Editor's Column - Clint Roper

Watching Southampton play against Manchester United on Monday night was a real eye-opener. If you take away the million camera angles, the great camera work, the fantastic, intelligent insights from the commentary team, the constant statistics being flashed across the screen, the close-up shots capturing, not just the action of the game, but the emotion as well, and you looked at just the football on display, you would have noticed that it was actually of a very poor standard – the final ball… poor; the decision making in the final third… pathetic at times; the defensive shape of both teams… amateur. Even the winner from Manchester United was the result of poor decision making by the goalkeeper to stay on his line instead of command his six-yard area.   Yet, you look at the stands on a cold Monday evening and, despite being a late start, the stadium was packed to the rafters. The passion and determination of the English fan is truly awesome. And that is exactly what I tweeted. I sent out this tweet: @SoccaClint What you cannot fault is the passion in the stands of English football. What PSL club owners would do for this on a weekly basis #passion.   Like me, there were a lot of South Africans watching the game, despite it being a very late game for us here in Mzansi, but the tweet was picked up first by Andreas Koshiaris, who actually used to work for Soccer Laduma back in the day as a freelance writer but is now a senior account manager for an advertising agency, and is very hands-on in managing the Absa football sponsorship of the Absa Premiership. @AndreasKosh responded with a tweet that said: @SoccaClint are PSL club owners doing enough to get supporters to be this passionate about their clubs? Then former Kaizer Chiefs media man Luthando Zibeko joined the conversation, as did award winning sports journalist, Velile Mbuli. @Veli_Mbuli weighed in with: @LuthandoZibeko @AndreasKosh @SoccaClint What becomes the media's role in this? Constantly punting two or three teams isn't helping either. To which I replied: @Veli_Mbuli @LuthandoZibeko @AndreasKosh stars make themselves - the media follows - not the other way around. Silly argument that.   For those that want to go and view the conversation that followed, it's worth following those accounts and checking it out because there were some great points thrown about by everyone involved.    But this notion that the media is the reason why only two or three big clubs really capture the imagination of soccer fans in South Africa is just not true, and the sooner the other clubs stop singing this song, the sooner it will allow them to own their own problem instead of passing the buck. Take Southampton for example… do they get as much media coverage as Manchester United or Chelsea? No they don't, but you don't see them with an empty stadium on match day. In Germany, the country with the best average match attendance in the world, you can bet your bottom Euro that Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund get the lion's share of the media coverage, but that doesn't stop every other club from filling their stadiums week in and week out. And those in South Africa that claim that performance and results are what fills stadiums, Borussia Dortmund are in 14th spot on their league table and are just two points away from being last in the league!    So what then are the problems? There is not enough space in this column to list them all, but I have a couple of theories based on the fact that I have been fortunate enough to travel the world a bit and see some of the biggest and some of smallest clubs in Europe. I spent time at an English giant as a youngster and observed what they do in the community. I've spoken to many South African supporters about the issue, more especially in the Soccer Laduma's Supporter Club of late, and this is what I think.    For the most part, soccer stadiums in South Africa are not the 'spiritual homes' of the fans. They certainly are not cathedrals that have that aura of history and greatness about them. I mean, is there a single stadium tour for example that a big club in South Africa gives where they show off their stadium, their change room, their history? I don't think there is. Our stadiums are simply brick and mortar, cold steel and cement, that ironically is nothing more than a sieve that allows history and passion to seep out.    Then there is the commitment to the community.  How many of our clubs can honestly say they are affecting the community that they are meant to represent. How involved are they on a day-to-day basis, in schools, hospitals, day care centres, old age homes, jails and the like. A sense of community means consistently being there, particularly if that is what you expect in return from that very same community.    To reiterate, as soon as a club deflects their problems concerning their lack of fans onto the media and blames the issue on unfair coverage, they give up the right to solve that problem, and clearly that is what has happened.    To steal and amend part of a quote from Eric Cantona, "The Seagulls follow the trawlers with the most fish..." It's not because the seagulls are there that there are more fish in those trawlers… it's the other way round. Surely club bosses can see that…   Shapa, Clint  

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