Search: 'Fan culture'

Barry Kilby is a majority shareholder of Burnley FC and has revitalised the club. Jeremy Wilson endeavours to find out who is the man behind all the success

Distinguishing Features Tall, with a crop of red hair, Barry stands out in a crowd. In the early days of his reign he could be easily spotted from afar ensconced in a full-length 100 per cent llama hair coat. However, following merciless piss-taking of said garment on a supporters’ group website (Barry is known to check out a variety of sites on a regular basis) it failed to make another appearance on the Turf.

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None of Devon's three clubs can claim glorious, trophy-laden histories, yet one seems to attract more than its fair share of attention, says Nick House

Some years ago, Harry Pearson wrote a wonderful book about football in the north east of England. By calling it The Far Corner he unwittingly paid a compliment to football west of Taunton Deane services by not labelling Devon as English football’s outpost. Unfortunately, others continue to do so, portraying Devon football fans as wretched individuals who spend Saturdays travelling to Old Trafford courtesy of Taw and Torridge Coaches.

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Thanks to the influx of foreign players, British football now attracts an increasing number of journalists from countries which previously paid it scant attention. We cornered three of them – Ronnie Reng from Germany, Marie-Jose Kleef from the Netherlands and Italian Filippo Ricci – to find out what impression it had made on them

When you first came to England, what was the one thing that most surprised you about football here?
Ronnie Reng That it’s still conducted in a childish manner – and I mean that in a positive way. Both in the way they play and how the supporters watch the game. One of the first matches I saw here was when Dortmund were playing at Man Utd. About half an hour before kick-off I thought I had the wrong day because there was nobody there. The fans didn’t show up until five minutes before kick off. I think that’s a good thing – they clap if they like something or they boo and then they go home. So it’s still pure entertainment. And it’s also played in a childish way. Players want to attack all the time, they don’t want to stop and think, and the supporters clap if somebody really hoofs it forward or if someone makes a great tackle, even if it would have been more sensible to look up and pass.

Marie-José Kleef The amount of tackles in a game is unbelievable. This season I was at Leicester v Aston Villa and the only thing happening was people tackling each other. There weren’t two passes in a row. The players were never waiting for the right moment, just pushing all the time.

Filippo Ricci For me it was Chelsea v Liverpool and to find that the away fans were just one row away from the press box. When people stood up, the jour­nalists were asking if they could sit down – and people did. Having no fences in the stadiums and having op­posing fans in the best position to see the game was very strange. In Italy they would be stuck in some cor­ner surrounded by police with the worst views of the game. 

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Ian Plenderleith looks at a few fan sites

There are a handful of good reasons for visiting another club’s independent website, such as checking for neanderthal-free pubs, or the hosts’ opinion of the 34-year-old, injury-prone defender who is about to sign a two-year contract with your own already struggling team. The other main factor likely to send non-partisan visitors to alien cyber-territory is humour. Not witless abuse of the team from the next town along, but something with the spark to earmark a webzine from the endless screenfuls of hackneyed bile hashed up in the name of rivalry.

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Tony Cascarino's exceptional autobiography tells some harsh truths about himself and about players' lives, says Dave Hill

Oh boy. Hark at this: “It has often been said that the joy of scoring goals is greater than sex but personally I’d compare it more with masturbation. I’ve always found sex to be an absolute pleasure, but scoring goals has only ever brought relief.” The search for relief – by foot rather than by hand – and the misery of not finding it, is the key theme and metaphor of this book: a book which, at its best, is almost unbearable.

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