[jack bauer]

there was a debate on here sometime ago about whether or not fans make a difference to games, i can't remember the thread, so a few weeks into games with empty stadiums (germany and beyond and now into england) do those who said it makes no difference still hold to that belief? do those who argue fans do make a difference still hold to their viewpoint?

[firedodger]

Of course it makes a difference. Of course games are worse without crowds.
That’s why playing behind closed doors is normally seen as a punishment .

[Westbars Spireite]

firedodger, on 21 June 2020 - 12:06 AM, said:

Of course it makes a difference. Of course games are worse without crowds.
That’s why playing behind closed doors is normally seen as a punishment .

He means, I think, does it impede the home team rather than the spectacle.

The use of it as a punishment is meant as a financial one primarily.

To answer the question (if that's the case) ,the small sample of results across Europe would suggest to me that the lack of familiarity with their surroundings is having some short term impact on teams.

[Ernie Ernie Ernie]

Westbars Spireite, on 21 June 2020 - 07:35 AM, said:

He means, I think, does it impede the home team rather than the spectacle.

The use of it as a punishment is meant as a financial one primarily.

To answer the question (if that's the case) ,the small sample of results across Europe would suggest to me that the lack of familiarity with their surroundings is having some short term impact on teams.

I’d say it’s hanging a massive impact in the games so far. Far less home wins down from about 43% win rate to 25% in Germany. Far less home goals, away win rate a lot higher etc

[Westbars Spireite]

Ernie Ernie Ernie, on 21 June 2020 - 07:51 AM, said:

I’d say it’s hanging a massive impact in the games so far. Far less home wins down from about 43% win rate to 25% in Germany. Far less home goals, away win rate a lot higher etc

Agreed. I think as teams acclimatise to playing at home it would return to closer to normality stats-wise.

The lack of actual supporters in the ground is probably one of several factors.

This post has been edited by Westbars Spireite: 21 June 2020 - 08:31 AM

[Ernie Ernie Ernie]

Westbars Spireite, on 21 June 2020 - 08:31 AM, said:

Agreed. I think as teams acclimatise to playing at home it would return to closer to normality stats-wise.

The lack of actual supporters in the ground is probably one of several factors.

The others being ?

[dtp]

I tried watching the Bournemouth v Crystal Palace game on BBC last night and thought it was a bit like watching a practice match. Found myself channel hopping but saw nothing else as compelling viewing so came back to the match whilst doing other things. Can't say I was glued to it or that there were any incidents that made me look up to see. Perhaps, had there been the atmosphere of a crowd I might have looked up more.

[calvin plummers socks]

Was strange at the finish of the BHA Arsenal game when Maupassant was grabbed by the throat and the crowd noises/tape loudly booed

[Westbars Spireite]

Ernie Ernie Ernie, on 21 June 2020 - 08:40 AM, said:

The others being ?

Change of routine - travel, timings, changing etc.

No overnight stays before home games, no friends and family in the stadium.

Away teams being in 'game' mode earlier.

Potentially dozens of things.

This post has been edited by Westbars Spireite: 21 June 2020 - 11:57 AM

[dim view]

Westbars Spireite, on 21 June 2020 - 08:31 AM, said:

Agreed. I think as teams acclimatise to playing at home it would return to closer to normality stats-wise.

The lack of actual supporters in the ground is probably one of several factors.

I think one big difference will a reduction in bad decision making by refs as a result of them not being pressured by home supporters, especially late on. I accept though it might be difficult to prove statistically.

[Westbars Spireite]

dim view, on 21 June 2020 - 05:07 PM, said:

I think one big difference will a reduction in bad decision making by refs as a result of them not being pressured by home supporters, especially late on. I accept though it might be difficult to prove statistically.

I think that’s a small factor too. Impossible to prove either way but then it all is.

[Ernie Ernie Ernie]

Westbars Spireite, on 21 June 2020 - 09:44 PM, said:

I think that’s a small factor too. Impossible to prove either way but then it all is.

