Pitch invasions are the bane of football (this week) so how do we stop it happening without being draconian? Trust the majority…
Barely a flick of a remote or a passing of a builder’s radio would have gone by in the past few days without the phrase ‘pitch invasion’ being emblazoned on TV tickers or blaring out from speakers regarding football’s latest moral panic.
Yes, a few people have gone on pitches towards the end of the season and yes, a few prize prats have assaulted players and now there’s a media frenzy on how to deal with the current fad for dafties running around playing surfaces.
Want to just get back to the football? Here’s how.
1) Change the language
Let’s look at the loaded language of pitch ‘invasions’. These weren’t invasions per se; they were mainly on-pitch celebrations where the vast majority of supporters were living the culmination of long, hard-fought seasons.
The media loves to play on the emotions of football fans when their behaviour is commercially acceptable but when they act with real emotion, that’s not on.
‘Pitch incursions’, ‘pitch celebrations’, call them what you will but let’s vary the language and try and come at things from an angle of understanding rather than demonisation.
2) Embrace fan culture, don’t sanitise
On a sociological level, what we might be seeing is a pushing-back by fans who have sat, mainly quietly, through a long period of sanitisation of the sport since the Premier League’s creation in 1992.
From all-seater stadia, to an overt concentration on commercialism, English football – known for its terrace culture – has become predictable and downright dull and fans are looking more at what they actually want from going to games.
So further draconian measures and more sanitisation of the product won’t work. The absolute best thing for the sport, and this was preached by the late supporter leader Brian Lomax, is to democratically include supporters in the running of the…
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