Welcome to a new series we're introducing here at TheSPORTbible, titled 'For Football Sake'. Here we look at some of the daft and silly things in football that really grind our gears.
Of course, we all have the ability to moan about hefty ticket prices and extortionate wages in the game but this series will focus on the more left-field issues that maybe don't leave us having sleepless nights, but equally annoy and frustrate us.
I'm starting it off with an issue that really gets on my nerves; that being when football fans leave games early.
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Let me set the scene. You're a season ticket holder and you've gone to the game where your team are drawing 1-1 in a tense, nervy affair - with 80 minutes on the clock. Do you choose option A which entails of staying and see if your beloved team can muster up one final golden opportunity? Or do you go for option B where you make your way to the exit so you can get to the car, get nice and warm and 'beat the traffic' whilst listening to TalkSPORT?
The answer is definitively A. I'm not one of those who are all-aboard the 'Against Modern Football' bandwagon but one of my major gripes is when I'm at the game and with minutes remaining, fans are heading for the exit so they steal a march on other fans and get away quicker.
For the record, I am a Manchester City fan and have been since day one. The song "Where were you when you were shit?" gets chanted at us a lot these days but the answer City fans instantly deliver is "We were here when we were shit".
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We also regularly get the Arab money stuff chucked at us a fair bit, as well as the ever-present 'Emptihad' jokes. Being a match-going fan, I can say that most of the time the stadium is full for games and has been the case for a long time. We had an average attendance of 28,261 in the third tier of English football back in 1999 and though naturally fans have increased as the club have had more success, the core of the fanbase remains the same - in fact a good chunk of fans preferred it when we were shit; when we had Jamie Pollock scoring wonder own-goals and Kevin Horlock getting sent off for "aggressive walking".
The above points might be meaningless to someone with no association to Manchester City but what I'm trying to say is that the whole 'Emptihad' thing is a bit of a myth and heavily over-used. I'm happy to argue and defend it all day (though it might get a bit boring and tedious).
But one thing I can admit to is that going to the match, there are a lot of people who choose option B at the Etihad Stadium. Even when there's been a big-scoring home win, the players are pretty much clapping to an empty stadium and it really does my head in.
And it's not just City fans who do it, speaking to fans of other teams in England, it's something that happens at most grounds these days and I really don't get why it's so common.
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Sure, if you've paid your money for a ticket to a game then you do indeed have the right to go whenever you want to but If I've paid my money to watch my team, I'm riding it out until the final whistle goes. You don't leave a film before the big finale do you? Yet for football games it's different.
I'm fairly proud to say I've only ever left one game early and that was a Under-21 derby fixture marred by crowd trouble between United and City at Old Trafford and even though it felt weird leaving before the game's closure. I don't expect a chufty badge or anything, just so you know.
Obviously there are some cases where people are absolutely well within their rights to leave early such as disabled people or adults with small children and protests against owners do come about, so there are exceptions. And of course if your team's getting spanked 6-0 at home then you're probably not enjoying it and naturally there's going to be a lot of fans who want to get out as soon as they can
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However, from personal experience, the majority of people I see leaving games tend to do it in order to 'beat the traffic' on the way home. There's genuinely some people in my stand who turn up late and leave early without fail - over a season the minutes of action they miss probably tallies up to a full game. As aforementioned, as a paying customer I want to get my moneys worth and I feel by leaving early, you just don't get it.
In all honesty there's not much we can do about it going forward unless there are drastic measures whereby fans are locked into the ground or I start my own movement with surveys and petitions, which is a bit daft. Unfortunately it is part and parcel of the game and I'll have to accept it, even if I have just penned nearly 1000 words on why I hate fans leaving early.
If you are someone who regularly leaves games early no matter the reason, I'll leave you a little anecdote.
On 13th May 2012, Manchester City won the Premier League title in dramatic fashion with two stoppage time goals against QPR. A host of fans in the ground left early and missed the most dramatic moment in Premier League history before trying their best to climb back in for the trophy celebrations.
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You never know, by leaving early you might miss your team's big moment so please bear that in mind.
Words by Josh Lawless
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