How the "matchday experience" helps explain protests at LCFC

[The Fosse Way]

We don't usually post full articles elsewhere but making an exception for this due to the feedback we're getting about it and the current circumstances around the club. We're also speaking to people organising protests to try to help bring their ideas and activities into one place for people who don't use messageboards or particular social media platforms.

 

And it saves you a click...

 

Link here for anyone who wants to share the article: https://www.thefosseway.net/viewpoint/leicester-city-matchday-experience-january-2025

 

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Why are Leicester City fans starting to protest? Take a look at our “matchday experience”

 

If you want to get a feel for fan sentiment on a matchday, you don’t need a repetitive ‘Tell Us About Your Matchday Experience’ email or endless surveys.

 

Walk amongst them. Down Raw Dykes Road. Or Saffron Lane. Or up Tigers Way on the traipse back to the train station. You’ll get a palpable sense of the mood and overhear snippets of debates and discussions that you’d never be able to fit on a PowerPoint slide in a boardroom.

 

Walking away from the King Power Stadium on Saturday, as we passed the away end, I heard a Fulham fan ask with enthusiasm to what I assume was his young son: “Did you enjoy that, then?” The excitable answer came back. “Yeah!”

 

It’s becoming a stadium at which away fans make memories. Where young fans of teams without a fox on their shirt deepen their enthusiasm for the game and their club. While young fans of our team often can’t get through the door.

 

Did I enjoy that, then? It got me thinking…

 

You get to the stadium and you’re greeted by queues. Queues to be frisked within an inch of your life by a Showsec steward. Queues because this overzealous security was brought in on a whim, or because people can’t get through the couple of turnstiles with the digital tickets the club has forced upon them. If you’re one of the many who objected, you swipe the piece of plastic that the club charged you £25 for, which is actually no different to the piece of plastic the club gave you for free the year before, and you’re into a soulless concourse.

 

You might need the toilet. If so, you squeeze your way into toilets that haven’t changed for 20 years and which would not look out of place in a prison. You pass up the concourse catering because it’s of no creativity and little quality, or because you’ve taken a vow not to spend this season after the £25 ‘Loyalty Tax’ in the summer.

 

By being in the ‘stadium bowl’ as the club like to call it, you’re actually one of the privileged ones. Either you have a season ticket, or you’ve paid for an expensive membership and extortionate one-off matchday prices. Or you might be a ‘friend’ of an existing season ticket holder and they’ve bought one for you. Hardly a great ticketing policy for bringing in the next generation or ensuring the underprivileged community of Leicester can get through the turnstile.

 

At least they can get a sense of what it means to be a fan and see their heroes they only ever get to see on television, or on their Playstation, at those meet and greet sessions the club puts on during school holidays though, right? Wrong, there’s a £10 wealth filter applied to those as well.

 

Anyway, now you’re in, you’ve got that light show. Or some black boxes that shoot out flames. A spectacle to which no one reacts and which no one ever asked for. Those boxes of fire don’t come for free, in the same way the army of Showsec stewards don’t either. It’s also a spectacle that plays out to largely empty stands as everyone is still trying to get through the frisking outside.

 

The teams are out and the new stadium announcer - the one who really wants you to appreciate the wonder of ‘Number 16, Victor Kristiansen’ and emphasises every syllable - As. If. He’s. Announcing. The. Heavyweight. Bout. Of. The. Century! – is doing his thing. The one who replaced the old guy who’d been there years because he got a little over-enthusiastic in his questioning of Jamie Vardy about his contract at the trophy parade at the end of last season. The one announced with minimal notice and three buses of Thai influencers and hangers-on. The ones who’d been on the pitch with those Showsec stewards guard en masse after the Blackburn match.

 

The team getting ready to start on the pitch aren’t wearing the same shirts as those few kids in the crowd who have been able to get into a stadium where the clientele have gone stale because of the club’s ticketing policy. Why not? Well, that would be because the club opted for a cryptocurrency gambling partner on the front of the shirts.

