Having been shielding under NHS advice until the 1st of this month, I was somewhat late to the whole ‘the pubs are reopening’ party. Walking through the door of my local felt very strange, I guess almost trepidatious, despite many decades of accomplished service at the bar.
I walk in and see half a dozen familiar faces. There was brief a hale fellow well met thing, and then a sense of disappointment I truly haven’t felt since I was a teenager in the very early 80s, and realized I wasn’t getting any class of personal computer, not even a second-hand ZX80, after an absolute age of repeated begging… jeez.
Sterile is not a word one readily associates with pubs and bars, and but that’s precisely how they have become. I’m grateful to still sneak and hour or two to mix with real people and have slurp, bar life is in my blood, but what’s on offer now is a sorry state of affairs.
Judging by this report by Adam Shergold for The Daily Mail, the short to medium term future of fans physically at football matches looks equally bleak.
Aside from only fraction of supporters being allowed back into sporting arenas, there look to be a whole set of understandable yet frustrating protocols for the ‘devoted’ to comply with.
In the MLS – teams have made fans that were let in sign legal waivers that exempt them from legal action, should they try and pin contracting COVID-19 on attending a game.
Sparsely populated pubs with jukeboxes noticeably turned down are sterile, going out to eat is simply about going through the motions. Nobody in their right mind finds doing a weekly shop wearing a mask enjoyable – especially if you wear glasses. None of these bricks and mortar businesses are taking enough money to survive this lunacy.
Now turn your thoughts to ENIC’s brave new world business model, which was entirely focused upon the footfall of fans/client reference numbers. A model based solely upon packing folk into an arena with all the identity of an airport, filled with food and drink outlets.
Tottenham were lauded for having allegedly hit £800,000 in match day food and drink sales in April of last year. Those heady numbers are long gone now. Fantasy.
Of all the Premier League sides, it is ironic that Spurs – the most fiscally uptight of the lot – now stand to weather what is and will continue to be a brutal economic storm.
Levy fans will demand to know who could’ve predicted such terrible, random misfortune?! I’m more curious to know why our biggest sponsor is an insurance firm, and yet we didn’t have pandemic insurance – after all, Wimbledon did.
I hear its “reloading. Who knows. I do know that less than 1% of the pop have died from it though. I hope you’re right.
COVID-19 has been and gone. Only now, are we ordered to act like it’s hiding in the wardrobe.
In 10 years time supporters at Leeds will be sitting watching a live game with bits of stadium falling on their heads saying “at least we didn’t do a Tottenham”
How is it that the apparently plummeting Covid19 death rate is not making headlines everywhere? On Worldometer, the most used and accurate stat site, the number of deaths as a percentage of those people globally who were recorded as having had Covid19 and had an outcome, has gone from 21% 3 months ago to 5% today – https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ – I heard the dropping mortality rate mentioned at the end of a news item on radio 4 this morning almost as a not particularly relevant aside. Something significant appears to be happening rather quickly if this information is accurate; either people are fast becoming more resilient, or the Rona is fast becoming less virulent. If this information is indeed accurate, and is evidence of the Rona morphing quickly & significantly, one wonders if the vaccine chasing is actually a waste of time and money? I live in a town of nearly 100,000 people, and during the past few weeks I’ve seen crowds in all sorts of indoor places, many behaving fairly normally, some sans mask. I also know of several people who’ve had secret ‘normal’ house parties. The local hospital a few days ago had one known case of the Rona present. I would have expected a fast growing number by this stage. Something appears not to add up. Watch this space I suppose ……………
Can’t wait for Danny to offer supporters the opportunity to have cardboard cut outs of themselves or someone of their choice to “sit” in their seat, all for the price of a match day ticket. And of course we can always do an Arsenal when it comes to attendance figures by including all the season ticket holders regardless of whether they are there or not. At least Danny got one thing right – the stadium ‘experience’ is “cash-less’ and I don’t think he’ll be seeing much of that anytime soon.
No singing! What harm could it do? We have survived the 2010s with Little Mix and One Direction! Surely this virus can’t be worse? Seriously though, you can’t suppress the joy of fandom. Did you see Verratti nearly kill himself when PSG scored? Brilliant scenes. I would love to see a steward escort a fan out for over celebrating too! A sense of realism is needed, although it will feel a bit Div 2 in the 80s without the racism, unless you’re at West Spam and Chelsea. Spurs apparently earn £6m per home game. That is serious dough if it builds up. We could have signed another Ndombele if it hadn’t been for the virus. Be thankful for small mercies.
every town, village and city should have a summer time ball…dance, drink, shag and spit over each other to get it out the way….lets get this party started!
Perhaps as the ENIC/ Levy business model is based on a pre Covid world Uncle Joe will pull the plug and sell out and jettison little Levy into the stratosphere. If it appears that the ground will never fill to capacity for any event it may make the numbers pear shaped and devalue the project. Maybe they can offload the football business that has always been an irksome interference and just focus on their real aspiration of the gentrification of North London. Real owners with real ambition and a world class manager who knows how to win stuff. Poetic justice for these pair of parasites for 20 years of mugging off the fans, emptying their wallets and delivering zero success.
It will be terrible until the full crowd is allowed back. That won’t happen until the virus is stopped – either by natural or vaccine assisted herd immunity.
Oh my days. No point going. I’d rather be a telly fan. This won’t last for long surely? Please tell me it won’t. Reassure me please. Say it softly with conviction🌚🌚
😂
Sounds like they’ll still need the fake noise man…at least he’s got a job!
H they probably offered Levy a deal on COVID cover but he tried to beat them down on the premiums and they walked.
Last paragraph,no but you almost certainly won’t gain entrance without waiving your rights.It will be similar if they try to enforce vaccines on everyone.
Phew, that was a long read Harold, but I go through it! What do I get?
It’s gonna be post Christmas before the turnstiles will start moving again. Spurs will survive but many, many smaller ones won’t. This really divides the wealthy clubs from the poor ones – and almost mimics what the Tories are doing to society as a whole
Better the Daniel you know🌚
I’m afraid we’re stuck with him, I console myself with the notion we could swap him for something worse like an Ashley, Kroenkes or those two chancers at Liverpool before Fenway Sports bought them out.
That blasted covid fk up everyting.
You could make the argument that we have done a “Leeds” after all but in different circumstances. One thing is for sure that there will be plenty of other PL clubs who will indulge in some schadenfreude at Levy’s expense who is not universally popular, to put it mildly.
Yeah sitting in the stand politely applauding Harry Kane’s latest goal as if you were at a classical music concert. Taking half an hour to get to the toilets. Security will make you think you are in an airport, oh what joy. Probably have to go through some sort disinfectant blowing machine as well.
All food and drink up in price to make up for lack of numbers. No singing, no chanting, no hugging random strangers when the Spurs score. As for signing a waiver giving up your rights that won’t have any force of law behind it in the UK, I’d imagine.