"At home our fans will get behind us." That's the old cliche, isn't it?
How often will you hear a player come out with some variation of this line when asked about playing at their home ground? Often, the football world in general views a home team as having the advantage, usually due to the overwhelming support that their fans are meant to create in their favour.
But how true is this in the modern game? Two games recently made me think long and hard about this. Both were Liverpool games; one was the away game against Real Madrid and the other was the home game against Sunderland.
In the Madrid game, Liverpool's supporters (the away fans, remember) could be clearly heard above the locals - certainly not something you would expect in a stadium whose capacity is in the 80,000 region. This is not unusual when Liverpool go on their travels, in either the Champions League or domestically. I frequently hear the Reds' travelling fans outsing the home supporters, even on television where crowd sounds are often reduced.
The Sunderland game, on the other hand, provided a stark contrast. The Liverpool home fans were strangely quiet throughout most of the game; something the Black Cats' supporters chose to mention more than once. Only following a couple of Liverpool goals did the home fans "wake up" and begin to sing and chant. Yet still the Sunderland fans gave as good as they got.
This trend is not restricted just to Liverpool; I have merely used them as an example. Even Alex Ferguson has commented in the not-too-distant past that the Old Trafford crowd was unusually quiet. Newcastle United's fans have long been regarded as amongst the noisiest and most supportive in the country, but from what I have seen even that has dwindled of late.
Yet, there are exceptions to this apparent trend. For example, Liverpool's home support for European games is nearly always incredibly loud and passionate. Stoke City have been touted as having the loudest fans in the Premier League. Why is this?
An answer could lie with the fans of Derby County, who during their team's ill-fated spell in the top flight during the 2007-08 season took to "pretending" their team had scored goals just so they could celebrate. It was a rarity for them. And so European football games are a rarity for Liverpool supporters, relative to domestic games. Stoke City may still be relegated this season, so perhaps their fans are enjoying the Premier League while they can?
Another explanation for the dwindling home support is the attitude towards the modern game; specifically the impatience. Supporters now fancy themselves more knowledgeable than ever before, perhaps because of the amount of TV coverage and analysis of the game that is available. This results in far less patience with players and managers, and why there is so much negativity from allegedly 'loyal' home support.
In the past, new players would be given time to adjust and settle in. In the modern game, armchair managers demand they are dropped or sold if they aren't setting the league alight in their first couple of months. Similarly, managers are not afforded time at a lot of clubs if they are not pushing the team to (sometimes unrealistic) expectations. If this attitude had been prevelant in 1989, Alex Ferguson would not currently be the manager of Manchester United. This attitude is, of course, embellished and sensationalised by the media, who need compelling stories to sell their papers or increase their TV ratings.
If a manager loses a few games, it only takes a couple of media outlets to suggest his job is in danger before even more jump on the bandwagon, and then other supporters begin to follow suit. It is the old adage of "repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it".
So where am I going with this? My point is that this attitude manifests itself in supporters who believe they know better than they do, and is why their support at home games is less and less, well, supportive. They believe that Player X "should not be playing" or that Manager Y "does not know what he is doing". Instead of presenting this as opinion, it is presented as fact, and the fans then feel less obliged to sing and support their team because they do not believe they are worthy of it. If their team concedes a goal, they choose not to support them to try and get them back in the match, instead they complain that Defender Z made a mistake and should be dropped.
Contrastingly, most such fans do not have the dedication of the "hardcore" supporters who follow their team around the country (or the continent!) and are, by extension, more 'loyal'. The away supporters are the dedicated ones because they have travelled all the way from Portsmouth to Newcastle on a cold December evening just to support their team. They are the ones who took time off work and spent hundreds of pounds getting flights to the Ukraine just to support their team.
And that is why I believe that away supporters are beginning to surpass home fans as the loudest and most supportive. If this trend continues teams will soon prefer playing away from home so that they can get the better support. And that is truly concerning.
Cheers
Adam
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