 

When the billboards aren’t encouraging us to retire in Thailand or drink the horrid Chang beer we’re subjected to in the concourses, they tell us BC Game’s message is ‘Stay Untamed’. Reading about their financial struggles and claims of not paying winning customers online will tell you that BC Game very much live by their mantra of being ‘untamed’.

 

A quick wave of your ‘Honesty Flag’ – you know, the ones you see people walking away from the ground with down the numerous roads away from the stadium – and we’re ready to start the match. Again, those ‘Honesty Flags’ don’t grow on trees – no one asked for them and they’ve contributed nothing to the atmosphere.

 

The same can be said of the clappers the club still produces in volume every home game. The ones you see strewn over the roads and pavements as you walk away from the ground which somehow comply with the club’s sustainability policy which doesn’t allow the handing out of leaflets that signpost supporters to Mental Health support charities during World Mental Health Awareness Week.

 

You know this because the atmosphere once the game gets going is patchy. And it emanates from two sections where there are no honesty flags but heaps of authenticity. The two sections that stand and sing, which at many other clubs would have been encouraged into one combined safe standing block, do so in what one could now assume to be ‘unsafe standing’. No safe standing at Leicester City though, because the club has been reluctant to take any meaningful position on safe standing for years.

 

The treatment given to those in Union FS who operate with a mantra of ‘Leicester helping Leicester’ and run charity fundraisers and foodbank collections for the local community as well as putting on tifos that inspire civic pride? Spurious bans, handed out for minor indiscretions. Contemptuous and suspicious communication from club suits - if they engage at all, that is.

 

Down on the pitch, it’s a squad of players that just isn’t quite good enough. A team managed by a man trying his best to undo the terrible work of the man who preceded him. Who prioritised Premier League experience over ability and resale value or the ability to grow with the club. We’re treated to the declining days of Jordan Ayew and Bobby Decordova-Reid.

 

Halfway through the game, as the team emerges for the second half and prepares to commence a second half where another away section is likely to rejoice until the 90th minute, we’re treated to a mini video on the screen of past glories.

 

Again, a video no one asked for, which has no positive impact on anything and is seemingly just the result of a few overpaid and out of touch people sitting round a table scratching their head about how to drive second half atmospheres. “They seem to like that pre-match video, why don’t we just do like a short version of that?”

 

Up in the director’s box is where the finger of blame should be, and finally is, pointing.

 

A director of football who cannot sell a player for money but can buy one like Oliver Skipp at £20million. A director of football in such deference to an owner, whose attendance at games is sporadic at best, that he daren’t sit on the front row of the director’s box without him there. A director of football who has handed long and bloated contracts to the likes of Jannik Vestergaard, Danny Ward, Hamza Choudhury and Decordova-Reid that will choke us financially for years.

 

A chief executive who we can’t be entirely sure is still there. Last heard of in 2016 and whose approach to communicating with the club’s fans (sorry, customers) seems to be: “Don’t ask questions. Just trust me, bro”. An equal partner in the supposed ‘internal review’ that happened after the most avoidable and disgraceful Premier League relegation, but which delivered no discernible change. She will, at least, attend the Fan Advisory Board meetings, however, to stay tapped into fans’ concerns. The problem with that? The control the club exerted over the FAB selection process to temper any difficult voices getting onto it.

 

And ultimately, an owner who has overseen the failings of both of these people. An owner who, if judged on his record from the day he took control, rather than based on the goodwill afforded to ‘the family’ or ‘the owners’ because of his dad, would be shown to be woefully short of the standard expected. An owner who, even in the aftermath of that disgraceful relegation, could only muster a letter (and I know it was likely written by the communications director, but he still must have signed it off) that essentially said: “Stop being mean to me”.

