I'll be honest, I didn't plan to write another blog until the end of the month. But the actions of some football 'fans' over the weekend have prompted me to write this. It won't be a greatly insightful piece I wouldn't imagine. More the ramblings of someone who isn't thick enough to run onto a football pitch.
The incident that has really prompted it is of course a Birmingham City fan running onto the pitch in Sunday's 2nd City Derby and assaulting Aston Villa's captain Jack Grealish. Now the first thing to say is that it was a shocking a horrible thing to see happen. It was the 2nd of three high profile incidents last weekend. Firstly a Hibernian fan confronting Rangers captain James Tavernier and an Arsenal fan running onto the pitch in Arsenal's 2-0 win over Manchester United and pushing Chris Smalling. Now we do see from time to time an idiot here and there run onto the pitch. That in itself while bad is nothing new. These incidents though seem to be slightly different. The Grealish one in particular for me stands out as a really bad sign. For starters the reaction to it, some (I must stress that word) Birmingham fans applauding off the moron who has been jailed and banned from all grounds for ten years. Now this isn't a criticism of Birmingham fans I'm sure most were disgusted by the actions of the moron but lets not pretend the applauding didn't happen or that there weren't songs about it going round afterwards. I have to say at this point Grealish's reaction was fantastic and he's conducted himself very well during and since the incident and he deserved to score the winner. My biggest concern about it is that many similar minded idiots from all around the country will see that and think "Oh well I fancy a bit of that" and we could well see other incidents blighting football. Another thing that I found odd was the cries of "We've never seen anything like this before". Let's rewind back to October 19th 2012. Sheffield Wednesday V Leeds United live on Sky. Chris Kirkland the then Sheffield Wednesday goalkeeper was assaulted on the pitch by an invading Leeds United supporter after an equaliser. It was a shocking act to see and the reaction was similar although I do feel this incident with Grealish has got more coverage, why that is I don't know. Maybe it's just the speed of social media now being quicker than ever that it feels that way. I remember saying then that more needed to be done to stop people who want to do such stupid things. That season also saw crowd trouble between Millwall fans in the FA Cup semi final with a lot of people calling for points deductions and fines to try and stop these incidents.
For me I don't know how much a points deduction would realistically do, do these idiots who go to football matches to cause trouble really have the best interests of the club at heart? I don't know if they do to be honest. Lets say Wednesday got a points deduction for the idiot who threw the bottle at Jack O'Connell last Monday. Is that fair of the players, the Chairman or Steve Bruce? No I don't think it is. Bringing it back to Birmingham, would it be fair on the rest of the fans and the players and management at St Andrews if the were docked points for the moron who attacked Grealish? To me no but at the same time it's hard to think of many other possible punishments. Would a fine really do that much? OK maybe in the case of Birmingham who already face a possible points deduction for breaching FFP rules in the summer, it might have more impact at a club like that who need to watch the pennies but an Arsenal, are they going to do more to stop people running on the pitch if they got a fine? I'm not so sure.
Again I must stress this isn't me calling out Birmingham or Arsenal or Hibs for not controlling their fans. It's a football problem on the whole. It's also a society issue, is the uncertain future of the country having an impact on how people behave? In my opinion yes. Politics is something I tend to avoid talking too much about because you'll never find a discussion that doesn't end in arguments and people generally being daft but lets be honest. The country is a bit of a mess at the moment and peoples' behaviour is reflective of that. Football should be a fun and safe hobby for supporters but at the moment we're staring down the barrel of hooliganism becoming a massive issue like it was years ago. For me I'd rather we didn't see a return to those days, I'm sure 99% of people agree. We all enjoy the banter football rivalry can bring, we all I'm sure have a good laugh when rivals lose or don't achieve. We all have to take it on the chin when it doesn't go our way. What we shouldn't have to put up with is morons who want to spoil the game for the rest of us.
Thanks for reading,
Tom
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