What is a real fan

Amongst the emails I received after a recent article I wrote there was one with a flip comment about me not being a real fan because I lived in Newcastle. I must have been in a bad mood when I read it because my reply contained a rather pompous paragraph stating my credentials. You know the sort of thing, season ticket since blah blah, Amsterdam, Barnet, blah blah. In my defence I did also say how none of that mattered, it was what you felt about the club that was the most important thing, but still ... Sorry Katie.

But it is a fair question, what is a \'real\' fan.

With the current popularity and success of the club we\'re bound to attract transient fans and so the first thing I\'m going to tackle is the \'Glory Hunter\' tag, because basically any new fan today is going to face that one.

What is a glory hunter? Well generally anyone who starts supporting a team during a successful patch is likely to be called a glory hunter. But is it fair? I mean should we have an embargo on new fans until we go through a bad patch? Obviously that\'s not going to happen so how do new supporters avoid the tag? I\'m afraid the only way to get over that one is time, but here\'s one to think on. After 30 years with a season ticket I doubt anyone would call me a glory hunter, but when I started supporting Arsenal we were holders of the Fairs Cup and only a couple of months from being only the forth team ever to do the League and Cup double. I don\'t think the term was prevalent then, but if it was surely I could have had the tag applied to me. Don\'t be apologetic for supporting a successful club, revel in it – it\'s not your fault!

There is another type of glory hunter though. The type that changes teams according to who ever\'s successful. If that\'s you then you\'re not a real fan of a team, merely a football fan who just wants to watch success. A friend of mine once described it as visiting a brothel every week and never having a girlfriend. If that\'s what you want fair enough – but why claim any allegiance at all?

Ok, so you\'ve dealt with the glory hunter but now people are having a pop because you don\'t go to many (or any) matches. Is that fair?

Well I certainly don\'t think so. When I started going in the early 70\'s going to the football was a \'pocket money\' event. Even as a young child my pocket money was enough to pay to get in to Highbury every week. In fact when I was bought my first season ticket in 1977/78 it was a birthday present, and not an exceedingly extravagant one. My Dad being an accountant was always one for paying up front and coupling the cheaper price with the guaranteed Cup Final tickets (considering we made four of them in the next three years after not having threatened a semi for a few years must have been a coincidence...must have). I suppose the best way to explain was that the pocket money choice was something like 3 or 4 packets of crisps or a football match!

Prices have risen to (frankly) exorbitant levels. When the old North Bank (RIP) was demolished I (as many others did) demonstrated and campaigned against the (original) Bond Scheme, with the then newish director David Dein being the focus of our anger. Ironically my late Grandad (now there was a real man in every positive sense of the phrase) saw the \'150 year\' seat deal as something tangible he could buy myself and my brother to remember him by and in the summer we were rather shocked to have Bond certificates turn up! But through those Bonds I can give an excellent example of how prices have risen during the premiership years.

You may or may not be aware but the main sweeteners in the deal were the option of a guaranteed ticket for every game, and the fact that ticket price increases would be linked to inflation for 10 years. The last year of the capped price my season ticket was (from memory) £320. The next season it was over £1200! So by my calculation I\'d say that in 10 years prices have quadrupled in real terms.

Going to matches now is nothing like a pocket money event. Aside from the difficulties in getting tickets it\'s now a major expense to watch your team. Buying a ticket is now something to be thought about rather than just a whim, and kids can\'t afford to go all the time. I\'m lucky in that my life allows me the time and money to follow Arsenal game by game, but I do wonder how I would find £30+ per game if I were a teenager now. I mean that must be about what a kid would earn working a whole day in a supermarket! More to the point I doubt I\'d have got a season ticket for my birthday if they\'d cost the equivalent of what they cost now!

So for me going to matches these days is as much about having the ability to pay for it as the desire to attend.

Right. Next we come to the foreign fan.

Unless you\'re English / Cockney / born in Islington (depending on who you speak to) you apparently don\'t have the right to be a Gooner. The argument goes how can some fan in (say) Asia possibly love an English club. For me though the argument is absolute cobblers. In these days of global media unless you go to games it\'s just as easy to watch Arsenal in Bangkok as it is in Barnet. Easier in fact, as more games are televised abroad than are here. So why on earth can\'t they support Arsenal? Another \'modern\' change?

As you may well know I\'ve got a massive collection of Arsenal programmes and books going back to the thirties, and there\'s a recurring theme through all of them. It\'s The Arsenal celebrating their global appeal. Groups of fans all over the world supporting the club - and being lauded for doing it from afar. I remember reading one story in an old copy of Gunflash about someone whose car broke down in the Middle East (in the 50\'s). After having his car fixed he asked the mechanic about costs and was told all this guy wanted was his Arsenal key ring! I can also remember in the 70\'s how the club would often have notices in the programme welcoming supporters groups from different countries who had travelled to the game and how I felt pride that my club inspired such devotion from afar. Now people complain about groups of \'tourists\' taking tickets from \'real fans\'. Well as someone who knows all about the time and expense that following Arsenal from up here takes I can only admire someone who travels thousand of miles for the chance of going to Highbury.

To be honest I think this is a backlash against the somewhat cynical marketing employed by the mancs in the Far East over the last few years. There\'s a big difference though. Their \'nouveau\' fans may have been tempted by a marketed brand, but ours are far more likely to have been attracted by a football club. For longevity that is vital, because whilst you can support an unsuccessful football team, no one is going to follow a losing brand!

Lastly you get the \'if you were a real fan you\'d know who our left-winger was against Liverpool in 1967\' type. I\'ve often been called an \'anorak\' for my knowledge of Arsenal (I guess that\'s why the \'short\' history I was asked to write for this site ended up at around 30,000 words!) but does that make me any more of a fan? Not really, it just means I like reading and I\'ve read an awful lot about Arsenal. I do think it gives me a far better understanding of Arsenal and what the club is about, but knowledge doesn\'t necessarily equal passion, and that\'s what it\'s all down to.

Passion. How much it matters. That\'s the only way to measure whether you\'re a \'real fan\' in my book.

I don\'t think it matters one little bit where you are, when you started supporting or how often you go. All that counts is that you pick a club, stick with it and genuinely care about it.

It\'s emotion that defines a \'real fan\'. And only you truly know what you feel.

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