Middlesbrough FC – Worst Fans In England?
Empty seats at the ‘BoroI’m genuinely struggling to think of a way to word this eloquently or at all even-handedly, so I’ll just come straight out with the question. Do Middlesbrough have the worst set of fans in England?
Peep the scenario. Your team are sitting second bottom of the league. They have plunged from eighth and mid-table security into a position of very real vulnerability. They’ve scored just one goal in nine league games. And question marks are starting to arise about the manager. There may be trouble ahead, as a famous old crooner once sang.
With just twelve games remaining, a spark is desperately needed; something from somewhere, anywhere to help lift the club and galvanise the players. So what, as a club, do you do?
Well, if you are Middlesbrough Football Club, you go around before a crucial game and hand out leaflets to the supporters asking them to sit down and keep quiet during matches. Club officials arranged for letters to be handed out to Middlesbrough fans ahead of their 0-0 draw against Wigan Athletic at the Riverside last week with the message loud and clear: Stop making noise.
Safety officer Sue Watson asked in the letter for supporters to sit quietly during games, claiming that the noise was ‘driving some fans mad.’
“I am receiving more and more complaints from our own fans about both the persistent standing and the constant banging and noise coming from the back of this stand. Please stop. Make as much noise as you like when we score, but this constant noise is driving some fans mad,” read the letter.
You what? Driving fans mad? It is worth taking a moment to read through that statement again. It is quite incredible really.
First of all, I must admit I was surprised to learn that anyone would even consider the Riverside stadium a cavern of ‘constant noise’ in the first place. There were 11,000 empty seats for the game in question against Wigan. If a ground almost one third empty can cause such offense to the fragile sensitivities and delicate ears of those complaining Boro fans, I sincerely hope they are never unfortunate enough to take a wrong turning one day and find themselves in the Bombonera, or any other ground in South America. They would have a cardiac arrest.
Secondly, from the club’s perspective, the Teesiders have got this all wrong. You would expect the club to rather throw its backing behind the few Boro fans actually passionate enough to offer proper vocal support to the team in a situation like this, and simply ignore the people whinging. But no, it appears Sue Watson and co have decided to pander to those supporters who expect football stadiums to be more like tennis courts or libraries, and have instead asked Boro’s contingent of truly ardent supporters to shut up.
The reaction from most Middlesbrough fans was one of disbelief. One season-ticket holder responded furiously, telling The Sun, ‘It’s a passionate sport. Are they going to give us prompt cards to tell us when we can sing and when we can’t? You’d think that given our current league position, the club would be wanting us to help rally the team.’
Stewart Downing heinously incites crowd chanting
Manchester United are one such club to have had their away allocation regularly cut at the Riverside. Additionally, as if trying to reach away supporters that stand throughout the game subliminally, ‘Sit Down’ by the Manchester rock band James is a tune often played over the tannoys at the Riverside at half-time. Inventive, but rarely effective.
Middlesbrough are a club who this season average over 7,500 empty seats for every home game. Attendance figures at the Riverside have been steadily free-falling ever since 2004/2005, and took another 4% dip between 2006/2007 and 2007/2008. And the club’s own chief executive Keith Lamb reported as recently as November 2008 that, amidst growing fears of yet another impending dip in attendances, Middlesbrough would likely have to use funds from the Premier League’s television deal to subsidise prices.
With all that in mind, is it really such a good idea for Sue Watson and co to ask the partisan following that does remain at Middlesbrough to sit itself down and shut the hell up?
The bottom line is this. Chanting, singing, making noise in support of the team; all of the above represent an integral part of fan culture. To deny fans the right to express themselves passionately and vocally from the terraces is to deny them their very raison d’etre as supporters.
The fact that Boro officials have since tried to back down from their stance, no doubt in reaction to the furore it has caused, perhaps implies they now recognise this. Football clubs, especially those in trouble like Boro, need as much support from their fans as they can get. Its quite simple. In fact I’d say it is elementary, my dear Watson.
Know a worse set of fans? Have your say, leave a comment.
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About Jonathan F
The boss of this here... Creator and Editor of Just-Football.com, world football analyst, watcher, freelancer and all-round enthusiast. French football analyst for Football Radar. Write for FourFourTwo, have also written for ITV, When Saturday Comes and others.
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Interesting article, if a little confused. Middlesbrough fans can hardly be blamed for the actions of some dimwit in the club’s commissarat. While not arguing that Boro fans are anywhere near the best in the country (in attendance terms) we should point out, as you are being ‘analytical’, that the Boro’s average home attendance this season is a little over 28,000, an increase of nearly two per cent on last season – and this despite the fact that we have only won one game in the last 18 (and probably 19 after Bolton tomorrow). That is not the worst in the premiership by, at my reckoning, five other clubs. To put that into further perspective, the population of Middlesbrough (the former small town in Europe) is 120,000. That means that nearly one in four of those people attend the game. And even when you widen the catchment area out to the whole of the county of Cleveland (or Teesside and that has two Ss by the way) which is 500,000 it still means that one in 17 people are turning up to watch a losing side. Extrapolate that to London or Birmingham or Liverpool and you’d get some interesting results (and don’t even get me started on the smuggies from Tyneside). Anyway, like I said, interesting and provocative article – and a nice web site.