Of all the games played behind closed doors prior to Covid, which incidentally has about the same home/win ratio that appears to be currently reflected in the Bundesliga, one of the only things the statisticians came up with for refs is that when the home team is losing, when a crowd is in place, is that they play more time when the home team is losing playing with no crowd.
Some weird jobs about analysing that etc

[dim view]

Ernie Ernie Ernie, on 21 June 2020 - 10:11 PM, said:

Of all the games played behind closed doors prior to Covid, which incidentally has about the same home/win ratio that appears to be currently reflected in the Bundesliga, one of the only things the statisticians came up with for refs is that when the home team is losing, when a crowd is in place, is that they play more time when the home team is losing playing with no crowd.
Some weird jobs about analysing that etc

Appeasement Definition : 'Is the act of giving something to an aggressive power to keep the peace.'

I think crowd pressure has a major effect on refs and linesmen. A second dubious penalty appeal upheld after a first one denied; a second booking issued in dubious circumstances; a crowd's perception that a goalie is time wasting; etc etc.

It's a much bigger psychological effect situation than people realise. The combination of no fans and VAR will statistically change outcomes.

[calvin plummers socks]

Excellent article (as always from him) by Gregor Robertson in the Times I’m behind closed doors - referencing JS at Town

[moondog]

calvin plummers socks, on 22 June 2020 - 07:43 AM, said:

Excellent article (as always from him) by Gregor Robertson in the Times I'm behind closed doors - referencing JS at Town

Link here

https://www.thetimes...ed-to-kwdcjd98l

John Sheridan would love football behind closed doors. His players? Perhaps not so much. The former Sheffield Wednesday and Ireland midfielder was my manager at Chesterfield between 2009 and 2012 and, every Saturday, for 90-plus minutes, he was a man possessed.

He admitted as much. “I can’t help myself,” he would often say after a game in which he kicked every ball from the sideline, competed for every challenge, spat out orders and delivered the odd excoriating barb. He is a successful lower-league manager — who has also been in charge of Oldham Athletic, Plymouth Argyle, Newport County, Notts County, Fleetwood Town and Carlisle United — for whom I greatly enjoyed playing, but for those 90 minutes, he was incessant.

Sheridan is far from alone in that regard but he sprang to mind at Craven Cottage on Saturday as I took in my first behind-closed-doors game of the coronavirus age. What struck me most about the experience was the extent to which the players of Fulham and Brentford were hounded and harangued — and encouraged — by their head coaches, Scott Parker and Thomas Frank respectively.

In ordinary times, with fans in the stands and waves of noise rising and crashing all around, the maundering of the manager is all but washed away. That is largely true for the players on the field of play too. But now? Every word is inescapable.

Sometimes, pre-Covid, players did their best not to listen. Sheridan hated it when a player cupped an ear or, even worse, ignored him altogether by pretending not to hear amid the hubbub. As a left back it was often difficult for me to escape — at least for half the match. It was the same with Chris Wilder, the Sheffield United manager for whom I played at Northampton Town, who would pick passes for me when I had the ball. At Nottingham Forest, Gary Megson inflicted 45 minutes of earache but, thankfully, during the other 45 he could be blissfully ignored. Joe Kinnear, his predecessor, was much the same.

Perhaps that sounds surprising but I much preferred the relative calm of opposite flank to play the game as I saw it before me, to close down the winger, or cover team-mates as I would have without the gaffer bellowing in my ear. I think most players would agree.

Both Parker, left, and Frank were vocal on the sidelines at Craven CottageMI NEWS & SPORT/ALAMY LIVE NEWSTimes change and there’s a line of thought that says if you are forced to bark orders from the sidelines then you have not communicated your ideas successfully enough in advance. That, however, ignores the fact that some of the game’s leading head coaches are intensely involved touchline figures. Pep Guardiola. Jürgen Klopp. Antonio Conte. Managers often say that the stress of match-day is far more acute than it ever was as a player because of the sense of helplessness they feel once they hand the baton to the players.

