The terms “Plastic fans” and “Premiership tourists” has been used many times in arguments towards people who are perceived to be only supporting Hull City because they offer the spectacle of hosting the biggest teams in English football who bring with them some of the best players in the world. These “Plastic fans” are seen as fickle fair weather supporters, or Premiership groupies if you will, and therefore according to some trains of thought “ineligible” to comment as a true supporter on the basis that (as a for instance) they never travelled away to watch City play Plymouth Argyle in a fourth division mid table game on a wet Tuesday night in February or they only started attending the KC when Hull City (on both occasions) were promoted from the Championship.
But is this a fair assumption? I would suggest that most owners of Premiership clubs could be called “Plastic fans” but we have no problem in allowing them to get into millions or even billions of pounds worth of debt to ensure our clubs stay in existence with the best players. Even Allam confessed he knows very little about football and has just about got the grasp of what offside is. There are supporters such as Tom Hanks who is an Aston Villa fan, Harrison Ford an Arsenal fan. Are these “Plastic” or happily adopted celebrities by the fans of such clubs knowing that their club have global association with movie icons.
As football moved from a self financing association into the world of global commerce were clubs turned into bona fide limited and public limited companies we saw local businesses invest money to help their sides and maintain a community spirit and ethos but as the marketing gurus got to work and made English football and in particular, The Premiership into a global entertainment industry, these small businesses have been out bidded and pushed to the sidelines by brand name PLCs in the sponsorship stakes. These local business who’s money is now not good enough may now see these big organisations as “Plastic Sponsers” as they now cannot afford to have their name on the shirts or have stands named after them.
Every “long term” fan by the same argument must start off as a “plastic” fan on their first game but we have to acknowledge that these are ultra modern times for football. Manchester UTD has millions of paying supporters (Via subscriptions of various types) and I would argue that hundreds of thousands of them have never been to England or even Manchester, let alone Old Trafford. But so what?...The game needs money and lots of it, and all clubs depend on the constant stream of income however contrived.
On Hull City’s level there will be many corporate sponsors and private box owners who are involved purely on a commercial level that Hull City absolutely depends on. Having been a part box owner myself a good few years ago I witnessed a constant stream of these “plastic” fans on hospitality visits or corporate guests invited by companies’ directors who bathed in the glory of being associated with a top flight club and the persona that surrounds it and wouldn’t be caught dead in the East stand 30 or 40 seats from the loud banter of away supporters. Does that make them plastic or just another form of welcome income?
There are many supporters who have been dedicated to watching Hull City over the years both at Boothferry Park and the KC including myself and can easily recall the average attendances of Boothferry park on those well documented Wet Tuesday Nights against the Halifax Towns and the like being about 5000. On the odd cup run we would get 8 or 10,000 at certain games or especially when we were nominated to appear on Match of the Day well before the days of complete league coverage which by todays’ perception made the extra 5000 fans a “plastic” contingent. By the time we got to the KC we had regular 10,000 or so attendances and low and behold, these 5000 plastic fans of yesteryear were now emulsified into the “hardcore” supporters some of which joined in the odd Wet whatever day of the week wherever it was away match.
Now in the Premiership and doing very well given our situation we have regular 24000 crowds which will consist of the extra 10 to 12000 “plastic fans” according to some but you can bet your bottom dollar, If the KC was developed into a 40,000 seat stadium due to ongoing success, these 24,000 would become hardcore fans and calling hell out of the other 16,000 “newcomers” for being glory hunters.
Very simply, football support is evolutionary and the way we watch football has changed dramatically. If Hull City do drop to the Championship or even the 1st division and we end up playing Swindon Town away on what will be no doubt be another wet and windy night (which appears to be the weather that blights the lower divisions on all match days exclusively), just because there are only 500 travelling supporters it doesn’t meant that there won’t be 15,000 more sat comfortably in front of the TV or computer with a beer or cup of tea enjoying the game.
It’s not a matter of in ground dedication; it’s a matter of the many choices and options we have of viewing our teams these days that suit our own personal circumstances and commitments in our very busy lifestyles.
The ardent fans who go to games week in week out are to be admired, commended and respected but the income generated from their ticket purchases is only a drop in the ocean in what a club needs to earn on a weekly basis and like it or not, it’s these “plastic” fans, whether on the terraces, owners of corporate boxes, investors or subscribers of TV coverage both at home and overseas that pay their dues just as much as the next supporter and as such has paid for the right to a vested opinion of his or her club of choice