Professional football, as practised in the Barclays Premier League, has often been compared to a TV soap opera. It has it’s cast list of “stars” of varying importance at any moment in time; it has its goodies and it has its baddies. Some characters have brief appearances in the plot; others are perennials that go on for years.
In this scenario, we, the spectators, are popularly regarded as the audience for the show. The entertainment is put on for our benefit; after all, we pay to watch it. Like the audience at a Covent Garden opera, we are the aficionados of the spectacle and show our approval, or otherwise, accordingly.
However, in a recent article in the Times, Matthew Syed has suggested that contrary to this accepted view of the place of the supporter in the great soap opera that is Premiership football, we are in fact part of the cast. Our role is that of “extras” and we have parts to play. The true audience is the passive Sky box watcher, wherever he may be. He sees (and hears) us, and his appreciation of the overall performance is influenced by the parts we play.
If you doubt that we are bit-players in this show you should remind yourself of the character that you assume as you come through the turnstile. No more the obedient husband, the role-model father, the cuddly grandad. You shrug all that off and assume the mantle of the true Villain. You shout, you curse, you swear eternal hatred of fellow Brummies just because they happened to have been born in a different postcode from yourself. You and those fellow Villains who share your little part of the stage, play your parts to the full and leave the theatre well satisfied with your own performance, even though some of your favourites among the stars could have played their parts rather better.
The difference, of course, between ourselves and the extras in a play is that whereas they get paid, we pay to play our parts and it’s rather taken for granted that we will turn up on the night.