 

The tide is turning. The fans are stirring. The Foxes Trust has doubled in membership. There are protests being mooted for prior to the Arsenal game. The chants are getting louder and changing from just being about Jon Rudkin, to ‘the Board’ (for Board, see Aiyawatt, Whelan and Rudkin).

 

This is not entitlement as casual observers might try to characterise it. This is a culmination of years of bad decisions, of being treated like rubbish and with contempt by our club.

 

On Sunday, the organiser of the pre-Arsenal protest explained that they had done so under the anonymity of a username and using a VPN. They were fearful that the club may ban them but still wanted to mobilise something to show the discontent amongst the fanbase. At first it sounds absurd to need to do that, but then you hear about the taps on the shoulder fans get from the communications director about criticism of the club online.

 

I’m writing this piece under the cover of anonymity as well, for the same reasons. But then again, why should the club care? I’m just a number. Unfortunately for them, the numbers are slowly, but surely, finding their voice, getting together and getting organised.

 

--

 

The Fosse Way

Fosse Friday - free weekly email newsletter every Friday at 11am UK time

Edited 21 January by The Fosse Way

[Houdini Logic]

TBF I couldn't give a sh*t the Matchday Experience if we were winning and had a solid strategy to stay in the Premier League and build a squad/club for the future. There's so much else to protest against, I think going after Honesty Flags, Clappers and the new announcer is kind of missing the point at this stage

Edited 21 January by Houdini Logic

[splinterdream]

Me, my dad, nephew and bro-in-law went to QPR game, first game (and only game) I've bought this season, I'd told them to hold lunch as there's a new fan park with food, we got down there 45 minutes before kick off, and they wouldn't let us in despite the band playing and people in there. 

[Parafox]

9 minutes ago, Houdini Logic said:

TBF I couldn't give a sh*t about any of that if we were winning and had a solid strategy to stay in the Premier League and build a squad/club for the future. There's so much else to protest against, I think going after the match day experience is kind of missing the point at this stage

 

I think if you read through it again, there's more to it than just that bit.

[UniFox21]

1 minute ago, Parafox said:

 

I think if you read through it again, there's more to it than just that bit.

Match day experience is just the tip of the iceberg isn't it? You can see how out of touch it all is by seeing how fans are treated coming into the ground

[Houdini Logic]

6 minutes ago, Parafox said:

 

I think if you read through it again, there's more to it than just that bit.

Yeah fair point, I switched off halfway through and stopped reading tbf 

[Vlad the Fox]

Just a couple of points, did the old announcer really get binned off for that interview? I thought it was just something people had decided on here. Secondly I’d not heard about the club contacting people criticising the club, disgraceful behaviour, would love to know the details if anyone would post them. 
 

Good article though bringing together the smaller details circling around the main issues. Hate the search before you go in, it’s taking football back to the 80’s. 

[foxinsocks]

3 minutes ago, Vlad the Fox said:

Just a couple of points, did the old announcer really get binned off for that interview? I thought it was just something people had decided on here. Secondly I’d not heard about the club contacting people criticising the club, disgraceful behaviour, would love to know the details if anyone would post them. 
 

Good article though bringing together the smaller details circling around the main issues. Hate the search before you go in, it’s taking football back to the 80’s. 

What are they looking for?  Do they find it ever?

[Wink84]

4 minutes ago, Vlad the Fox said:

Just a couple of points, did the old announcer really get binned off for that interview? I thought it was just something people had decided on here. Secondly I’d not heard about the club contacting people criticising the club, disgraceful behaviour, would love to know the details if anyone would post them. 
 

Good article though bringing together the smaller details circling around the main issues. Hate the search before you go in, it’s taking football back to the 80’s. 

It's quite dystopian and worrying if this is true. The fact someone has to use a VPN and anonymous profile to post something for fear of being banned is crazy. 

