Leicester City reported a couple of weeks ago that over 22,000 supporters had chosen to renew their season tickets despite the club’s ignominious fall into the third tier of English football. This has since been supplemented by the sale of an additional 1,208 season tickets making a grand total of 23,500.
Yes, there have been some who have not renewed. 79 per cent have renewed and this is lower than recent seasons. However, the vast majority have. How can this be accounted for given the lower level of football on offer next season at the King Power Stadium? It is true that the Foxes are expected to win most games in League One and winning games will attract fans. That, however, is not the real reason for the display of loyalty.
One would expect a sizeable drop-off in support if following a football team was equivalent to other forms of entertainment – movies, the theatre, comedy clubs and so on. After all, you would be less likely to go and see a movie or a play if it had bad reviews.
Regarding support for a football team, however, as equivalent to other parts of the entertainment industry is a grave mistake which misunderstand the nature of fandom. In the first place, many genuine football fans (me included) can take or leave matches that do not involve their club. When their club is involved, how they fare is ridiculously important. It is a form of obsessive love. I can relate to David Conn when he describes his possession of a season ticket (for Manchester City) in his book Richer Than God as ‘my rock of permanence, friendship and escape from the puzzles of real life’.
How your team is performing, then, is only one aspect of being a football fan. Indeed, the success of your team may not be a particularly relevant justification for turning up to watch week after week. It is more about group loyalty to a cause you, more often than not, did not choose to join but participate in because you grew up in a family loyal to a particular team.
Support for a particular team, then, is a product of a prior identification and sense of belonging rather than from the pleasure derived from watching skilful players, great matches or even from your club winning. There is, indeed, a certain badge of honour in following a team that is failing abysmally.
For the hardcore football loyalist, in the novelist Julian Barnes’ words, supporting a football team ‘consists of a swirling mix of stupid love and howling despair’. And he should know. He’s a devoted supporter of Leicester City. Indeed, going to a match for the first time, one could be forgiven for thinking supporters hate being there. Anger, outrage and sullen discontent are the major emotions on display. There may be plenty of that on display at the King Power Stadium next season.
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