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RaWYou are in: London > RaW > What is a Football Club?  What is a Football Club?by Ian Mole At 2.50 p.m. on 5th May 1973 I was lucky enough to buy a cheap ticket for the F.A. Cup Final and was through that Wembley turnstile like s**t off a shovel. Write your own storyWin match tickets, a day with your London football team, stadium tours and season tickets by writing your own football story.That was the greatest event in the football life of any Sunderland fan who was alive at the time but, as I write this, of the players who performed so heroically for us that day none of them still has a connection with Sunderland A.F.C. and our Cup-winning manager Bob ‘The Messiah’ Stokoe died a few years back, as no doubt have many supporters who celebrated that victory with us. What is Sunderland AFC?Roker Park, that Holy of Holies for decades, has been replaced by a modern housing estate and the Stadium of Light is our ground now. Yet, despite the fact that Sunderland A.F.C. no longer has the same players, manager, coaching staff and ground, and thousands of the current supporters have replaced the fans of yesterdayÌý it still remains Sunderland A.F.C. So, what exactly is Sunderland A.F.C.? It can only be an entity that exists in the collective imagination of the thousands of people, staff and fans, who believe in it. Are the M.K. Dons Wimbledon F.C? I don’t think so, but why not? I don’t know for sure but I doubt if any of the old Wimbledon fans regularly make the trek u pto Milton Keynes and without this human element as far as I’m concerned the M.K. Dons aren’t the same club at all. On the other hand A.F.C. Wimbledon have a major claim to be Wimbledon F.C. as many of the fans of the old club are now fans of the new one. Given the rise of A.F.C. Wimbledon and the demise of the M.K. Dons, they should be swapping places in the League within a couple of years and I for one will be glad.
ÌýTraditions and fansThe history and traditions of a club are very important to supporters and I always enjoy the minute’s silence held at the last home game of the year at the Stadium of Light as it links the present to the many heroes of the past and, let’s face it, we haven’t had much to get excited about in recent seasons. That elderly woman pictured in the Echo looking so distraught at the end of the recent Newcastle debacle was later interviewed for the paper and she was a living history lesson with her decades of support for the club. Of course oral traditions are sometimes a bit suspect but that’s all part of their mythological character. To me Charlie Hurley remains like a superhero.Ìý Given the perilous financial status of many clubs these days, particularly in the lower leagues, there’s a serious possibility of a number of them going belly up in the next decade. But, given what I’ve said, I think any club could be resurrected as long as there are people who are prepared to go to see them again. Well, let’s hope that we at Sunderland at least don’t have to think about that possibility.ÌýÌýÌý last updated: 21/01/2008 at 12:29 |
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