In all the subjects covered by a blog the last thing I thought I’d be talking about is football! Well , a football club. Many years ago when my children were still in school in Bury I lived close by the ground. Every other Saturday I made sure my car was safely parked before the roads started to fill up. My son used to support Bolton rather than Bury but he was very young...and unless an adult consented to take him I would never have allowed him to go to one of the matches. But that didn’t stop him following every match listening to the cheers and groans coming from close by.
It must be a blow to everyone up there....supporting your team was almost tribal. The coloured scarves were worn daily...and the chanting or shouting on the day of the match continued for years, long after we’d moved to a slightly more upmarket spot.
I know how much the loss of this club will affect the whole town. I imagine that those football fans up there will now turn to :Bolton except that that club also seems under threat. I did actually go to some of their matches in order to keep an eye on my son who was still too young to attend matches on his own so sometimes, if the match was important I succumbed to the pleading to take him. The behaviour of young fans of both teams was not good. I must have been a constant embarrassment to my son as I tried very hard not to let him join in the yobbish behaviour of young fans.
That Gig lane is now closed is a shock...I don’t know what happens to defunct football grounds...but I hope Bolton doesn’t go the same way...I am not sure how it’s all happened except it’s clearly economic . I imagine my son would have been very distressed by it all and I can sympathise with all those up there whose lives have suddenly become very sad. I hope it’s not the end for Bury...but it’s looking as though it might be. Very deep sigh!
1 comment:
The reality of football clubs in the lower divisions is that they receive a much smaller fraction of the overall income than clubs in the higher echelons of the football league.
The greed on display from clubs who can pay millions for foreign players to keep their clubs afloat, is obscene and their contempt for their supporters equally so, for them, their supporters are a tribal, money making machine. Printing pounds by the millions for the club, exploiting their loyalty via merchandising and every higher ticket prices.
Clubs like Bury and Bolton are left behind in all of this. Their supporters are not rich, there isn't much glamour attached to the club, whose Glory days are long past. But they are a symbol in their community of being left behind, as much of the North West and North East, who don't have the sort of devolved power of other regions of the UK.
I don't really follow football, but can see the social unity built by a local club. In our area, several minor league clubs are well supported and attended, but the big local clubs dominate, in our case Charlton Athletic. But they are rooted in the community, providing support for the smaller local clubs and giving the young players that they develop, to train with them and to possibly join them in the longer term. They also run some local youth events on their training ground, providing opportunities for young boys and girls to play football and see where it might take them. They also have a Womens team, which completes in the National Women's league.
Not sure that Bury could work at that level. Strapped for cash, infighting between owners and supporters doesn't do much for their image locally, but I could see on my screen, local supporters in great distress at the closure.
Hopefully Bury will be able to continue in some form as a football club in the local minor leads, until they gather enough cash and impetus to get back into the Football League, but whether they'd want to be back in such a selfish organisation is a different question.
I wonder what the FA are doing to help. It seems that in Association Football, that the big clubs and the league exercise the power to suspend of dismiss, leaving the FA on the sidelines.
Shame on them.
Post a Comment