Why Lincoln City fans should feel sorry for Liverpool & Spurs supporters

Six minutes before the end of a tepid Champions League final, Liverpool’s Origi struck to condemn Spurs to defeat and give the Reds yet another European Cup.

All around me in The Ivy in Wragby there was jubilation as a largely Liverpool-supporting crowd celebrated. The mates I’d met up with are Spurs fans and they commiserated, bemoaning team selection and the quality of Poch’s men.

Me? I didn’t care really. Part of me wanted to see Spurs win, just because some Liverpool fans are intolerable when they enjoy success. It really didn’t bother me one way or another though, so I spent a short time going through social media chuckling.

It’s a rare beast is the internet. I’m sure when the concept first came into being, the inventors didn’t envisage it being a place where people just abused each other. I saw Lincoln fans laughing at everyone in a pub watching the game and calling them for never going to Anfield.

I saw a Grimsby fan asking if everyone in the DN postcode wearing Spurs or Liverpool shirts would switch to black and white if Grimsby were a success. I saw fans of those clubs biting back, asking when that might be and whether it might be worth giving their great-grandchildren a heads up, just in case.

It’s all a fine example of football snobbery, exactly what I showed in my pre-season article yesterday. I had a little dig at Scunthorpe, making me just as bad as everyone else. Football; it brings out the best and the worst in us all, doesn’t it?

You don’t get this watching Spurs in the pub

I can’t agree with the purists who thought the fans in pubs and clubs across the country supporting one of the bigger sides are any less of a fan than me or you. I do like to think of myself as a ‘proper’ football fan. I go to games, both home and away, I feel the excitement of a match day, the pain of defeat raw in the air as you embark on a two-hour journey home. In the eyes of many, that makes you a ‘better’ supporter than someone who feels the sting as they walk from their sofa to the kitchen, or from the pub to their bungalow around the corner.

Does it though? Do they care less because they’re not at the game? The Spurs fans I was with I’ve known since childhood and I suspect they’ve been to as many games at White Hart Lane as they have watched Champions League Finals in The Ivy, but at the final whistle they were gutted; angry, upset and full of opinions as to what went wrong. Just like I would have been had it been Lincoln turning in such an inept and negative display.

The feeling I got from social media was almost that these supporters, not just Jimmy, Mike and Stu who were with me, but every Liverpool and Spurs fan in pubs up and down the country, were lesser fans. They don’t go to games; their support barely extends further than their house or their local. They’re to be looked down upon, right?

Me and Dayle

Wrong. I feel sorry for them, all of them. I don’t doubt some are armchair supporters, but take my mate Dayle. If Anfield was as close to him as Lincoln is and tickets were easier to come by, I reckon he’d be there every week. They’re not though and just because he followed in his Dad’s footsteps and supported Liverpool, he suffers.

Dayle is a huge football fan. He’s been clattering me on the park in Wragby since we were five or six and although our days of playing are long gone, that passion for the game is still there. He studies his side like I do, he understands the game better than I do having played for much longer. He’s not a ‘lesser’ fan than I am. He just chose a club that keeps him at arm’s length.

Same with Jimmy, one of the Spurs fans I know. I used to coach him (don’t laugh) for Wragby Boys. Our families have always been close and he has seen more games at Sincil Bank than he has at White Hart Lane. His ‘second’ team is Lincoln, but coming from a family of Londoners, he’s always been a Spurs fan. Again, proximity, cost and opportunity mean he can’t get to watch his team.

These supporters shouldn’t be sneered at, laughed at or derided. They support a top-flight club that they can’t see, that’s something that I feel nothing but pity for. I know how much my friends love their club, they’re not quite as nerdy or anal with collecting things as I am, but they feel the same emotions as I do. The difference is I get to feel it every Saturday, I get the experience walking down the Sincil Drain, avoiding dog mess and chatting to my old man.

The buzz of a matchday; avoiding the piles of excrement, avoiding the 50/50 seller and heading straight for the fan zone.

I get to exchange pleasantries with the programme seller, I get to chat with my mates, Neil, Ben, Ed, Bubs and loads of others every week. I can support my club, in every sense of the word and I feel that my club wants me too. It doesn’t make me better or worse than any of the fans of the bigger clubs, but it does make me a lot luckier.

Stood outside the pub with vodka in my hand waiting for my lift, I happened upon another lad with a London accent. I supposed he followed Spurs and we got chatting only to find out he’s a Wycombe fan. I had a conversation about Adams Park, Gareth Ainsworth, Sunderland away and some other stuff I can’t remember through the vodka-fog. He spoke my language and for the first time that evening I didn’t feel like the dippy friend trying to understand football amongst the big boys.

I confess, before last night I didn’t know who Harry Winks was. I didn’t know what Spurs line-up would be; I didn’t even know Harry Kane had been injured. I exist in a different world to Premier League supporters now. I didn’t see a single PL goal last season. It was only a few weeks from the end of the campaign that I started to look at who might be coming down, purely to prepare for Football League World articles. It doesn’t make me better or worse than anyone else. I just have a different angle on the beautiful game to some.

Champions League Final? Whatever, we’re the lucky ones.

I’m not even going to ask people to consider others on social media because I’d be a hypocrite. I don’t, why should anyone else? I just wanted to offer my opinion on those fans in Liverpool and Spurs shirts not being any less of a supporter than someone who attends matches at their local stadium. They shouldn’t be envied for being in big games like last night, nor scorned for following a team they don’t go and watch.

No, we shouldn’t focus on them. We should focus on us, Lincoln City supporters (or indeed Mansfield, Grimsby or whoever) because we get to experience the real beauty of the game every week, we see the highs and lows in person. We are the lucky ones.

Although after a 2-2 draw with Stevenage, it doesn’t always feel like it.

1 Comment

  1. Seán was out with his grandpops an hour ago, and inadvertently came across the Liverpool champions parade. It meant nowt to him, but he pretended to be pissed off by it. He may be Scouse, but he’s an Imp, and proud 🙂

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