Sport
A little light abuse
Published 09 October 2008
Booing your own side is part of a long and ignoble tradition
The booing at Spurs during the Hull game started at half-time. We know it doesn't help. The players are human, poor petals, so booing them only makes it worse. But what else can we do? Booing is part of a long and ignoble tradition - but usually fans have booed the other team.
I've been looking through my copies of the Sporting Chronicle for 1888, the first season of the Football League, and there are lots of incidents of crowds shouting disgusting words, such as "dogs" and "pigs" - but these were aimed at the opposition.
Booing your own team seems to have got worse in recent years. After that Hull defeat, my friend and neighbour Sue said: "You know what, it's the first time since I started following Spurs that I've begun to think I'm not getting my money's worth."
That's probably part of the problem. In the old days, tickets didn't cost a great deal, unless you bought your ticket from a tout. Touts have practically disappeared today, but at one time they were outside all the big games. I have a comic postcard from the 1920s that shows a tout outside Wembley offering a fan a Cup Final ticket for £10. "Ten pounds!" exclaims the fan. "I could buy a woman for that." "Yes," says the tout, "but you won't get 90 minutes each way with a brass band playing in the middle."
If your team were rubbish and you hadn't paid much to see them, you could take it - more or less. But in the Prem today, when every fan has paid a fortune, you naturally get upset. Almost everyone now has a season ticket and pays up to a year ahead for games that haven't happened yet, but are probably going to be rubbish anyway. No wonder we get livid.
One of the first effects of the Spurs fans' booing has been on Juande Ramos, the Spurs manager. When he first arrived, he appeared so tough, aloof, macho and commanding, with those incredible cheekbones and that scary stare. Since the booing, he seems to have lost six inches and gone small, weedy and nervous.
Learning English has made things worse. He speaks it like Manuel from Fawlty Towers, at a higher pitch than his Spanish, so to English ears he sounds silly and half-witted - a joke figure.
I discussed this with my son, who speaks Spanish. He says I've got it wrong. Because Manuel was a joke figure, I assume every Spaniard speaking poor English is funny, but that's just how many Spaniards speak English. And it wasn't deemed funny, till Manuel.
Any road, Ramos has become a pathetic figure, just like his team. Luka Modric and Roman Pavlyuchenko are out of their depth, Ledley King is a crock, and David Bentley has put his creative energies into his hair, convinced he's a 1930s matinee idol.
I haven't heard any individual players being booed yet, just the lot of them. Though I do recall Alan Mullery being booed in the 1970s by some Spurs fans who thought he was just a clumsy lump. And Arsenal fans used to boo Perry Groves, with his shorts pulled too high, ginger hair and useless runs down the wing. But they also laughed at him, so it became fun rather than abuse.
While booing doesn't help the player, it does help fans release some of their frustrations - and in the end it does have an effect. The fans at Newcastle managed to get rid of Mike Ashley, giving him so much abuse that he decided to stay away from the ground and put the club up for sale. And the campaign to stop buying club merchandise is probably the best weapon fans have, apart from staying away from the ground. So we do have power, even if it is a negative one.
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