[Spudulike]

Keep hearing that FoxesTalk posters are out-of-step with match going fans. I'm getting the feeling that many complainants never actually turn up for matches. Am I wrong 

[jayfox26]

33 minutes ago, Houdini Logic said:

TBF I couldn't give a sh*t the Matchday Experience if we were winning and had a solid strategy to stay in the Premier League and build a squad/club for the future. There's so much else to protest against, I think going after Honesty Flags, Clappers and the new announcer is kind of missing the point at this stage

Disagree, I think it's good that all areas where the club have failed are highlighted. If we just go with the narrative of Cooper was rubbish and the players are rubbish etc, which we all know is a huge problem and the state of the squad has happened over many poor transfer windows, then from the outside it can look like we are "entitled" even though we are far from that. The club is a disgrace in every single aspect right now and whilst Rudkin rightly gets slated, he's only a small piece in the problems we have with this club and the whole board needs removing and starting a fresh in my opinion. 

[CosbehFox]

5 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

Keep hearing that FoxesTalk posters are out-of-step with match going fans. I'm getting the feeling that many complainants never actually turn up for matches. Am I wrong 

I believe this is the case for Facebook users 

[justfoxes]

30 minutes ago, The Fosse Way said:

We don't usually post full articles elsewhere but making an exception for this due to the feedback we're getting about it and the current circumstances around the club. We're also speaking to people organising protests to try to help bring their ideas and activities into one place for people who don't use messageboards or particular social media platforms.

 

And it saves you a click...

 

Link here for anyone who wants to share the article: https://www.thefosseway.net/viewpoint/leicester-city-matchday-experience-january-2025

 

--

 

Why are Leicester City fans starting to protest? Take a look at our “matchday experience”

 

If you want to get a feel for fan sentiment on a matchday, you don’t need a repetitive ‘Tell Us About Your Matchday Experience’ email or endless surveys.

 

Walk amongst them. Down Raw Dykes Road. Or Saffron Lane. Or up Tigers Way on the traipse back to the train station. You’ll get a palpable sense of the mood and overhear snippets of debates and discussions that you’d never be able to fit on a PowerPoint slide in a boardroom.

 

Walking away from the King Power Stadium on Saturday, as we passed the away end, I heard a Fulham fan ask with enthusiasm to what I assume was his young son: “Did you enjoy that, then?” The excitable answer came back. “Yeah!”

 

It’s becoming a stadium at which away fans make memories. Where young fans of teams without a fox on their shirt deepen their enthusiasm for the game and their club. While young fans of our team often can’t get through the door.

 

Did I enjoy that, then? It got me thinking…

 

You get to the stadium and you’re greeted by queues. Queues to be frisked within an inch of your life by a Showsec steward. Queues because this overzealous security was brought in on a whim, or because people can’t get through the couple of turnstiles with the digital tickets the club has forced upon them. If you’re one of the many who objected, you swipe the piece of plastic that the club charged you £25 for, which is actually no different to the piece of plastic the club gave you for free the year before, and you’re into a soulless concourse.

 

You might need the toilet. If so, you squeeze your way into toilets that haven’t changed for 20 years and which would not look out of place in a prison. You pass up the concourse catering because it’s of no creativity and little quality, or because you’ve taken a vow not to spend this season after the £25 ‘Loyalty Tax’ in the summer.

 

By being in the ‘stadium bowl’ as the club like to call it, you’re actually one of the privileged ones. Either you have a season ticket, or you’ve paid for an expensive membership and extortionate one-off matchday prices. Or you might be a ‘friend’ of an existing season ticket holder and they’ve bought one for you. Hardly a great ticketing policy for bringing in the next generation or ensuring the underprivileged community of Leicester can get through the turnstile.

 

At least they can get a sense of what it means to be a fan and see their heroes they only ever get to see on television, or on their Playstation, at those meet and greet sessions the club puts on during school holidays though, right? Wrong, there’s a £10 wealth filter applied to those as well.