However, in my experience, those who are most vocal on the sidelines are, more often than not, doing so as much for their own benefit as for the good of a player in the crosshairs, or the team. Of course there are pertinent tactical points and changes to be made. On Saturday, Frank repeatedly encouraged his back four to maintain a high defensive line, his front three to press Fulham’s back four high and with intensity. Parker called for the play to be switched from side to side whenever possible. But many of the calls were not all that dissimilar to those you would find on a local park on a Sunday.

It was a game between two of the Championship’s finest footballing teams, which ebbed and flowed and was full of quality but somehow lacked a definitive cut or thrust — until Brentford snared all three points in the final few minutes, through Saïd Benrahma and the substitute Emiliano Marcondes.

“We all knew the importance of the local derby, how important it was to the fans to beat Fulham,” Frank said. “That doesn’t change if the fans are there or not. But of course the real intensity was lacking maybe 10 or 15 per cent because the fans were not there. You could feel that.”

Parker agreed. “Without fans you’re always going to miss a bit of an edge to a football match,” he said. “I think it’s clear that in an empty stadium we’re not going to get what we’ve come to expect when we play football matches. But that’s the world we’re living in and we need to adapt.”

The absence of that comforting yet invigorating blanket of noise, and who best adapts, is a fascinating dynamic at play in the rest of this season — and likely beyond. The only time most footballers have played without a crowd has been in practice, when you are almost entirely reliant on self-motivation.

The relationship between players and supporters is symbiotic: one elevates the experience for the other, and vice versa. As a player, the crowd stir your senses, adrenaline surges. You can, on occasion, reach a state in which the mechanics of the game feel like second nature.

Without fans, however, all you are left with is the voice of the manager — and he has never felt closer.

[dim view]

moondog, on 22 June 2020 - 08:06 AM, said:

Link here

Ta, very interesting.

I think Venger or Ferguson would say there's a link between managers barking incessant, detailed instructions on the touchline and players' ability. Their definition of a great player is that the next thing he/she does is what the coach would want him/her to do. The inference being that if the manager sits in the stand then the players themselves believe that the manager thinks they are great players, and that's a great filip.

And vica versa. The message the 'barkers' send out is psychologically debilitating, as Robbo himself remarks. Wilder thought him incapable of making sound decisions on basics like selecting the right pass. Managers should all sit down or at least keep quiet except when they have to issue tactical team instructions. Duncan and Randall understood this. Most of the comics since haven't.

[jack bauer]

robertsons article is very interesting reading, on a related note to that, i've often felt that the much discussed hollis always has a better half when he's defending the north stand end, now is that to do with fans, the manager, both or maybe just my imagination.

[moondog]

Decent article in the Athletic about behind closed doors match programmes.

https://theathletic....-shared-article


The questions never stop for Jurgen Klopp. Even at a deserted Goodison Park on Sunday night, after the final whistle had blown, the interviews had ended and the internal debriefs with players and staff were over, there was another query posed to Klopp: “Wednesday’s programme?”

Early the next morning at home, Jordan Henderson’s phone rang. “Captain’s column?”

Liverpool’s manager and captain did their duty. Tomorrow, fans will be able to read their thoughts about what happened at Everton but more importantly — and potentially historically — what happens next. Because if Liverpool help seal their first league title in 30 years tomorrow against Crystal Palace — or Thursday night when Manchester City visit Chelsea — then in June 2020, just as much as they have ever done, Liverpool supporters will want a Palace programme.

And they will want it in their hands. As 70-year-old Liverpool collector Phil Glassar says: “Digital? That doesn’t mean anything to me.

“We’re not into computers. We’re a different generation. It’s got to be a programme. I’ll definitely buy one on Wednesday.”

