Franchise plc

H&V 129 – March 2006

With the exception of Manchester United, it’s doubtful that there’s a more loathed team in the country than MK Dons. Everyone knows the story of how Wimbledon, who had spent twenty years battling their way through the divisions and then surviving in the Premier League, were shifted to Milton Keynes, where they underwent a metamorphosis into the Dons.

It was a nasty exercise in attempting to make money by moving a successful football team into an area where there had never been one and, it was thought, a market existed. I’m glad to say that it failed; MK Dons play in front of crowds much lower than Wimbledon attracted, and look set for relegation to the bottom division, whatever it might be called next season. Even better, it might only be a couple of years before they’re overtaken by AFC Wimbledon.

One of the many great things about English football is that clubs have grown naturally. All of our top clubs began life as a small entity, usually playing friendlies or in the equivalent of the Festival League. They grew out of their neighbourhood and retain strong ties with the area in which they were formed. Not for us the American idea of selling a successful club to the highest bidder, as happened in the fifties when fans of baseball’s New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers found out that their teams were now playing 3,000 miles  away in San Francisco and Los Angeles respectively. Not for us the idea that you could buy success.

A football team stayed where it started out and became a source of civic pride whether successful or not. Supporters have more or less accepted that they follow their local side and stuck to them through thick and thin, Or if you were local to Bordesley Green, through very thin and extremely thin indeed.

However, the universal loathing that MK Dons enjoy, together with the whole Premiership ethos, has made me wonder whether they’re the only franchise in the country. Or has the game changed so much that there are more clubs around now who are really franchises in everything but name?

For a start, there’s the first club to come along during the Premiership era to buy their way to success. Blackburn Rovers had spent much of the twentieth century in the lower divisions before Jack Walker’s millions took them into the top division just in time for it to become the Premier League. Not only did he bankroll a title-winning team, he also bought what was to all intents a new club. Four new stands, an entirely new backroom staff, and average gates that more than doubled in six years. A majority of their supporters were new, as well as giving the impression that they only went to watch Blackburn because they couldn’t get tickets for Old Trafford. The only thing that stayed the same was the club’s name and address. what little atmosphere they had was stirred up by that bane of nineties football, a drummer.

Blackburn away was a glimpse into the future of English football. Nice, safe, but I never came away from there without remembering that FA Cup trip in 1980 when we were crammed into the terrace behind the goal, singing our heads off as a collection of Villa supporters shinned up the drainpipes and risked life and limb by singing along the stanchions on the roof. I was glad when Blackburn won the league in 1995, because it stopped Manchester United from doing it again. But I was even more pleased when they got relegated four years later. Jack Walker might have bought a team, but he could never buy its heart. His Blackburn Rovers were completely top-heavy, with players and employees who cared nothing for the club and supporters who were more interested in the opposition’s top names than in their own team.

And now, everywhere’s like Blackburn. Go to any Premier League match and it’s only the colours that give any clue as to where you are. You get your ticket from an officially-authorised outlet. Go into the club shop, or rather mega-super-duper-store and the same things will be on sale, just with a different badge.

Everyone whose kits are manufactured by Reebok will have the same designs of leisurewear, same goes for Umbro, Adidas and every other company. There are official car parks, designated away pubs, even official food outlets outside the grounds.

Clubs sell the same type of overpriced,  branded, food and drink. You buy a burger and fries, you drink Coke. The people around you live maybe an hour’s drive away. They weren’t born locally, they’ve no ties to the area for the past three generations, but they realised round about 1996 that it helps to be able to discuss footie in the office on Monday morning.

Into the van and there’s the same view you got from the same seat last week. The ground might be called the Reebok instead of the Riverside, but it’s still the same basic design. The family sitting next to you “make some noise” as the teams come out, because the man on the PA tells them to, just before the arrival of 22 highly-paid professional sportsmen, one or two of whom might, if you’re lucky, have been born within fifty miles of the ground.

Three o’clock comes round and the fun begins. I can guarantee you that at any given time in the first five minutes (before the novelty wears off) half the songs you hear will be the same all around the country with just the words changed. The team you don’t like are “scum” and you’ll stand up if you hate them. You’ll also stand up if you love your own team. Once you score it’s time for that “easy” arm-waving stuff and if the team you’re playing are in the bottom half they’re “‘Avin’ a laff” being in the Premier League.

You’ll spend half-time watching a clown in a furry suit organising a penalty shoot-out between a bunch of kids whose parents have paid half a week’s wages and you’ll endure another forty-five minutes, during which time an equalizer will be followed by a chorus of “You’re not singing anymore.” You’ll spend an hour in a queue out of the car park. You’ll listen to the local radio station, whose presenter will agree with every caller criticising the referee and the opposition’s timewasting/aggressive tactics.

By the time you get onto the motorway 606 will have started. A Chelsea fan will say Mourinho should be sacked because they let in a goal, and Adrian Chiles will smile instead of calling him a smug wanker. if Liverpool have lost a Devonian will demand to know why Bob Paisley isn’t allowed to manage them via a medium. If Spurs have lost, an extraordinarily loud-mouthed oaf from Hertfordshire will demand the sacking of everyone associated with the club. Everyone else who’s lost will blame the referee.

Players will be pulling out of the car park in whatever’s the ‘in’ car for footballers this season, to drive back to their luxury homes in the country(married) or apartment in the newest block in town (single).

All over the country the same things will have been said and done by the same people week in, week out. At the end of the season the teams that have spent the most money will have won all the trophies, and they’ll buy the best players from the teams below them.

If that’s not franchising, I don’t know what is.