 

Anyway, now you’re in, you’ve got that light show. Or some black boxes that shoot out flames. A spectacle to which no one reacts and which no one ever asked for. Those boxes of fire don’t come for free, in the same way the army of Showsec stewards don’t either. It’s also a spectacle that plays out to largely empty stands as everyone is still trying to get through the frisking outside.

 

The teams are out and the new stadium announcer - the one who really wants you to appreciate the wonder of ‘Number 16, Victor Kristiansen’ and emphasises every syllable - As. If. He’s. Announcing. The. Heavyweight. Bout. Of. The. Century! – is doing his thing. The one who replaced the old guy who’d been there years because he got a little over-enthusiastic in his questioning of Jamie Vardy about his contract at the trophy parade at the end of last season. The one announced with minimal notice and three buses of Thai influencers and hangers-on. The ones who’d been on the pitch with those Showsec stewards guard en masse after the Blackburn match.

 

The team getting ready to start on the pitch aren’t wearing the same shirts as those few kids in the crowd who have been able to get into a stadium where the clientele have gone stale because of the club’s ticketing policy. Why not? Well, that would be because the club opted for a cryptocurrency gambling partner on the front of the shirts.

 

When the billboards aren’t encouraging us to retire in Thailand or drink the horrid Chang beer we’re subjected to in the concourses, they tell us BC Game’s message is ‘Stay Untamed’. Reading about their financial struggles and claims of not paying winning customers online will tell you that BC Game very much live by their mantra of being ‘untamed’.

 

A quick wave of your ‘Honesty Flag’ – you know, the ones you see people walking away from the ground with down the numerous roads away from the stadium – and we’re ready to start the match. Again, those ‘Honesty Flags’ don’t grow on trees – no one asked for them and they’ve contributed nothing to the atmosphere.

 

The same can be said of the clappers the club still produces in volume every home game. The ones you see strewn over the roads and pavements as you walk away from the ground which somehow comply with the club’s sustainability policy which doesn’t allow the handing out of leaflets that signpost supporters to Mental Health support charities during World Mental Health Awareness Week.

 

You know this because the atmosphere once the game gets going is patchy. And it emanates from two sections where there are no honesty flags but heaps of authenticity. The two sections that stand and sing, which at many other clubs would have been encouraged into one combined safe standing block, do so in what one could now assume to be ‘unsafe standing’. No safe standing at Leicester City though, because the club has been reluctant to take any meaningful position on safe standing for years.

 

The treatment given to those in Union FS who operate with a mantra of ‘Leicester helping Leicester’ and run charity fundraisers and foodbank collections for the local community as well as putting on tifos that inspire civic pride? Spurious bans, handed out for minor indiscretions. Contemptuous and suspicious communication from club suits - if they engage at all, that is.

 

Down on the pitch, it’s a squad of players that just isn’t quite good enough. A team managed by a man trying his best to undo the terrible work of the man who preceded him. Who prioritised Premier League experience over ability and resale value or the ability to grow with the club. We’re treated to the declining days of Jordan Ayew and Bobby Decordova-Reid.

 

Halfway through the game, as the team emerges for the second half and prepares to commence a second half where another away section is likely to rejoice until the 90th minute, we’re treated to a mini video on the screen of past glories.

 

Again, a video no one asked for, which has no positive impact on anything and is seemingly just the result of a few overpaid and out of touch people sitting round a table scratching their head about how to drive second half atmospheres. “They seem to like that pre-match video, why don’t we just do like a short version of that?”

 

Up in the director’s box is where the finger of blame should be, and finally is, pointing.

 

A director of football who cannot sell a player for money but can buy one like Oliver Skipp at £20million. A director of football in such deference to an owner, whose attendance at games is sporadic at best, that he daren’t sit on the front row of the director’s box without him there. A director of football who has handed long and bloated contracts to the likes of Jannik Vestergaard, Danny Ward, Hamza Choudhury and Decordova-Reid that will choke us financially for years.

