Andy Burnham is right that football fans have historically been treated differently from other sports fans. But if we’re going to talk about discrimination in football, the ban on drinking at your seat feels like a strange place to start. The rule may have its roots in a very different era of football, but for many fans today, being able to take a pint to your seat may not be top of their list of changes they’d like to see in the game.
Especially at a time when discrimination is very much present elsewhere in football. The legislation, introduced under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s as part of a crackdown on football hooliganism, was rooted in the idea that football fans needed to be treated differently from the supposedly better-behaved crowds at rugby and cricket – which smacks of classism and the stereotyping of working-class fans. But football has changed since then, and so has drinking culture.
Fans have adapted to the restrictions and built a matchday ritual around them. A good fan concourse pint is up there with an airport pint or a beer-garden pint on the first day of summer. Fans have got used to this routine, and one of the biggest concerns of lifting this ban now seems to be the Boxpark-ification of football: the dreaded performative beer throw when anything good happens.
Even when it’s not performative, it does raise a problem of logistics. With no cup holders, when a 95th-minute winner goes in and you’re suddenly off your seat with your limbs in the air, a pint is unlikely to remain where you left it. There will be people walking back and forth from the concourse during the game for another pint or the toilet, too.
It used to happen before, of course, but it would still be a new irritation that fans would have to adapt to. And, most importantly, it isn’t a change many fans seem to have been asking for. As a fan of both men’s and women’s football, I’ve experienced the Women’s Super League’s successful trial of beer at your seats, as well as drinking at non-league games, and it was a nice change.
It has even become a distinct part of the matchday experience in leagues where the atmosphere is different and the crowds are smaller. But the women’s game is not simply the men’s game with fewer people in the stands. The matchday experience is different – and that’s important when we talk about what works.
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