The Return of the Prawn Sandwich Brigade

By: Daryl | January 2nd, 2008

Alex Ferguson quite crowd You might think Sir Alex Ferguson would be happy his team bounced back from defeat at West Ham to beat Birmingham City 1-0 at Old Trafford yesterday. You’d be wrong. Instead Fergie has been venting his anger at Manchester United fans for not making enough noise. “The crowd were dead,” he grumped. “That was the quietest I have heard the crowd and it’s disappointing because we needed the crowd today. We have come through a difficult period of game after game and in moments like these we need a lift. But it was like a funeral out there.”

Ouchy. Fergie was serving the final game of his two match touchline ban, so maybe the acoustics in the director’s box aren’t as good as they are down in the dugout. But the angry old Scot wasn’t impressed with what he heard, and has his own theory about how a 75,459 crowd can be so quiet.

“There have been periods like this before,” said the Scot. “It’s not just today, it happened a few years ago as well when we were the dominant team in the league. The crowd come to be entertained but sometimes we need them to help us get the right kind of performance.”

I wouldn’t exactly call Man Utd dominant right now, what with Arsenal being top of the league and all, but what Fergie’s basically saying is that when Manchester United play the kind of champagne football we’ve seen from Ronaldo and co. recently it attracts the type of fan that rolls up to Old Trafford for a show, more like a trip to the theatre than the Theatre of Dreams.

This isn’t a new problem of course. Who can forget Roy Keane’s legendary rant against the corporate fans dubbed the prawn sandwich brigade?

Seems this type of supporter is an inevitable outcome of high ticket prices and corporate hospitality, and to some extent Manchester United have only got themselves to blame. I’m guessing the type of fan committed (and possibly crazy) enough to go and follow FC United would have been cheering the team on against Birmingham City. But even real fans, like memeber of the Independent Manchester United Supporters Association claim they’re being restricted by Manchester United’s own policies, which they’ve been campaigning against for years now. “You can’t stand up to make a noise,” IMUSA spokesman Colin Hendrie said. “If you try to stand up, you’ve got stewards who are ejecting you, they’re taking your season ticket away from you. It’s almost like a police state in a football ground now and if you do stand up, people will take your arm, put it behind the back of your neck and throw you out of the ground.”

I can’t vouch for the seafood sandwich choices Old Trafford offered yesterday, but if fans aren’t even allowed to stand and cheer then what chance is there of a decent atmosphere? And seems Fergie might have to learn to love silence after Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez gave the fairweather fans a little taste of what they came for with this goal .

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Category: English Premier League, World Football

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Jan

The Bundesliga has safe standing areas, and it wouldn't be much of a problem for the EPL to copy/adapt the Bundesliga's security model.
ratt fink

i understand the problems england and other countries have had with fan violence/safety, but not being able to stand is insane. i've never sat down for more than 5 minutes at every college football game i've ever been to. i've never sat down too long at a basketball game either.
mctalian

No surprise that it was quiet. Man. Untd. Incorporated draws a lot of casual fans or people who could care less but go for the experience of seeing something that's internationally marketed as a big deal. If you want singing passionate fans, go see that team United something or other of Manchester that plays in some non-league division. They're the old time United fans: hard-drinking northerners, insanely passionate for their team. Manchested United Inc., LLC, is an amazingly talented team and fun to watch, but they're for 16 year olds just getting into the game and upper middle class snoobs who've never given a fig for football but want to play the role on Saturday. That’s the way the Glazers want it, after all.