Blowing Lesser Bubbles?

Jean-Luc Peterson hears how West Ham supporters have changed their tune over the years.

Five minutes until kick-off. A firm hand on my right shoulder diverted my attention from the hallowed turf of Upton Park. I looked round to see an elderly man with a cheeky chappie grin bearing down on me. ‘You don’t sound like you’re from round here,’ he said. I braced myself, ready to take a roasting.

Being from Wales, with a French name, I expected no end of jesting at my expense. But only pleasantries came my way. My new found match-day mate said he was just kidding around. We got chatting about the West Ham crowd. He reported that 25 years ago the terraces of The Boleyn were packed almost exclusively with young white men from East London. ‘A lot of people were put off because it was a bit dangerous, the fighting and all that. The lads loved it,’ he said. ‘There was always that one idiot being racist as well, that put a shadow over everything.’

More than just the one, I thought; but I wasn’t going to say anything

Top-flight English football has changed drastically since the birth of the Premier League in the early 1990s. No longer the sole preserve of young men using it as a backdrop to much drinking and not a little aggro, nowadays it’s a family affair. Dads need not fret about bringing the kids; and the wife, too (if they can afford it). Even a half-French Welshman like me now feels part of the Boleyn family.

And what of my (new) old mate? He’d held a season ticket since the 1960s – fifty years of riding the Claret and Blue roller coaster. His favourite era? You guessed it: when Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Trevor Brooking enjoyed Cup success, driven on by the bubbling cauldron of noise coming from over-populated terraces just a few feet away from the pitch.

The West Ham ground is far less raucous nowadays. Nobody needs keep their lip buttoned down ‘cos they don’t talk like Alf Garnett. But besides being more polite, today’s crowd seems subdued, contained, diminished. Even I can’t help wondering whether the trade off was worth it.

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