Christmas Wish: for supporters to return in time for Euro 2020

While reading Luke James’ Christmas Wish, I pondered what I’d been especially missing across this terrible year. In comparison to Luke’s love of ice hockey, my sporting taste is rather broad-brush, usually consisting of football, football, football, and then some more football, followed by rugby, swimming and tennis. Therefore, my Christmas Wish is in turn, quite simple as well. I want the fans back. Properly.

This, I realise, is a wish that the majority of the population desires as well, but I feel as if the debate has lessened somewhat following fans’ re-entry into stadiums following the second lockdown. Due to the current coronavirus restrictions, a maximum of 2000 fans have been allowed into grounds across the country and, although this is a step in the right direction, sport still does not feel the same.

Although the presence of fans does add to the experience of watching a match, it is a feeble imitation of what has gone before. Chants, gamely started up by one or two people, usually peter out after a couple of minutes. As with behind-closed-doors games, awkward silence seems to engulf the stadium.

This is nothing against those fans, it is hard enough for that small number of people to create enough noise in a 10,000-seater stadium, let alone a 65,000 one. However, I have increasingly started to feel that football will not truly be back until stadiums are packed out.

For fans watching on TV as well, the reassuring sea of red and blue shirts, and the reverberating chants muffling the pointless discussions ventured by the commentary team, are factors I have increasingly missed across this period. Unfortunately, 2,000 fans cannot replicate these sensations.

Players have consistently complained about the lack of fans

The action on the pitch will also improve. Over the past few months, players have consistently complained about the lack of fans, and how it drastically changes their game-plan and tactics on the pitch. These changes, in my opinion, have been for the worse. In the case of football, games are far slower and more lethargic. Two-goal lead often feel insurmountable. Supporters’ absence is conspicuous.

The idiocy of certain Millwall fans, however, reminded the general population as to the dark side of football supporters and made some of the more voracious voices for the return of fans quieten somewhat. We can but hope that similar events will not happen if fans return on a wider scale, and the more sensible sections of the fanbase, who usually are in the clear majority, drown out any dissenting voices that remain.

As I suggest in the headline, I hope it will be safe for fans to return in time Euro 2020(+1). In many ways, the Euros would be the perfect endpoint for what will have been a difficult 18 months. International tournaments have often been described as ‘festivals of football’, and this would especially in 2021. Seeing terraces and walkways dominated by white, blue, and orange-clad fans would help to restore the game I love to its rightful place in the world.