Take a Walk on the Right Side

Does the CEO at your club ever pay for a ticket & attend a game as a fan? Here’s where the US & the UK diverge. Read my latest FC Business magazine column on the leadership gap in UK football.

The recent re-mastering of George Harrison’s classic All Things Must Pass album (originally released in 1970 and reckoned by many to be the finest of all post-Beatle member solo albums) is a timely reminder of the Quiet One’s wisdom and spirituality.??

Right now, with many fans’ hopes for a glorious return to the match thwarted by a lack of staff, malfunctioning technology and a simple lack of preparation, I’ve realised that George’s oeuvre is deeply in-synch with the hopelessness of the football supporter.?Take his Travelling Wilburys’ hit ‘Handle with Care’, for example:

‘Been beat up and battered around; been sent up and I’ve been shot down. You’re the best thing that I ever found. Handle me with care.’

Somehow George manages to bring to life the injustice of it all: how the deeply rooted loyalty of the football fan is rarely ever reciprocated by clubs: the majority of whom depend on them financially and rely on them for the spectacle that delivers their commercial and marketing heft.

As the pandemic took hold, I thought that, at last, football would be shaken out of its default position of keeping fans at an arm’s length. I believed that clubs – especially those outside of the elite who depend on match day revenue for their viability – would use a season of empty stadiums as a catalyst to ensure that they would never be empty again.?And while I believe that every club CEO in the country genuinely wants things to be better for fans, I think the majority could use some help.

Readers of this column will know by now that there is a sustainable path to attendance growth: one that breaks the link between success and fuller stadiums. But has enough work been done to define Fan Engagement in those terms for club leadership? Do they know what it looks like at ground level? Has anyone ever outlined in terms of clear practices what Fan Engagement leadership is? Are we going to miss the opportunity of a generation and simply revert to type??

The present troubles are hopefully short-term issues that the return of students to university and other local contingency plans can address, so it’s not all gloom. Indeed, as George sings, ‘It’s not always going to be this grey.’

Any club CEO will tell you that the club / fan relationship is complex. Of course it is, but it’s equally important to recognise that fans’ frustrations aren’t just down to on the pitch matters, but a result of decades of indifference and scorn from the British Establishment.?

From the postwar mistrust of large gatherings of working-class men to the atrocities of Hillsborough and the closing of ranks that endures to this day, we can’t begin to truly engage supporters without first acknowledging the deep levels of suspicion that a century of derision has forged deep into our collective psyche. ‘The natural state of the football fan is bitter disappointment, no matter what the score’ wrote Nick Hornby.??

With the positive news about Fair Game UK and impending announcements about safe standing, the dignifying of fandom may not be far away and a CEO who leads on engagement will have a head start. This won’t only start to soften perceptions of the club, but it will also create a culture capable of breaking the link between success and growing attendances.

So where do we start? First by embedding gratitude into club culture: recognising that engagement is not about monetising the relationship, but seeking to understand, protect, and grow the emotional bond, as that is the precursor of a lifelong relationship.??

Let’s examine some of the other areas that chip away at fan confidence.?One is the level of service a fan receives from his or her club when they raise a query or point out that something has gone wrong.?Over the years I have begun to appreciate that the aggression associated with the achievement of sporting glory often unwittingly infects fan-facing parts of the club, with the result that those raising concerns receive a brusque response.?This, in turn, introduces a degree of reluctance to fans because, rather than being embraced by the club and recognised for their emotional investment, they simply feel like a punter or, worse, an interruption to things that are far more important.?

When people challenge me on this, I simply ask if their clubs ask them for feedback on their experiences after every match, for if they genuinely did care, this data would be important to them. Clubs can’t influence results on the pitch but when they are armed with a comprehensive database of what matters on a match day to the different groups of fans attending, they soon discover they can control (or strongly influence) the quality of experience offered. What better way to show that you care? The Hundred may not have been every cricket fan’s cup of tea, but on the morning after the game I attended at the Ageas Bowl in Hampshire, I received a thoughtful and well-designed post-event survey.?

Better still, every club CEO in this country should take the time, at least once a season, to live a match day as a fan: buy a ticket, use the website for info, tweet an enquiry on a match day morning, find a good place to park, talk to a steward, buy some refreshments, ask if they can try on a shirt in the club store and see the in-stadia experience from the perspective of the new fan.?You’d be surprised how few match day people will recognise a club CEO.??

It won’t surprise anyone to learn that this has been a key principle of the NBA for many years. In fact, one commissioner had every CEO attend a meeting, report their experiences as a fan to each other and share what they learned. Imagine what a difference that would make when the immediate perspective of any club leader is that of the supporter.

While the pandemic has tested football, laid bare some of its curious tendencies and exposed its frailties, the re-opening of stadiums has offered clubs a chance to embrace a new era of engagement. And all it needs is for a leader to step outside of the bubble and find what it’s really like to be a fan on a match day.

It is said that George Harrison’s Something inspired the Boy from Hoboken but, in actual fact, Frank Sinatra thought it was a Lennon and McCartney song!?We are all guilty of making assumptions without first bothering to check the whole story so, in this season of all seasons, I implore club leaders to be that fan, buy that ticket and start the new era with a positive step.