Anyone who questions the importance of sport and doubts its relevance to life as a whole is a person sorely lacking in perception and would also be in desperate need of a healthy dose of reality. Whether one likes sport or not is neither here nor there; the simple fact is that sport can both be a form of escapism but also a confirmation of ideas found outside the arena.
Sport as a representation in miniature of one’s character in life is a whole is a well worn subject, as is the socio-cultural impact of sport. However, this was all brought into sharper focus for me yesterday. What caused this dawning realisation? My very first live experience of cricket.
Having watched the sport on television for many years (the Karachi Test of 2001 with England sneaking a victory in the darkness is my first memory), it was a great shame I had never experienced the sport at first hand before with my only previous attempt to watch a game being rained off back in April last year. The plus side being I got a free roast dinner and a beer out of it from those lovely folks at Berkshire County Cricket Club (journalistic privilege at its finest).
Anyway, as part of my 21st birthday present, two tickets to the ODI against Sri Lanka at Lords, the home of cricket TM, were received. The tickets were in the pleb section (still 75 quid a pop!) although walking around before the match and at the interval, you could hear and see many chinless wonders dressed for a day at Ascot with “Mumma and Papa”. The class make-up was more weighted towards the upper classes though not completely.
As a seasoned football fan, coming to cricket was a huge change of pace. The lack of fan segregation and being able to drink alcohol in the stands made a huge difference to the atmosphere of the day that just would not happen at a football match. This was what got me thinking about the different societal views for differing sports.
The history of violence in football that led to the enforcement of segregation between opposing fans and a ban on alcohol on the terraces is what keeps these arrangements in place; whilst football is a more middle class spectator sport these days (for a number of factors which are not worth going into here) the fear of returning to the dark days of the 1980s remains.
For one reason or another, at football, I get very caught up in the aggression involved. Perhaps it’s the emotional investment you put into your team that’s built up for so long. Or maybe it’s the tribalism between towns and cities that ratchets up the tension. For my money, it’s the intensity of a football match where it’s all action crammed into 90 minutes of narrative that gets the adrenalin (and probably testosterone) pumping.
However, at cricket, I found myself a completely different person and fan; more sedate and relaxed and generally more jolly. For example, as the Sri Lankan batsman Dinesh Chandimal approached his century, I was willing him to get it as I felt he deserved for playing so well. To contrast, I wasn’t willing Scott Sinclair to get his hat-trick in the play-off final in May. Once Chandimal got his ton, I turned to the handful of Sri Lankan fans behind me to high five and congratulate them, again, something I wouldn’t have been able to do at Wembley (both physically due to segregation and psychologically).
As explained earlier, the intensity of a football match is so much greater than a cricket game which makes the blood boil less thus there is greater friendship between spectators. Certainly, alcohol has nothing to do with it as I certainly drank more at the cricket than I would do at any football game. This is applicable beyond personal experience too as many of the fellow supporters with me in the Mound Stand looked to be of a similar class to the average football fan and they weren’t beating the shit out of any Sri Lankan fans; on the contrary, many were happily chatting away to them (as happily as English people can be talking to strangers).
Another element is the contrasting tribalism of the two sports where one is regionally based and another is nationally based. Whilst not caring for patriotism and nationalism as a general rule, sport brings that out in me but it still hurts more when my local team lose than my national team.
But, to argue against that, I wouldn’t have been upset if Berkshire lost their MCKO semi-final yesterday (they won, for the record) which suggests the emotional investment in my football team is the dominating factor but that still didn’t stop me congratulating Swansea fans on the way back home after the Wembley defeat.
In conclusion, God knows why there is such a difference in fan culture between football and cricket; anything from emotional investment, the class make-up of the support, different kinds of tribalism, match intensity and a ton of other reasons could be to blame. But, what a lot of the reasons involve is issues linked to wider society and that is why sports matters and its relationship with wider society is one of the most interesting areas to explore.
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