Aidan Smith: Fans’ unswerving loyalty to clubs in uncertain times is truly astonishing

Supporters must be applauded for committing to new season tickets during Covid-19 crisis

Hibs fans are backing their club during the Covid-19 crisis, with 7,000 season tickets already sold for next term. Picture: Ross Parker/SNS

It has always been a transaction – involving your hard-earned cash – like no other. Buying a season ticket has just become more of one. More like a leap of faith. More like a shot in the dark. More like a game of Russian roulette.

And now? More like a charitable donation, perhaps. More like what the KLF did on Jura with their proceeds from pop. Or maybe more like a declaration of love which could yet be unrequited.

Never mind season 2019-20, who knows what shape or form 2020-21 will have, when it will start or even whether fans will be allowed to watch.

Under the headline “Season-ticket frenzy at Hibs” yesterday it was reported that 7,000 supporters had committed to the next campaign. They haven’t required the usual inducements of a new striker 
joining the club and a couple of favourites pledging their futures. They’re showing their unswerving loyalty to their team, come what may.

Isn’t this, and similar stories elsewhere, remarkable? Or a strange, special kind of madness? Maybe a bit of both.

Hibs, unsurprisingly, have been knocked out by the take-up. “We don’t know when we’ll be able to get you back to Easter Road,” the club said, “but what we do know is that your support means there will still be a Hibernian when that time comes.”

So much is unknown. The cost of wiping down their entire stadium – those dreadful loos included – could cripple some clubs. If your club still have turnstile operators, how do you socially-distance your way past him or her? And how do you keep the required two metres from stewards, programme-sellers, pie-vendors?

Of course these will only be issues if football returns while such restrictions are still in place in the country at large (unlikely) or the game isn’t required to make drastic changes to the business of putting on a match (unlikely).

And of course they won’t be issues at all if fans are prevented from using the season tickets they’ve so loyally purchased with the world in absolute turmoil. That is, if 2020-21 or least part of it has to be played behind closed doors.

Okay, so the turmoil eases sufficiently for fans to attend matches, but the two-metre rule is still in force. That will have to mean no one next to you on either side of your reserved seat – or directly in front or behind. Celtic Park and Ibrox, normally both rammed, will look weird with all those spaces, though maybe not if you remember John Barnes as manager of the former and Bobby Williamson playing up front for the latter. For every other club this is normality.

But what happens if it’s a big match and everyone wants to be there but can’t? Would there be a ballot, meaning that even with your season ticket you could still lose out?

So much about post-Covid football, and presumably there will be such a thing, is unclear. Just about the only certainties right now are the direct debits confirming that fans, given the chance and God willing, will be in their usual spots.

The season ticket is a transaction like no other because usually you can return your purchases if they’re faulty or damaged or not to your satisfaction. To an extent you’re buying blind. Yes, the club lured you with that new striker but he could miss three straightforward chances in one game then follow that by fluffing four one-on-ones, leading to the manager not surviving the autumn. Or the club could win just four measly league matches all season. These things can and do happen.

But a season ticket is not like a washing machine. It is not even like a hot-tub, the surprise lockdown must-have for which there’s been a 480 per cent spike in demand. Global pandemics come and go (hopefully) but your team is your team and they’ll always be there (hopefully).

For some who’ve already bought one, beyond the basic love of football, the season ticket is the present to themselves to be put in a drawer or placed on the mantelpiece and opened later, maybe much later – a votive object confirming that one fine day we will be through the worst and can shout and moan and cheer and sing again.

Assuredly, these will not be the people who have asked their clubs for refunds on games already cancelled this season. At Partick Thistle, who have endured a miserable term with a shock conclusion, that amounts to just 3.5 per cent. And the fact so many are continuing to make a pledge to Scottish football, at a time of fear, furloughing and financial hardship, is truly astonishing.

Maybe they’re evoking the old joke about the long-suffering wife who says to her husband “I think you love Celtic more than me” to which the reply is “Darling, I love Rangers more than you” – but this proves they believe that whoever beats their team in the future, it won’t be Covid.

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