As the wealth disparity between the Premier League’s middle-class and its elite becomes increasingly entrenched, and as memories of progression or regression fade and the new order of profitable stasis becomes apparent, it is easy for fans of clubs like West Bromwich Albion to feel paralysed by a sense of existential angst.
Aestheticism has always been at the heart of our love of football, but in an age when corporate saturation has hollowed out so much of the sport’s community identity, entertainment – the sheer love of the thing – has become the most important measure of self-worth. Coaches and pundits continue to demand the sort of rabid tribalism that football once inspired in its fans, or worse yet reprimand them for failing to appreciate Premier League stability, but in doing so they are ignoring the very essence of what football is about, who it is for, and what exactly it is supposed to achieve in a community.
Without entertainment or hope football is nothing. A dead thing, an empty brand that exists for profit margins and merchandise: a cardboard cut-out of a football club designed, like all corporations, to create the illusion of meaning with none of the substance. And so to accept a tediously survivalist agenda, such as Tony Pulis’ at West Bromwich Albion, is to accept the commodification of your football club and your community. There can be no joy, no passion, no love, if the sole objective is stagnant economic viability.
All entertainment is play: telling stories to distract us from our troubles and widen our emotional experiences. Football is no different, and yet so absolute is the saturation of big business in the sport that even its key creative directors – the players and coaches – are chastising their audience for failing to appreciate the benefits of running a lovely big profit, of ensuring shareholders are appeased and millionaires become multi-millionaires.
This isn’t entertainment. A lot of people watching Pulis’s West Brom this season might argue it isn’t even football. The horrors of enduring 90 minutes of Pulis-ball are well understood, but it is worth noting the sheer scale of the boredom. West Brom rank among the bottom five Premier League clubs this season for every single statistical metric you could possibly associate with entertainment, from the more obvious events concerning attacking dynamism to the adrenalising hit of a defensive action (these include, but are not limited to: possession, shots, goals, xG, passes, key passes, dribbles, headers, tackles, and fouls).
The existential questions here are genuine and should be taken seriously: what is the value of a club if the only target is hitting the 40-point mark? And why spend vast sums of money supporting them (either in the stadium or via a TV subscription) if ambition begins and ends with economic security? West Brom fans deserve a change of manager, regardless of the consequences. Relegation might seem like a tragedy to those financially invested in the club, but for fans sliding downhill is better than not moving at all.