 

A chief executive who we can’t be entirely sure is still there. Last heard of in 2016 and whose approach to communicating with the club’s fans (sorry, customers) seems to be: “Don’t ask questions. Just trust me, bro”. An equal partner in the supposed ‘internal review’ that happened after the most avoidable and disgraceful Premier League relegation, but which delivered no discernible change. She will, at least, attend the Fan Advisory Board meetings, however, to stay tapped into fans’ concerns. The problem with that? The control the club exerted over the FAB selection process to temper any difficult voices getting onto it.

 

And ultimately, an owner who has overseen the failings of both of these people. An owner who, if judged on his record from the day he took control, rather than based on the goodwill afforded to ‘the family’ or ‘the owners’ because of his dad, would be shown to be woefully short of the standard expected. An owner who, even in the aftermath of that disgraceful relegation, could only muster a letter (and I know it was likely written by the communications director, but he still must have signed it off) that essentially said: “Stop being mean to me”.

 

The tide is turning. The fans are stirring. The Foxes Trust has doubled in membership. There are protests being mooted for prior to the Arsenal game. The chants are getting louder and changing from just being about Jon Rudkin, to ‘the Board’ (for Board, see Aiyawatt, Whelan and Rudkin).

 

This is not entitlement as casual observers might try to characterise it. This is a culmination of years of bad decisions, of being treated like rubbish and with contempt by our club.

 

On Sunday, the organiser of the pre-Arsenal protest explained that they had done so under the anonymity of a username and using a VPN. They were fearful that the club may ban them but still wanted to mobilise something to show the discontent amongst the fanbase. At first it sounds absurd to need to do that, but then you hear about the taps on the shoulder fans get from the communications director about criticism of the club online.

 

I’m writing this piece under the cover of anonymity as well, for the same reasons. But then again, why should the club care? I’m just a number. Unfortunately for them, the numbers are slowly, but surely, finding their voice, getting together and getting organised.

 

--

 

The Fosse Way

Fosse Friday - free weekly email newsletter every Friday at 11am UK time

Superbly written article that is how nearly every fan feels about the club they’ve loved for years,Top needs sort out the mess that would never have happened if his Father was still with us he must be turning in his grave seeing his beloved club being poorly managed and run into the ground.

 

We can’t go on like this for much longer as someone said on Talksport worrying about PSR worry about that after spend on players who will keep you in the Premier league that’s the most important thing to do, rather than accept your fate of going down grab the bull by the horns fight to stay in the EPL not go down whimpering if only if only !

[Vlad the Fox]

14 minutes ago, foxinsocks said:

What are they looking for?  Do they find it ever?

Exactly, if you wanted to get something in it wouldn't be hard. They're treating everyone like a hooligan when there wasn't a problem in the first place. 

[Iwebema]

6 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

Keep hearing that FoxesTalk posters are out-of-step with match going fans. I'm getting the feeling that many complainants never actually turn up for matches. Am I wrong 

There's only a few hundred on here, of which a % will attend game, so we are an extremely small but loud (or maybe just loud in our echo chamber 😅) minority. 

 

The difference for me is we are more than likely more passionate and obsessive (not sure if that's the right word) than the average fan who just rocks up to the game and goes home not really lifting the lid on anything that's going on. I have a few friends who have been season ticket holders for 20+ years, but they are very much casual fans compared to some in here, just a day out and something to do, which is fine, each to their own, but its why it takes a while for things to really turn, we are heading into 3 years since that relegation and it's only now we are seeing a shift in the overall fanbase thinking something might be wrong.

[Basingstoke Fox]

4 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

Keep hearing that FoxesTalk posters are out-of-step with match going fans. I'm getting the feeling that many complainants never actually turn up for matches. Am I wrong 

As someone who attends matches, I couldn't agree more with everything in the article.

