This is great Sam. I've been thinking about this for a while now, I really really really hate North London Forever as a song, but EVERY time I hear it in the ground, i well up. You've made it make sense.
I like to think that in South America's stadiums this collective effervescence is a bit more alive, even if perhaps under assisted ventilation. The way I've experienced match day in Brazil is very different from what I've seen here in Europe, and the closest one to home has been the FC Barça Femení games. The difference is palpable, and it brings me hope for the future of Women's football, and how it can influence men's game too.
"Our fans are like, ‘We like tradition,’” Edens said. “And I tell them: ‘No, you don’t. You think you do, but you don’t.’ I mean, who doesn’t like a big-screen TV with plenty of food and beer?” Then he spread his arms wide and answered his own question: “Nobody.”
especially in parallel with your quote above: Tradition (active) is replaced by nostalgia (passive). It becomes a hashtag; it becomes this thing we do, the italics spoken aloud.
It's almost as if it's a battle between comfortability (in this case for Villa's owner, commercialization), and the actual work you have to put in to create/maintain "community" and not just in the artificial pitch deck sense.
I think Edens is wrong thought because with that tradition that comes with these Club is community, and that's something that humans will always long for in my opinion, whether it's active or passive.
I feel like that's where sometimes the retro remakes of kits from the 90's and 80's fall short, they may strike a feeling that a younger generation might feel those times represent, but they can't replicate the actual feeling of an Arsenal at Highbury or West Ham at Upton Park, when the club felt more their own, or at least it felt so for their mothers and fathers.
"That — beyond squeezing extra money out of pockets so they can sign a new left back — is the job of the club: To create a framework for collective effervescence to follow." This line, this is it. Great work again, Sam!
To relate this piece to my personal experience of celebrating with strangers in the Gallowgate End every other weekend, I feel like I'll lose a small part of me if we knock down St James' just so we can move to a new-build with tunnel club, self-pouring pints and the rest. Tradition and the 'collective' is the USP of my/our matchday experiences.
This is great Sam. I've been thinking about this for a while now, I really really really hate North London Forever as a song, but EVERY time I hear it in the ground, i well up. You've made it make sense.
I like to think that in South America's stadiums this collective effervescence is a bit more alive, even if perhaps under assisted ventilation. The way I've experienced match day in Brazil is very different from what I've seen here in Europe, and the closest one to home has been the FC Barça Femení games. The difference is palpable, and it brings me hope for the future of Women's football, and how it can influence men's game too.
Loved this, Sam. Definitely made me think of this recent story in the New York Times By Bruce Schoenfeld.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/04/magazine/english-soccer-american-owners.html
Especially the closing quote:
"Our fans are like, ‘We like tradition,’” Edens said. “And I tell them: ‘No, you don’t. You think you do, but you don’t.’ I mean, who doesn’t like a big-screen TV with plenty of food and beer?” Then he spread his arms wide and answered his own question: “Nobody.”
especially in parallel with your quote above: Tradition (active) is replaced by nostalgia (passive). It becomes a hashtag; it becomes this thing we do, the italics spoken aloud.
It's almost as if it's a battle between comfortability (in this case for Villa's owner, commercialization), and the actual work you have to put in to create/maintain "community" and not just in the artificial pitch deck sense.
I think Edens is wrong thought because with that tradition that comes with these Club is community, and that's something that humans will always long for in my opinion, whether it's active or passive.
I feel like that's where sometimes the retro remakes of kits from the 90's and 80's fall short, they may strike a feeling that a younger generation might feel those times represent, but they can't replicate the actual feeling of an Arsenal at Highbury or West Ham at Upton Park, when the club felt more their own, or at least it felt so for their mothers and fathers.
https://x.com/BomboneraTears/status/1787595621815234926
You don't replace this with beer and flat screens, in my opinion. There's room for both these days, but you can't completely disregard the other.
Killer read. Bravo.
"That — beyond squeezing extra money out of pockets so they can sign a new left back — is the job of the club: To create a framework for collective effervescence to follow." This line, this is it. Great work again, Sam!
To relate this piece to my personal experience of celebrating with strangers in the Gallowgate End every other weekend, I feel like I'll lose a small part of me if we knock down St James' just so we can move to a new-build with tunnel club, self-pouring pints and the rest. Tradition and the 'collective' is the USP of my/our matchday experiences.
Hitting the nail!