
All this abuse is going to do is drive good people out of the game. The Yorkshire Post’s Stuart Rayner on when football fans overstep the mark.