Tank Lanning takes a look into the “Anatomy of a Sports Fan” and asks if South Africans are fans or supporters in his latest column on the Virgin Active blog.
I been giving this whole “Sports fan/supporter” thing some thought for a while, and after being cc’d on mails from disgruntled Stormers fans based in Joburg, seeing the “Cape Crusaders” manifest in Cape Town, chatting to the Sharks supporters club in Cape Town, hearing the booing at Newlands, and reading of the fatal attack in Durban, I thought I would dig a little deeper.
No matter how objective I try to be in my rugby columns, I tend to be labelled as biased toward the Stormers in comments, presumably given that I once played for them and live in the Cape. Matt Pearce and Bob Skinstad tell me it is the same for them, often labelled as biased toward the Stormers, no doubt given Bob’s player history, and that they also live in the Cape, and thus tend to commentate mostly on the Cape side’s games.
And once labelled, it is akin to being branded – it’s pretty damn tricky to lose!
But so called “Bias” in the media is one thing, it’s the sports fan that needs exploring. What drives people to attack the opposition team’s supporters? Why do they boo? Do they have the right to get upset with coaches and players? Should they not be supporting their side no matter what? How responsible to the fan are the unions, players and coaches?
A fan is generally viewed as an obsessed individual: someone who has an intense interest in a certain team, celebrity, band or similar, often viewed as somehow deviant, and portrayed as either the obsessed loner or the frenzied crowd member. Sports fans in particular have suffered from being stigmatised. But beyond the negative stereotypes, defining what constitutes a fan is tricky. Being a fan is not just a label or a category, it is also an identity. And what, if any, rights come with that identity?
A sense of belonging and community has always been a part of the attraction of being a sport fan, hence geography playing it’s part.
But there a variety of reasons as to why a particular individual may begin to take a specific interest in a sport or team, and thus embark on their process of induction to fandom. And for many of us this induction often occurs as a child, hence the reasons and motivating factors behind this induction becoming less clear in later life. Based on my discussions with a few of the so called “Cape Crusaders”, this is without doubt the case for many of them.
In his book, The Anatomy of Sports Fans, author Pierre D. Bognon says that for fans, the team is ”Associated with memories of highly emotional moments” and, ”once branded by a team or athlete, they cannot escape their identification”. Any attempt to define what makes up a fan will inevitably involve highly complex and subjective codes of ’authenticity’ which then influence what said fan deems as legitimate patterns of support.
And why do some fans almost condone the doping seen from the likes of Lance Armstrong and the bending of the laws by Tukkies in the Varsity Cup? Bognon reckons fans know about drugs and cheating, and they may even be concerned about it, but not enough to stop attending or watching games. People just want to see the game! “Fans know that sport is driven, not by an interest in the good, but rather by an interest in the aesthetic.”
And crowd behaviour? Gustave Le Bon’s theories suggest that the mere immersion of individuals in a crowd is sufficient to obliterate their moral faculties and customary powers of reason. Meaning that the crowd is described as a distinct entity which brings about (mainly) destructive acts that the individual crowd members would hardly ever generate on their own, hence the crowd being attributed less intelligence and rationality than the individuals composing it. A bit like the chain being only as strong as it’s weakest link perhaps?
Hence the authorities tending to regard crowds with suspicion. But Bognon believes crowds actually behave rationally, rather than irrationally, and that the risk posed by crowds is dynamic, moving along a continuum from low to high – and back again. With this movement determined by group interaction, and needing be managed by different forms of crowd control deployment. But that would require a certain level of intelligence and perhaps more importantly, emotional intelligence, from both the people handling the crowds in the stands and those running the deployment!
Bognon goes on to suggest that hooliganism is often lumped together with unrelated phenomena like heavy-handed policing, and shortcomings in arrangements for segregating rival fans, evacuation procedures and crowd checking.
And of course, the biggie here in South Africa, heavy consumption of alcohol, seemingly a must at any of these hooligan gatherings, is a further cause of low levels of self-control. But ’ordinary’ fans are sometimes more inebriated than hooligans, with these notions of hooliganism seemingly a way of disguising an impulse to moralize what is rooted in one’s own personal distaste for the practice.
So why do the UK fans fill their stadia every week, no matter the league or the results, and seem willing to die for their team and players, while SA fans seem happy to ditch their team when results go the wrong way, and think they can do better than the current players, coaches and administration?
Do they have fans, while we have supporters? Is our TV experience too good? Is our stadium experience too crap? Or is it just simply a culture thing?
To be honest the booing and the Cape Crusaders have me thinking twice before going to Newlands. Can WP afford to lose more supporters who will be there regardless of a NZ franchise or national team playing there? For the amount of time it actually happens that we host one of these teams, I doubt it.
At Super Rugby level I get the feeling that Bulls, Cheetahs and Kings have more fans than supporters as they generally stay with their team through thick and thin. Sharks and Stormers stadia tend to empty when their teams are on losing streaks and their supporters are more prone to booing and criticism when the team is struggling. The Lions have neither fans nor supporters.
At a Bok level I have no idea what the answer is as most people seem to be unhappy even if the team is winning…not sure what you define that as.
I prefer to think of myself more as a fan of the sport rather than a fan of any particular team. WHile I support the Stormers and have done for the last 30+ years I seem to be able to still enjoy a quality game of Rugby where they might not win but they leave nothing in the tank and put their very best into a game. There are times when a person simply has to concede that the other team were better on the day.
I also think that life has evolved into series of very deffensive moments where less responsibility is taken and placing the blame on others seems to be the order of the day. In essence people are not positively inclined toward accountability. The individual will then look to blaming everything including the REF as opposed to saying,”Hey man, my team just did not bring their A game on the day.” (And yes REF’s get it wrong too, although one would hope not intentionally.)
I feel that a great game of rugby (or any other match) is one which is tense and tight with both competitors going hell for leather but once the final whistle blows, can walk up to each other an shake hands. Its called sportsmanship. Supporters could do well to follow the example.
Rugby has most always been played this way. Lets hope this never changes.