Football fans are a bit weird when it comes to deciding which team you should support. A criteria exists: your dad's team or where you come from. I, for 16 years, did not tick the criteria. Born and raised in Sutton, south London, I supported Liverpool. Why? I was four and at nursery, ahead of the 2006 World Cup, the teacher was taking the register and giving each pupil a player. I was Steven Gerrard, so Liverpool became team.
It's a bit of a silly reason but one that I could not help. My dad did not support a team - he had been a Liverpool supporter in the 1980s but stopped supporting them when he got older - and I never went to football matches. When your are four years if age, you are unaware of the "criteria" and the geographical distance between Liverpool and south London.
I was an armchair fan, naturally, as getting tickets for Liverpool matches are a) expensive and b) not widely available. It is also costs a lot to travel from London up to Liverpool. Despite supporting Liverpool, I'd always taken an interest in my local team, Sutton United. I'd check their results and keep up with how they were doing.
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| Sutton United have always been a non-league team throughout their history Photo by Brendan and Ruth McCartney |
Fast forward to January 2017, and I'd only ever been to four football matches. An England friendly against Ireland in 2013 was my first, followed by Fulham vs West Brom in the same year and AFC Wimbledon vs Tranmere Rovers in 2014. I wanted to go to matches. I wanted to be a football fan - a fan at games. Then Sutton drew AFC Wimbledon in the FA Cup third round.
It was a chance to go to an FA Cup match for the first time and support my local club. I loved it. It was a 0-0 and Sutton were the better side. They won the replay 3-1 and met Leeds United, which I was lucky enough to go to again. It changed my perspective on football.
Recreating another FA giant-killing that Sutton had become famous for since their 1989 victory over First Division Coventry, it was what happened after the game that mattered more. My local club had just reached the fifth round of the FA Cup and there was a leaking roof that could not be fixed. Everybody knows non-league clubs do not have deep pockets (unless you're Salford City) and something did't sit right with me.
It was a sell-out for the AFC Wimbledon fixture. Almost 5,000 fans crammed into Gander Green Lane for the Leeds win. Manager Paul Doswell asked whether the fans who had come for the FA Cup journey would be here next season. I was. I bought a season ticket for the next season but before that, Arsenal at home.
This was an amazing time to be from Sutton. The town was national news for all the right reasons. I had the opportunity to go to the Arsenal match, but I turned it down. My brother and I felt that we weren't yet proper Sutton fans. We'd taken tickets for the third and fourth rounds from fans who had potentially spent their entire lives following Sutton in non-league. Guilt consumed me.
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Football outside of the Premier League is on its knees. The situation has been made worse by the prospect of fans not being able to return to matches for another six months. Clubs will be without their primary source of income for about a year. This is all going on when Tottenham, a club who owner Daniel Levy used the government furlough scheme, have struck a deal with Real Madrid for Gareth Bale, a man on £600k a week wages. Their north London rivals Arsenal have also made 55 people redundant while over £30 million on transfers.
So many Premier League clubs have complained about the financial problems that Covid-19 have put on them but most continue to spend like there have been no impact. Chelsea have spent more money this summer than the initial 2003-04 Roman Abramovich summer window.
The finances of football are broken. Macclesfield Town's problems started long before coronavirus hit but their situation couldn't have been helped. They were wound up for £500k worth of debts while Premier League clubs moan about their finances. There needs to be reform in football.
For the 2018/19 season, the Premier League paid £265 million in parachute payments to Championship clubs. In that same season, the other Championship clubs received a total of £79.1 million in solidarity payments, a total of £4.65 million to each club. A total of £16.1 million to League One Clubs, with each club receiving £700k. A total of £11.2 million to League Two clubs, with each club receiving £470k.
When a league has to give financial support to clubs that leave the division, that is a sign of a broken system. There must be an overhaul. Parachute payments should be incorporated into solidarity payments and spread equally across the Football League. Each side would receive other £5 million. There is still so much more that can be done.
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I am now a full fledged Sutton fan. It was one of the best decisions of my life. Going to matches with people from my area, being part of a collective, is an incredible experience. Football is an incredible experience. The quality of football is irrelevant. There's no denying the Premier League is of a higher standard, but you don't like football at a young age because you like a high press. Football is football, Premier League or non-league.
Local clubs need support during this pandemic. The Premier League has donated £125 million to the EFL and National League but it is now at the hands of the government to supply a rescue package for lower league clubs.
Football clubs are at the heart of many communities, particularly up north. Bury still (somehow) exist but are still in the hands of an owner who has no care for the football club or town. Macclesfield have been ruined by another tyrannical owner but again, what does the EFL actually do to stop this. The fit and proper persons test clearly doesn't work.
All around the EFL are clubs who have suffered through poor ownership: Blackpool, Bolton, Charlton, Hull, Portsmouth and Wigan to name a few. More and more clubs will inside and outside the EFL will go bust because of coronavirus.
Even before the pandemic, football faced financial problems that had never been seen before. The gap is widening. Support your local club. You don't have to give up supporting another - I did, however. You might just buy a shirt or make a donation - there's plenty of schemes out there to support clubs.
If action isn't taken, English football will never be the same again.
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