Sunday, October 07, 2007

I have just seen one of the most annoying and patronising adverts ever. It was for one mobile phoen company or another, I forget which, it's not important, essentially along the lines of you can now get premier league and champions league goals on your mobile for £5 a month. And it has hundreds of blokes all whooping for joy at the idea.

What a patronising load of crap..

Following a footbal team is utterly irrational, we all know it, and yes some of us, like me, go to extraordinary lengths to follow their team but this advert really wound me up. It was clearly made by someone with absolutely no idea what it is like to really support a club. I remember going down to Barnet one Wednesday evening in 1993 when the club through the gates open because it looked like the next day the club would go out of business. I stood on the old west bank among many others for what I thought would be the last time. The club though survived because the fans bailed it out. I've been on protest marches to save the club, I've spent hours getting people to sign petitions to keep it alive. And then I've cried openly in joy when they've been promoted.

That is what it's like to be a proper fan, it has nothing to do with this patronising idea that all we want is to see top class goals scored in souless grounds between two clubs we care little about. Being a fan is about sense of place and of community of sticking with it when times are hard and loving it when the good times come again. It's much like being part of a family. So I get wound up when my love of my little club is belittled and used for crappy marketing.

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