 

 

49 minutes ago, Houdini Logic said:

TBF I couldn't give a sh*t the Matchday Experience if we were winning and had a solid strategy to stay in the Premier League and build a squad/club for the future. There's so much else to protest against, I think going after Honesty Flags, Clappers and the new announcer is kind of missing the point at this stage

 

Clearly everything impacting the "on the field" issues will be what most focus on. Though I still have a perhaps idealistic view that a "club" should be a representation of and with a connection to the local area and community. If done well then this can still be a source of joy and pride even when results on the pitch aren't going your way. Pricing out large sections of the fanbase for tickets and charging kids to meet players during school holidays or obscene fees to be a mascot hardly encourages this.

 

Not to mention the mundane experience of attending matches. Everything about the pre-match routine for example (minus the PHG) is painfully generic & bland. 

[Harpenden Fox]

This is an excellently articulated article @The Fosse Way. 

[BenTheFox]

The only things I will give the club in terms of the matchday experience are playing when you're smiling before kickoff and the panels that they've put up showing showing trophies we've won, as well as moments in our history. That has made the ground at least look a bit less souless and more like our home. 

 

[Kitchandro]

1 hour ago, Houdini Logic said:

TBF I couldn't give a sh*t the Matchday Experience if we were winning and had a solid strategy to stay in the Premier League and build a squad/club for the future. There's so much else to protest against, I think going after Honesty Flags, Clappers and the new announcer is kind of missing the point at this stage

I think you’re missing the point - the flip side of yours.

 

If fans are treated like customers, an inconvenience, people the club can squeeze for all they’ve got - they are rightly going to be less forgiving when things aren’t on the pitch aren’t good. Because what else is there?

 

Fans aren’t enjoying themselves at the football anymore, it’s not ‘their thing’, it’s a corporate, empty, meaningless sport and our club is one of the worst examples. So their mood is already off before you factor in losing every week.

 

One thing I would have added to the article is years of negative football. Not being good enough is one thing, almost never being entertained is another. Again, that makes fans less forgiving when results don’t go well. I remember some games, like that 5-2 defeat to Arsenal in 2015, where I could accept losing because we really gave it a go.

[Finnegan]

1 hour ago, Houdini Logic said:

TBF I couldn't give a sh*t the Matchday Experience if we were winning and had a solid strategy to stay in the Premier League and build a squad/club for the future. There's so much else to protest against, I think going after Honesty Flags, Clappers and the new announcer is kind of missing the point at this stage

 

Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, I thought the "article" (really? If I start posting all my rants on WordPress can I start calling them articles?) was a bit tone deaf to be honest. 

 

People are upset to the point of furious about the mismanagement of the playing squad, to try and make it about clappers and corporate "match day experiences" just because that's what a small fringe group who love Fan Culture care about is a bit shit. It's almost hijacking everyone else's anger. 

 

Does the OP actually go to away games? What ground in the Premier League has good toilets ffs? Or doesn't have security? The food is the same naff, over priced shit in every stadium. Every home support in the country these days is quiet and soulless and outsung by the away fans. Every ticket sold in the Premier League is over priced to the point of criminal. 

 

I absolutely think there's a whole conversation to be had about who actually wants the current match day experience and I definitely think prices in football need to come down.

 

But there's almost an implication here that we'd all be happy with Rudkin running the team in to the ground just as long as we got to stand on a terrace with a quality beer, a hearty home made pie and no security around to stop us bringing in pyros. 

 

I'll be honest, my season ticket could be £1.50 and Top could carry me in to the ground on a throne like a king with his whole family fanning me and handing me luxury cocktails and I'd still be livid about what's happening on the pitch. 

 

[CosbehFox]

7 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

 

But there's almost an implication here that we'd all be happy with Rudkin running the team in to the ground just as long as we got to stand on a terrace with a quality beer, a hearty home made pie and no security around to stop us bringing in pyros. 