Once upon a time, the purchase of a programme was a statement: “I was there.” It was a souvenir from a particular place at a particular time and Glassar is still audibly irritated that he did not buy one on May 23, 1973, having followed his beloved team to Borussia Monchengladbach for the away leg of the UEFA Cup final.

“I wasn’t collecting then,” he says in a tone of some regret. “That programme today is worth about £400.”

But in this pandemic world, there was an assumption that with fans forbidden from grounds, there would be no requirement for such souvenirs. Glassar would have nothing to lose.

Then, after much discussion, clubs decided to publish — most physically, as well as digitally — and as Steve Hanrahan reveals, Sunday’s Merseyside derby brought justification.

Hanrahan is managing director at Reach Sport, the company which produces the Liverpool programme — and Everton’s. He says sales for physical programmes on Sunday almost defied belief: “We sold 77 per cent of what we sold at last year’s derby when we had sellers at the ground and (39,000) fans in the stadium, which I think is incredible.”

It is, and as Hanrahan points out, with other physical behaviour curtailed — travelling, turnstiles, handshakes, pints, mates — perhaps the programme offers at least one remaining tangible contact.

“It’s a strange time, isn’t it?” he says, “and to get a connection to the game with a programme in your hand brings a physical attachment while you’re watching it on TV.”

The image is of an Evertonian anxiously clutching a rolled-up programme as Tom Davies clips a post, not that Glassar would do anything so obscene.

“I love buying a programme; nothing better than reading through it in the hour before a game,” he says. “It can be hard to carry around for two or three hours because it’s got to be spotless. If you’re a collector, you don’t want to dirty it, you don’t want it bent, you don’t want to crease it. You go upstairs, get them all in order, put them in nice plastic. It’s like collecting stamps or coins or Panini cards. It’s amazing, the way you get dragged in. You do get a bit carried away.”

Programmes exert a certain mix of authenticity, nostalgia and information. They have been part of what is known today as the “match-day experience” since penny sheets were handed out more than a century ago. Some issues, ancient and modern, attract enormous valuations — a copy of the 1901 FA Cup final programme between Tottenham and Sheffield United sold for £19,000 at auction six years ago.

But, in general, sales have been in decline. Two years ago, EFL clubs agreed that it was no longer compulsory to produce a programme for every game.

“They don’t sell in the numbers they did,” says Ian Guildford of Ignition Sports Media, who publish programmes for 40 clubs in England, including Leeds United and Manchester City. “Twenty years ago, one in three supporters would buy a programme. From a 20,000 crowd, you’d sell 6,000 programmes. Now, it’s around one in ten, 2,000-2,500 from 20,000. That’s the difference.

“It’s still an important thing. It’s not so small that it’s insignificant. But other areas of media have come into the marketplace and the programme is no longer as high-profile as it once was.”

Guildford, though, has been “buoyed” by online sales during the pandemic and Hanrahan is similarly optimistic. He makes a musical comparison: “We all thought there’d be a future without vinyl but there’s been a revival there.”

Sunday’s sales were made online and delivered mail order or physically at outlets within Merseyside. Hanrahan says the historic nature of a derby behind closed doors will have boosted demand and the same — potentially — historic quality to Liverpool-Palace will do the same. Klopp’s and Henderson’s notes were done in time to meet Monday’s evening post.

While there is an inevitability to Liverpool’s first-ever Premier League title, the uncertainty of results in football’s restart has made planning tricky.

“Had Liverpool won at Everton and had Arsenal beaten Man City last week, we did have a plan in place to strip out some content for Wednesday and insert some celebratory content,” Hanrahan says. “That moves with each game. Even on Thursday — Chelsea v Man City — if Liverpool win on Wednesday, they could be champions on Thursday night. So technically, Wednesday night would become the game when Liverpool pretty much clinched it.”

But if results take a different turn, then Liverpool’s next home game, against Aston Villa on Sunday week becomes the focus, and not just for Klopp and his players but for the programme-makers. Hanrahan, however, already has eyes on Anfield’s final game of the season against Chelsea.

