CLASH OF THE TITANS

The ball is whisked into Gabriel Jesus who sets himself up to shoot but fires agonisingly wide.  Then a tantalising cross comes over but it sails off the head of Lotte Wubben-Moy and over the crossbar. I draw breath but not for long. There’s a breakaway on for us, but it’s stopped on the halfway line. We were away, surely a red card, but the Chelsea player escapes with a booking. Then De Bruyne is in the face of the referee, demanding a yellow card be waved at one of ours.

Sunday afternoon sure was confusing.

I was one of the lucky or unlucky ones. Unlucky in that I couldn’t get a ticket to either the men’s Manchester City Premier League match or the women’s Conti Cup final vs Chelsea. Lucky in that they were both on TV, so it was possible to watch them both. Sort of. Both were tense, nail-biting affairs that you didn’t want to take your eyes off. Except, unless you had two TVs or were watching on an iPad stacked on a laptop, you couldn’t. Once they were both underway, the only realistic way was to switch back and forth between Sky and BBC. Except that’s no way to watch football.

We all know that TV takes no account of what fixture scheduling can do to supporters, not only of kick-off times and what they mean for travelling fans, but also the way men’s and women’s matches are often played at the same time. While there’s much noise about equality and the growth of the women’s game, it seems beyond the TV schedulers to consider that supporters can follow a club and all its teams; that having two first teams playing simultaneously is just plain wrong.

Sunday’s clash was particularly invidious. The men facing their latest challenge in the pursuit of Premier League success against the current champions; the women in a cup final, the only realistic chance of a trophy this season.

Is the justification for such clashes that the men have one set of supporters – hardened, knowledgeable, male – while the women don’t really follow football, are fair weather, female and children? Because it’s not like that. While the women’s game has undoubtably enticed and enthralled a new set of fans, so it has also brought across traditional supporters. Look around at the Meadow Park stands and you’ll see a diversity of passionate football fans, many who support both teams and might have wanted to travel to both (ticket availability willing) and failing that, watch on TV. Yet the scheduling never seems to take that into consideration. Already, earlier in the season, there were two Arsenal home matches that overlapped (Men vs Palace at the Emirates, Women vs Everton at Meadow Park) and in a couple of weeks it happens again (Men vs Villa at the Emirates; Women vs Bristol City at Meadow Park).

Season ticket holders buy their tickets because they want to watch a match, and the club is strenuously trying to ensure they actually do turn up, with the threat of having the ticket taken away if a certain number of matches is not attended. Ironic then, that through no fault of their own, they are being forced online to twiddle between Ticket Exchange and Ticket Transfer.

Yet, the club professes to be powerless while still taking our money. Because they are dependent on the TV money which is worth a lot more. What’s a few hundred inconvenienced supporters compared to the multi-millions of cash on offer from the broadcasters? It opens the debate again that’s raging in the media once more, on how supporters are being disregarded, including talk of the resurrection of the idea of fixtures being played overseas. Cup ties in Miami? Arsenal vs Tottenham in Dubai? It may seem fanciful, but who would have expected matches to be played on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday as they are this week? And often at times set to make it impossible for travelling supporters to get home unless they drive through the night.

Is there a solution? There is another ongoing debate regarding the role (and relevance) of the Advisory Boards that sit with club executives and owners and discuss strategic matters. Could they try and bring some sanity to the proceedings? And what part might the government’s regulator play in the running of our sport? Maybe we should be looking elsewhere, for supporters to be on Advisory Boards of the sports’ broadcasters, to bring the voice of the fan into their boardrooms. Pardon me though, I think I just saw a pig fly past my window.

In the short term, these simulfixtures might provide a problem for clubs that play a proportion of women’s matches at their main stadium. Arsenal plan to keep increasing the number of games at the Emirates, with the future of playing at Meadow Park in question. What happens if, in years to come, the TV companies switch dates around and Arsenal find that both the men and the women are at home on the same day, at the same time and at the Emirates?

I expect a genius in the Sky Sports department will come up with a proposal. Get both sets of teams to play both matches at the same time, on the same pitch. And to differentiate them, men play in home kit, women in away kit; and the men will play with a blue ball, and the women’s ball will be pink.

It wouldn’t be beyond belief to imagine that someone’s already suggesting it!

Richard Smith April 2, 2024

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *