Football SPL-style fast losing its appeal as a spectator sport

FOR the reporter attending SPL grounds with the express purpose of compiling a match summary, the naked eye will, on occasion, shift from onfield events to the stands. This season, like far too many others of late, observations can be derived that are less palatable than even the most mundane encounters. As far too often, outwith the presence of either of the Old Firm, the empty pockets of seats provide a bleak picture. One that rather unfortunately is consolidated by the bare statistics.

Last October, PricewaterhouseCoopers published their 12th review of Scottish football, an annual exercise that reinforced a number of sore points. Financial haemorrhaging was on the increase as clubs struggled to contend with high wages and low revenue. But most worrying of all was the continuing trend of a general decline in attendances.

This downward curve had been in effect for sometime, and was tracked, but the report, based on season 99/00, before the advent of the SPL split, bore out some bold figures. Non-Old Firm clubs derived one fifth of their total turnover from seasonal visits by the Glasgow giants and on average 47% more fans would attend home games when Rangers and Celtic rolled up.

Whereas in the previous season only Aberdeen failed to meet 60% of their capacity with bums on seats, in 99/00 they were joined by five more clubs: Dundee, Dundee United, Kilmarnock, Motherwell and St Johnstone. Despite many clubs highlighting rising season ticket sales, overall attendances are, undeniably, falling.

One of the most disturbing findings of the SPL health check was the apparent rise in age of the average fan. Clubs were facing up to the prospect of being shunned by a lost generation - one too absorbed with its Playstations and other adolescent delights to be bothered taking in the football of a Saturday afternoon. Or a Sunday. Or a Wednesday evening.

Whether it is down to the kids or not, the downturn is not being translated into a more positive upturn. At least not yet anyway. The likes of Motherwell, Dunfermline and St Johnstone find their audiences still set in decline with, this season so far included, little indication that life is getting better.

Livingston’s average home crowds may have doubled, as you would expect with their arrival from the First Division, and the Bonetti effect at Dundee sees them better off than for a few years, but for many the stagnation remains stubbornly embedded.

"The hardcore are still turning up, but the casual supporter isn’t," says David Glen who conducted the PricewaterhouseCoopers report, "and you have to ask what football is competing against. The product on offer is not attractive enough against other attractions. Ticket prices have gone up, and that doesn’t help, but by the same token some have been trying to keep the prices down. What you might get is a temporary blip. You are not sucking the fans in and they are leaving. It is something the clubs need to address and I see it as a youth issue, a question of attending to that next generation."

In the north-east, Aberdeen are one of the few indicating a rise in home support. It is suggested to their marketing man Ian Riddoch that this might be down to that momentum-gathering Pittodrie run that culminated in Celtic’s first league loss of the season in December.

Riddoch is having none of it as he touches upon a theme that the clubs we talked to come back to: sweet-talking the lost generation.

"We realise it’s not just about the product on the park, but for us to make hay while the sun shines. There is always going to be a lost generation and we have thirtysomethings disgruntled by lack of success. But we’re a talk-it-up club. In our match with St Johnstone we had a Saints and Sinners campaign, sinners being our lapsed fans, season ticket holders who now play golf. We targeted fans with a voucher which they could give a family member. The crowd for that match was 17,000. It was 9,000 last season."

Riddoch is from rugby league in England and, seven months into his Dons post, is putting some of what he practised down south into operation. He talks of community, ownership, of drawing kids to the club. "Without the next generation we’re in dire straits."

The same sentiment is prevalent at a club like Kilmarnock. Crowds may not be as high as when they won the Scottish Cup in 1997, but they are building a basis for growth. This season they have Free Football For Children, a project whereby fans under 16 are granted admission for gratis.

Like Aberdeen, they invent themes for specific matches. Next weekend, for example, two days after Valentine’s, and with the visit of Hearts, they are having Blue Hearts day. Children will make blue hearts and prizewinners will get to meet the player they want.

"It’s a long-term thing and we just have to keep working on it," says commercial manager Jim McSherry. "We feel we are doing our bit and that it’s definitely worthwhile. It can’t happen overnight and you need a gradual build up. You know the Old Firm are out there but that there is nothing you can do about that. There’s no point being disheartened. You have to get yourself fired up and get motivated and get out there on the road."

Across in Lanarkshire, it has not been for the lack of trying. Motherwell’s crowds have slipped more than most these past few seasons. Chairman John Boyle famously launched his Third Way, to lure fans away from the Old Firm with big-money buys like Andy Goram and John Spencer. Those times have gone but Motherwell have some serious young talents like James McFadden, players worth watching. But if the audience does not pick up in tandem with such development the pleasure is lessened.

Director of football Pat Nevin knows Motherwell were at the forefront with promotional tricks and importantly they are still trying, looking for that solution to the dispiriting sight of empty seats. One of the SPL’s objectives over three years ago was crowd increases but Nevin talks of the "wider social phenomenon", themes such as the saturation of football on television and "people with disposable incomes just choosing to go elsewhere".

"We’ve tried everything but we’re not giving up," says Nevin, who once mooted the idea of Friday night football at Fir Park (like he had experienced it at Tranmere) so as to prevent fixture clashes with the Old Firm.

"Our numbers are down and not as high as they were. With the success we had when we came second in the league we were as high as 7,500, but it fell away quickly after hitting the dizzy heights. You have to try and get them interested in the long term and to make them Motherwell fans. It’s particularly hard for us. Our doorstep is a heartland of Rangers and Celtic fans."

Reflecting on clubs such as Motherwell, Kilmarnock and Aberdeen and their attempts to attract youth, Glen recognises that it is an unenviable task but one ultimately worth trying. "In the short term it may cost these clubs, but they are trying to build up in the future. I don’t think it’s a massive cost. There is the spiral effect of getting them to go and buy into the rest of it. It is short-term pain for long-term gain."

Jock Stein once said: "Football without fans is nothing." The challenge being undertaken in the SPL is to prevent this hitherto unimaginable scenario creeping closer to the reality.

Taken from the Scotsman