Brian from the Boro
Brian from the Boro – thanks very much for your extremely balanced and informed comments.
I agree with you that the catchment area of Middlesbrough does dictate the numbers of fans the club can hope to attract to an extent. This is clear. But the falling attendance figures in recent seasons does also indicate a decline in interest from some, even if numbers are up slightly this season. One can only speculate on what sort of effect relegation will have on attendance figures if there has been an overall decrease in numbers at the stadium during the last few years of Premiership football.
Also, the actions from the club’s commissarat were in direct response to those fans at the Riverside who complained to the club about the noise in the stadium ‘driving them mad.’ Without such complaints one would imagine there would have been no need for the club to resort to such measures don’t you think?
I would of course not wish to bracket passionate Boro supporters like yourself into the mix when putting forward a case for worst fans in England. But if people are asking the noise levels from their own supporters to be curbed, I imagine it must be as frustrating to you as it is baffling to me, and it certainly does not reflect well on the club that its officials chose to pander to the aggrieved (and silent) minority.
Just one thing i would like to say. The picture at the top of the article! That is the away end of the stadium. So obviously there is going to be no boro fans there. That is the away team with no fans. I am sure if you had shown the North stand the outlook would have been very different.
Stuart
Boro Season card holder
What a load of rubbish.
Middlesbrough were the 12th best supported club in the Premiership this season, so are you going to write an article about the 8 teams with fewer supporters?
Can someone explain what “peep the scenario” means?
Can I introduce you to the English language?
Anonymous #3 – thankyou for sharing your thoughts. You are correct in saying Middlesbrough had the 12th highest average attendance in the Premier League this season.
However, this is unfairly weighted as it does not account for stadium capacities and hence provides a disproportionate end result.
Further to your comments I took a closer look at this. Here are the percentages for 08/09 based on average attendance vs stadium capacity:
Boro – 35,100 capacity, Avg Attendance 28,429 = 81% (76.09% 07/08)
——————–
Stoke – 27,500 capacity , Avg Attendance 26,821 = 97.5%
WBA – 26,000 capacity, Avg Attendance 25,817 = 99.3%
Hull – 25,404 capacity, Avg Attendance 24,816 = 97.7%
Fulham – 25,350 capacity, Avg Attendance 24,344 = 96%
Blackburn – 31,367 capacity, Avg Attendance 23,479 = 74.9% (76.33%)
Bolton – 28,000 capacity, Avg Attendance 22,486 = 80% (74.65%)
Portsmouth – 20,688 capacity, Avg Attendance 19,830 = 95.9%
Wigan – 25,135 capacity, Avg Attendance 18,350 = 73% (75.77%)
This gives a much fairer picture. And as you can see, Middlesbrough are the 4th worst in terms of attendance to capacity in 08/09, ahead of Wigan, Blackburn and Bolton (just).
Figures from 07/08 for those 4 clubs, listed in brackets, also illustrate a further drop for Boro. These stats see them fall behind Blackburn and within just a 1/4 of 1 percent more through the gates than Wigan.
So to an extent I see where you are coming from. However, as is the premise of the point made in the article, I do not recall Bolton, Blackburn or Wigan fans complaining to authorities about the noise at their stadia. Nor is there evidence of those clubs providing club sponsored leaflets imploring fans to keep the noise down, especially in a relegation threatened season!
GET THAT PICTURE OF
thats the away end against a foreign team!
its not our suppport so fuck of.
Well Sir, I take your point (apart from the unnecessary and indeed misspelt swearing) but to be fair the home section at the far left of the shot hardly looks like La Bombonera now does it?
A very twisted and distorted article.
Three of the clubs with lower crowds but higher percentages than Boro were newly promoted clubs.
They're bound to sell out , as we did when we were newly promoted.
it makes no sense to calculate the percentage of empty seats in a stadium. Calculate 'support' against the number of people in the catchment area instead and see what you come up with.
Gibson built a stadium that was too big to fill with the number of fans that were regularly attending Awesome Park and a couple of fans complained about noise therefore we are the worst supporters in the country?
What a load of total cobblers. sorry.
Having been to a lot of grounds I can safely say that preston north end are the worst fans Ive ever seen there was not even one person singing it was a disgrace that they were at home.
It’s not numbers that count, it’s the passion felt by those who are there which matters. Red army!
http://www.mfc.co.uk/articles/20090223/boros-apology-to-fans-over-letter-confusion_70639_1566954