“If Liverpool are champions for the Villa game, the cover will need to reflect that,” he says. “But it’s the last day that will be a collectible, historic, commemorative edition.

“The real commemorative programme is the day Liverpool lift the Premier League trophy — against Chelsea. That’s the day they will officially receive the trophy from the Premier League. We’re already planning for that one. I think that’s the moment, isn’t it? There are different levels to it but I think that’s the programme.

“We will print a lot; at least more than double. It’s such an occasion and the programme becomes almost an event. What we see is that event-driven sales are big — for Tottenham for instance, when they left White Hart Lane, we sold more programmes than there were people in the stadium (32,000). That’s physical sales.”

Guildford agrees. “I’d have thought Liverpool’s print run will be massive,” he says. “When West Brom hosted Manchester United on Sir Alex Ferguson’s last game, I believe the final print run was 60,000. That is huge, even by big-game terms. I’d think Liverpool’s title-winning fixture will be a very popular publication and rightly so.”

Ferguson, United
(Photo: Matthew Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images)
Guildford says that at Elland Road they are also aware of the historic nature the next few weeks could present. He describes Leeds fans as “great buyers of programmes — the club have offered supporters a chance to include a match-day programme in their end-of-season bundle; they can watch the match on a streaming service with their programme. I think there’s over 8,000 doing that for each game. Amazing.”

Having worried COVID-19 would exacerbate the long-term downward trend in sales, Guildford now says: “I didn’t know how it would go but the take-up has been fantastic.

“We are working with 14 clubs still playing games this season in the Premier League, the Championship and a couple of clubs in the lower-league play-offs. The vast majority are producing programmes and we are selling them online. The programme is still integral to the match-day experience. You can see that.”

City, like Southampton and Wolves, have taken the decision to “wrap” their last home games in one edition. In time, that will become a treasured item, although not quite of the scale of the City programme for their postponed League Cup semi-final first leg against neighbours United in 2010.

“The first leg was at the Etihad and the snow came down,” Guildford says. “The game was called off 36 hours before it was due to be played. We’d printed half the programme but we hadn’t bound it.

“What happened was the second leg at Old Trafford was played first and then the first leg came after. We used some sections of the first programme and re-did the rest. But we actually completed ten copies of the original, went through the binder. We gave them to the Manchester City Foundation to auction off as exclusives — ten copies of a programme of a match that never took place. The first one sold for £3,000.”

Tottenham have done something similar. For their original March 15 fixture against Manchester United — played last Friday — they had begun printing. They have saved 25, signed by Jose Mourinho, for auction for the club’s charity.

There is a special appeal to programmes of postponed games. Many never make it to print or are pulped. People like Glassar and Keith Stanton understand the fascination. To them, programmes remain essential. The memory of Monchengladbach spurred Glassar into collecting all Liverpool’s European away programmes and he is 12 short. “What can you do for me?” he jokes.

Stanton, who has a rare programme business and supplies collectors around the world, explains: “Probably the rarest Liverpool programme is Petrolul Ploiesti from 1966. There were only about four people managed to get over to what was a difficult place to go to in Romania at that stage. Reykjavik — Liverpool’s first European game — people want that one. And Red Star Belgrade in 1973.”

Of Palace tomorrow, Stanton says: “It’ll be very important for most collectors. There’s going to be a big clamour to have the programmes for the season Liverpool do it again after 30 years. The big fear from most people was that there wasn’t going to be one. I honestly thought it wouldn’t be a priority. Then, Liverpool said they were doing it. Wednesday will be important but if not then, it’ll be in one of the following home games.”

For completists — and there are many — having Liverpool’s entire season of programmes matters more than just Palace. It will have been a factor in Sunday’s high sales.

In this era of the internet of things, it seems unlikely that something as traditional, physical and as seemingly old-fashioned as the match programme could survive and even thrive. But, like rare vinyl, it is still viewed — and touched — with care and affection.