THERE. IS. NOT. A. MEDIA. AGENDA. AGAINST. YOUR. FOOTBALL. CLUB.
Feels liberating to write that down. Yet however cathartic, this article will fall on deaf ears. Because fans know. The agenda [against your club] is real.
One of the first responses to this week’s EFL Guardian Football Weekly podcast: “Why on your review of the Championship today is there no mention of Millwall? If they win their game in hand they go fifth. You pick out Hull in 12th place for praise. Could it be the usual media bias perhaps?” Another: “Bolton level on points with Derby and not even a mention of us in this week’s pod, ridiculous.”
Who genuinely has the time or inclination before a podcast to tell the panel not to mention Millwall? In case of emergency break the Hull City glass.
Last week, when Javier Tebas accused the Premier League of financial doping after January’s ridiculous transfer window, the Guardian posted the story with a picture of Pedro Porro in a Spurs shirt. Big new signing accompanying a story about transfers appeared innocent enough. “The outright injustice of the Guardian using Spurs as the poster boys for financial doping is unreal,” began one thread. “Can’t believe this drivel comes from a so-called chief football reporter @seaningle. What a hypocrite. Is he a Chelsea fan?”
Poor Seany. Perhaps worth pointing out the writer doesn’t choose the photo, or write the headline. But too late – the conspiracy had legs. “They hate us. But I love it.” “We are always used for negative news,” before descending into accusations of antisemitism.
Perhaps the picture editor had a million things to do and just stuck any old transfer on the page, as opposed to carrying out the Guardian-wide policy to attack Tottenham because of their Jewish links – as someone of Jewish origin who follows Spurs, seems an odd one to align myself with.
It is impossible to keep up with all of the constant and totally contradictory media agendas. We are simultaneously anti-Man United, anti-City, anti-all-the-other-Uniteds, anti-top-four, anti-everyone-out-of-the-top-four, anti-foreign, anti-British. We are constantly trying to sell your players to bigger clubs, commentators aren’t excited enough when you score, pundits aren’t angry enough when your winger gets fouled.
And of course the media are a monolith – living together in one big media house. We receive our daily agenda and then go about pursuing it. We are completely interchangeable. Barney Ronay and Richard Keys are the same person. Search and replace Philippe Auclair with Jim White, control C Micah Richards, Control V Martin Keown. It makes no difference.
The media are neither homogenous nor competent enough for any of this to be real. Football journalists are football fans – they support teams. It’d be weird if they didn’t. If you support a team, they probably have a rival. It’s not my dream for Peterborough United to be successful – there, my agenda in full – but I’m capable of acknowledging when they are. Agendas and rivalries are different things.
Have certain football fans always been this defensive – so convinced that everyone is against them? Is it perhaps the natural consequence of the tribalism that is an essential part of the game?
We all consume football from a position of bias. You can create any conspiracy if you look only through whichever skewed lens has been handed down to you. But if we’re all watching with different biases, by definition there can’t be a universal agenda.
Social media has catapulted this sense of injustice to wholly ludicrous levels – extending club loyalty beyond all realms of sensibility. Opposition club’s player is accused of sexual assault: hang him before the trial, it’s typical of that club. Your own player faces the same charges: shout innocent until proven guilty – point at a rapist somewhere else. Your owners torture people: yeh, well so do other people and you don’t mention that – you couldn’t possibly actually care about torture, you just don’t like us. It’s like murdering your family and suggesting it’s not that bad because Jim at number 26 did the same thing. It is possible to support your club and not support everything done in that club’s name.
And conspiracies don’t just come from @Bob20482312, pic of a Bull Terrier in their bio. There are prominent fan accounts that play up to it. Still it is hard to know how much of this paranoia is confined to smartphones and laptops and how much is actually discussed on the supporters’ coaches, the delayed trains and on the terraces.
Years ago – during the (unofficial) Soccer AM glory years – we chose to adopt CFR Cluj as our Champions League team. We travelled to their home game with Manchester United – a classic European away day. High spirits in the town square, away fans happily mixing with locals, Cluj taking the lead and quite a few of the United fans turning and threatening to beat the shit out of me. I distinctly remember one fan spending virtually the entire second half telling me that “Everyone is against us. Everyone has an agenda against Manchester United,” his conviction unwavering.
Before the Blackpool-Cardiff playoff final in 2010 I said on TV I was supporting Blackpool for no other reason than I liked Ian Holloway – Sky received a flurry of complaints from people in Wales threatening to cancel their subscriptions.
People get a sense of togetherness from feeling unloved, feeling put upon, feeling it’s us against the world. The truth – that almost no one has time to be bothered – is perhaps harder to stomach. ‘No-one likes us we don’t care.’ Might be more accurate to sing: ‘No one cares about us, and we wish they did a little bit.’
I apologise for mentioning/not mentioning your club in this piece.
