Chelsea play at Bloomfield Road tonight in yet another game moved from it’s traditional weekend slot for Sky’s Monday Night Football coverage. Now, I am one of the fortunate ones who due to my choice of university live a mere 30 minutes away from Blackpool via train, but what about everyone else?
Being a fan in modern day football definitely has it’s draw backs. Add Blackpool to games with Wolves, Bolton, Sunderland, and to a lesser extent Fulham and Arsenal and you get an extraordinary run of six away league games in a row played midweek due to television. This weekend for example, would it have done Sky any harm to stop and think “hang on, United only have to travel up the road to Liverpool. Maybe they should be on Monday night” thus making it easier on those who spend their time and money supporting their team and giving them a nice weekend in the supposed entertainment capital of the country. Instead Rupert Murdoch’s cronies sit in their ivory tower dreaming up ways to make more money and take a little bit more of the soul out of football. Factor in Champions League away games with Spartak Moscow and Copenhagen and I would love to know how exactly Sky and the clubs expect fans to make enough money to pay for their tickets and take time off to travel up north in the middle of every other week.
It’s not only midweek kick offs that are detrimental to people being able to follow their club, I know as a Chelsea fan that kicking off at 3:00 on a Saturday in the Premier League is a increasingly rare occurrence. Getting to games that are early kick offs in a far flung town doesn’t make things any easier and playing on Sunday means no drinking and an early night due to work and education commitments the next day, taking a lot of the fun out of being a football supporter. Football to me is about days out with mates and following your team, it’s not just about the result. It’s about the banter and adventures in places you wouldn’t go to, with people you wouldn’t know without that one thing that unites you.
However, it’s obvious the powers that be don’t care and complaints like this will continue to fall on deaf ears. It becomes clearer with each passing season that Sky couldn’t care less about football and the real fans who make it what it is, infact it probably suits them that people aren’t at the games and are on the sofa watching their channel instead. What makes it worse is that clubs are powerless to resist the wads of money Sky are able to provide, and the only people who benefit are the people sat in their arm-chairs, infront of the TV, wearing their replica shirt.
