Of clubs and their supporters
Oldham Athletic are in the midst of their latest early season crisis. Last season it didn’t really happen, not least because of Covid, since fans couldn’t get to games as we got one point from the first five matches.
Thinking back, I don’t understand why it didn’t happen the season before, as the squad and management then was surely worse then than it is this season.
My personal take, as a fan of over thirty years, but also as an economist, is complicated. I am very worried by the club sitting, yet again, at the bottom of the entire Football League. I was 11 months ago, and I am now. I was even more so two years ago. Back then we had a Head Coach with no Football League experience, and a team with next to no experience (see below, where 2019 is inflated by mid-season signings). We have Dino Maamria to thank for the miracles he performed back then.
But do I think protest is the right way to go? No, I don’t. I’m genuinely persuaded that the club has moved towards the right direction in the last two years — towards a more experienced coach, towards a more experienced squad, although goals are still at a premium (but not massively out of line with the division as a whole — Swindon, Rochdale, Scunthorpe and Leyton Orient have fewer, Carlisle, Forest Green and Walsall marginally more).
The recruitment this summer, I think, has been reasonably good. Good enough to see a mid-table finish, in all likelihood. But the club’s been hit by Covid-19, and quite badly too (and that will matter, worryingly, research suggests). And there have been administrative errors.
Do I thus write this to tell the fans protesting off? No chance. I’ve been there and I’ve done it, and I do get it (even if my fellow fans think I write like I’ve been frozen for 20 years). I’d like the fans not to impact the team on the field, but I’m also realistic. When you’re sat in the stadium watching a terrible performance — or even an OK one but we’re 0–2 down after 13 minutes, it’s natural to vent frustration. The players expect it, everyone expects it. It’s life.
And when the team has won just 6 home league matches in 18 months, protests would be even more natural.
The other reason I’m not convinced about protest is that it’s counter productive. I don’t think it’ll achieve the aims the fans have in mind, and if it does, what happens then? There’s no sign of an alternative buyer for the club on the horizon, nor any sign that the current owner will sell up. Fans have been angry for almost all of his tenure, so why do we expect any more anger will make any difference?
The only outcome of continued protest is to make it harder for the team to operate effectively. Protest should be outside the 90 minutes of the match, and indeed the time it takes the players to leave the field at the end. It doesn’t mean protest need be ineffective, but it does mean that the protest won’t hinder the team.
The reason I’m writing is that I think nonetheless that the club and the fans have responsibilities. The most important of these should be maintaining our league status. For every Hartlepool or Tranmere, there is a York City, or a Darlington. With just two promotion places, gaining re-entry back to the league would be very difficult.
League status cannot be relinquished, and it does require the fans to be on board, backing the players. Protesting in ways that ensure the team isn’t affected.
But many fans feel unable to get on board given what’s happening at the club. It’s no longer the case that the vast majority of fans are prepared to give the club the benefit of the doubt on things.
Football clubs have to be secretive organisations by their nature — they compete in a highly competitive industry. But that means that clubs have to be given the benefit of the doubt by their fans. And clubs have to earn the right to expect the benefit of the doubt. If they are not, then rumours circulate, ill will circulates, and the atmosphere becomes poisonous. As it currently is.
Administrative errors look sinister, and even a Covid outbreak (when players all around the country are testing positive thick and fast) looks suspicious.
So, from here, how can Oldham Athletic win back the trust of its fans?
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of fan actions invading the pitch, boycotting home matches, avoiding spending any money with the club, and being highly suspicious of everything going on at the club, it is ultimately the club that will need to take the first steps here.
My own suggestion would be weekly open forums where fans can attend and ask questions — not unlike the session with Keith Curle on the eve of the new season. There will surely be questions asked there for which answers can’t be given, but there will also be a lot that can be answered. One hour a week.
The simple existence of such events would allow those answers to get out in the open. It would given a human face to the club at the current point in time, and might reduce some of the tensions on social media directed towards the club’s account. I believe it would enable more fans to begin to again give the club the benefit of the doubt. A crucial commodity.
There’s no reason to think that because we’ve lost our first four, we’re doomed to relegation. The most likely finishing position of teams that start with 4 defeats is actually 18th (and 16th for those that lose their first 5).
But at the moment the problems are much, much more than just on the field. A football club cannot exist without its fans, just as its fans cannot exist without the club. Both need to come together and try to mend that broken relationship. And quickly.
