Do Clubs Care About Their Fans

I suppose this is a little like being outside looking in but round these parts (South Yorkshire) we have been hearing things about our neighbours, and rivals, Sheffield Wednesday which a lot of us don’t think is being fair to the fans.

And I’m not just picking on the Owls because other teams are also guilty of this – in fact probably more teams than we think about.

Recently the BBC asked football clubs whose contract with them was up for renewal to take a ten per cent reductions in fees. Seemingly sixty-two clubs agreed with the only exception being Sheffield Wednesday. This now means that local radio won’t be allowed to comment on the games from Hillsborough. Which for a lot of our local teams who all call Radio Sheffield rightly or wrongly ‘Radio Wednesday’ will probably mean more coverage. Radio Sheffield will however be able to commentate on games involving the Owls at other grounds.

I say unfair to fans because there are some fans who can’t, for various reasons, get to Hillsborough or can’t afford other ways of listening to their team so this commentary was their football lifeline. This is also the same club whose ticket prices are amongst the top in the country and who charge a penny less than £60 for an adult home shirt.

In my opinion, and it is only mine, I don’t think the people at Hillsborough are running a family club.

Now, I say this but I don’t know if Rotherham United’s contract at the BBC was ready for renewal so maybe I shouldn’t even be commenting on this. But I do have a couple of Owls fans who have both expressed that they are upset with Dave H saying he spent most of the weekend shaking his head at what’s going on at his club and GS telling me ‘the Chairman really needs to get his head out of the sand and look around at what he’s bringing this once great club to.’

I have another friend (yes, more than two!) who is a Bolton fan (he’s shaking his head at the pitch at his stadium being used for rugby league at the moment!) who said, ‘Hang on a minute. We are quick to trash this decision by Sheffield Wednesday but should we not, in fact, be applauding them?’

Oh! Really?

He went on to say that perhaps the Owls are doing right by making a stand against the BBC and might have been hoping others would follow in their footsteps. He also said, for him, it’s a bit like moaning about the price of football shirts – if nobody bought them then they’d have to re-think the price.

Well, that’s as may be my Bolton pal but all I see and hear on local radio is the Owls fans who are very upset by this decision while also thinking that owner Mr Chansiri has cut his nose off to spite his face because, as it stands at the moment, his club are getting nothing at all from the Beeb.

What do you think? Who else thinks their club, whichever it is, are selling the fans short?