The sale of £5 tickets for the Manchester City match was the focus of much attention but depressingly one particular issue got more attention than most.
Like many football clubs, West Ham’s fanbase is not reflective of the local area’s inhabitants. Last weekend the club made an attempt to engage with the locals by offering subsidised tickets. A laudable initiative you might think. The reaction amongst many fans suggests otherwise.
Tickets were sold to various organisations including Barking Enterprise Centre, Active Newham, the England Handball Association and London County FA UEL Sports Dock (yeah, me neither). Many fans took objection to people who may not be that interested in football, let alone West Ham, being given £5 tickets when loyal supporters fork out as much as £50 per game.
This is a legitimate concern, but one that needs to be put into context. This is the first time this particular initiative has been used. "Kids for a quid" takes place several times a season and dates back years. The subsidies for Saturday's game pale into insignificance compared to that scheme.
Both systems have exactly the same objective: to engage people who might not otherwise go to games, with the intention of keeping them as lifetime supporters. So why has this new initiative come in for so much criticism whereas the other is almost unanimously accepted?
The answer to that is quite easily gleaned from a cursory look at West Ham forums and blogs where the use of the phrase "political correctness" is used enough to make even a Daily Mail reader weary. In short, some fans object to the presence of Muslims at the Boleyn Ground. This issue came to the fore when a group of Muslims apparently took time out during the Manchester City match to pray. It could be that they were praying for a West Ham win but more likely is that they were practising their religion.
One fan seemed especially confused by this: "I have read reports that the half time break saw sections of the stadium kneeling and praying." This poor fella seems to have an image in his head of the Chicken Run falling to its knees in unison.
"Surely this is a breach of health and safety regulations (or whatever they call it)," he continued, rather giving away that he's not actually that concerned about health and safety after all.
Bizarrely, one angry blogger took exception to the club’s use of the term "community spirit".
"How can you criticise something which is ‘community spirit’ influenced? To do so would surely be churlish at best, xenophobic or racist at worst." Presumably he was hoping the scheme would be called "Cheap tickets for Muslims" thereby fully validating his outrage.
My favourite trait of these "racists" is their use of "inverted commas": "The main problem is the club are trying to "integrate" this new support as they see it," commented one. I can’t even understand what he’s saying, let alone argue with him.
Some people protested that the club needed to better communicate what was happening. Indeed. Perhaps Jack Sullivan could have tweeted something along the lines of: "You know them Muslims you see on Green Street, well some of 'em are gonna be inside the ground for the City game, is that cool?"
In the interest of balance I should emphasise at this point that I am not "whiter than white" on this subject (inverted commas denote this is not a racist comment). I am easily irritated and pretty intolerant of others. If I had to walk around some dude praying on the floor while I’m trying to get a Yorkie and a coffee, my instinctive reaction is going to be one of annoyance.
But you know what? It’s not that big a deal. It would just be one of many irritations I experience on matchdays: people jumping the queue at Upton Park station; people using the toilet cubicles to smoke; the bloke behind me making xenophobic comments about the opposition players. Hell is other people, whatever the people. The fella praying to a fictitious God (I told you I was intolerant) annoys me no more than any other member of the general public. If he enjoyed the game and wants to come back, then good on him.
There are some legitimate concerns about what happened last weekend, including the location of the £5 seats. But the disproportionate amount of talk about praying on the concourse betrays the underlying prejudice behind many fans’ concerns.
"Only found out about everything in the concourse coming out the ground. Seriously bad darts. Everything I don't want us to become," said one person on the KUMB forum. I give him credit for being more honest than those who simply bemoan political correctness. But I would ask that he thinks twice the next time he chants "east, east, east London". That song probably isn’t for him.
Nobody comes out of this with anything to question themselves over.
ReplyDeletethe club gave £5 tickets for a cat A game that was televised.
also to a group that has zero affiliation to the club therefore making segragtion impossible (as proven by the fact they cheered for Man city), This surely breaks health and safety/PL rules.
The chaps praying, the defined prayer time for that day was already missed by half time and so another 30 minutes would have been fine?
Plus cheering for the other side and then congregating en- masse not sensible. If a group of city fans had done that they would have been ejected.
Last us lot, the fans, really we should not have abused them. That was wrong, I live in a free country and that means all of us,
sorry WITHOUT anything to question themselves over (typo)
ReplyDelete