 

 

Up in the director’s box is where the finger of blame should be, and finally is, pointing.

 

A director of football who cannot sell a player for money but can buy one like Oliver Skipp at £20million. A director of football in such deference to an owner, whose attendance at games is sporadic at best, that he daren’t sit on the front row of the director’s box without him there. A director of football who has handed long and bloated contracts to the likes of Jannik Vestergaard, Danny Ward, Hamza Choudhury and Decordova-Reid that will choke us financially for years.

 

A chief executive who we can’t be entirely sure is still there. Last heard of in 2016 and whose approach to communicating with the club’s fans (sorry, customers) seems to be: “Don’t ask questions. Just trust me, bro”. An equal partner in the supposed ‘internal review’ that happened after the most avoidable and disgraceful Premier League relegation, but which delivered no discernible change. She will, at least, attend the Fan Advisory Board meetings, however, to stay tapped into fans’ concerns. The problem with that? The control the club exerted over the FAB selection process to temper any difficult voices getting onto it.

 

And ultimately, an owner who has overseen the failings of both of these people. An owner who, if judged on his record from the day he took control, rather than based on the goodwill afforded to ‘the family’ or ‘the owners’ because of his dad, would be shown to be woefully short of the standard expected. An owner who, even in the aftermath of that disgraceful relegation, could only muster a letter (and I know it was likely written by the communications director, but he still must have signed it off) that essentially said: “Stop being mean to me”.

[AKCJ]

6 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, I thought the "article" (really? If I start posting all my rants on WordPress can I start calling them articles?) was a bit tone deaf to be honest. 

 

People are upset to the point of furious about the mismanagement of the playing squad, to try and make it about clappers and corporate "match day experiences" just because that's what a small fringe group who love Fan Culture care about is a bit shit. It's almost hijacking everyone else's anger. 

 

Does the OP actually go to away games? What ground in the Premier League has good toilets ffs? Or doesn't have security? The food is the same naff, over priced shit in every stadium. Every home support in the country these days is quiet and soulless and outsung by the away fans. Every ticket sold in the Premier League is over priced to the point of criminal. 

 

I absolutely think there's a whole conversation to be had about who actually wants the current match day experience and I definitely think prices in football need to come down.

 

But there's almost an implication here that we'd all be happy with Rudkin running the team in to the ground just as long as we got to stand on a terrace with a quality beer, a hearty home made pie and no security around to stop us bringing in pyros. 

 

I'll be honest, my season ticket could be £1.50 and Top could carry me in to the ground on a throne like a king with his whole family fanning me and handing me luxury cocktails and I'd still be livid about what's happening on the pitch. 

 

I'm the exact same.

 

The only issues I have are that it's impossible to get any food/drink at half time without leaving after about 40 minutes. But this is so low down on the list that I really don't care.

 

Also there is no personality in the stadium now that Birch is rarely well enough. The new tannoy bloke sounds like he's never been to a football match in his life. Serious "I was gonna kick it up the other end and put it right in their ****ing goal hole, but no dice" vibes from him.

 

I would also pack the ridiculous pre-match videos in.

 

None of those impact my enjoyment on the day. All I care about is whether the players turn up and work their nads off for 90 minutes.

[Finnegan]

1 minute ago, AKCJ said:

The only issues I have are that it's impossible to get any food/drink at half time

 

I'm not gonna lie, food and drink at football has been so overly expensive for such shit quality for about twenty years or more, that I mostly don't bother. 

 

[davieG]

It’s everything about the club there isn’t one redeeming factor that is acceptable never mind good. Saying it’s the same at all clubs doesn’t justify it we should be aiming to be better than anyone else. 

[CosbehFox]

Just now, davieG said:

It’s everything about the club there isn’t one redeeming factor that is acceptable never mind good. Saying it’s the same at all clubs doesn’t justify it we should be aiming to be better than anyone else. 

Totally agree. Seek to be the best.