September is here!
It’s a very important month for football fans globally as competitive football action returns in earnest. Personal schedules are adjusted, TV series and soap operas are abandoned for the game and its Hollywood-esque scripts, and weekends suddenly revolve around fixtures, results and league tables again. It also offers a potpourri of emotions depending on which side of the divide you find yourself and, of course, how your team performs.
Nigeria isn’t left out as top-flight football returns to a few plastic screens, while a good number of football lovers also make a return to the stands. Some go simply to relax with family and friends, while others go because they want to watch their team play. Then there is another group of people who are there irrespective of the outcome of previous games, the weather conditions and sometimes even their own health conditions. They just want to see the team play and enjoy that adrenaline rush that football provides.
To this set of people, their club is everything. It is their primary source of excitement, joy, distraction, relaxation and almost every emotion that makes life feel real. It isn’t always easy to get to this level of attachment to a particular club. It takes years of memories, heartbreaks, celebrations, arguments, disappointments and those little moments that gradually turn a football club from something you watch into something you feel.
But one may ask, what does it even take to be a true fan? Is it spontaneous or something that develops gradually? Is it a function of the success the club has achieved? Is it because of a player, a coach, the colours, the history or simply because you happened to watch them win your first football match?
There are lots of questions, and perhaps there is no definite answer. But one thing is certain: every true fan wants their team to progress. When that progress isn’t coming, they feel bad and voice their frustrations. They complain, they argue and they criticise. Sometimes, they can make so much noise that you would think they hate the club. But that is usually far from the truth.
Actual fans are loyal to the club. They do not necessarily care who is at the helm as long as things are going well and the club is moving in the right direction. They can cheer the coach today and demand his head a few weeks later. A player might be celebrated for weeks and, after one terrible performance, be booed by the very same fans who were singing his name. Does that make them fair-weather fans? Certainly not.
Fair-weather fans jump ship at the slightest blip in performance. They don’t want to be associated with any form of failure. They look around, find another club doing better and quickly move across. When the good times return, they find their way back. Their loyalty is often to success rather than to the club itself. That can never be the case for a true fan.
A true fan is there through thick and thin. They celebrate every little win, defend the club’s integrity when things become difficult but are also willing to hit the club hard when standards drop. They demand better because they genuinely believe the club can do better. Some will protest against the club, boycott matches, fly protest banners, sing protest chants, boo the team and management and do all manner of things except the one thing that would be easiest: abandoning the club.
These actions don’t necessarily mean they hate the club. Quite often, they are their way of demanding accountability and responsibility from those who are the major actors in the club they have entrusted with their emotions and invested considerable time, money and energy in.
And these fans cannot be more loyal to a player, coach or administrator than they are to their club. Players will leave. Coaches will come and go. Administrators will be appointed and replaced. The club remains. To the true fan, the club is supreme and every other person or thing is secondary.
This brings us to our own Enyimba. We can arguably boast of being the most criticised club in Nigerian football over the last three or four years, and the reason isn’t far-fetched. Enyimba is one of the most followed and most prestigious clubs in Nigeria, and that status comes with expectations. When a club that has set the standard begins to slip, those who care about it will notice.
Nobody follows something closely enough to criticise it for years if they don’t care about it. The criticism isn’t necessarily hate. It is frustration. It is disappointment. It is people watching something they love lose some of the things that made them proud and refusing to quietly watch it happen. When your pride is being dragged through the mud, you are unlikely to sit down and admire the scenery.
You will cry out, ask questions and/or demand better. And as we go through this season, this is a plea to everyone—fans, players, coaches, staff and management—to brace up for the criticism that will come. It will come after poor results. It will come after poor performances. Some of it will be fair, some excessive and some will probably make absolutely no sense. That is football.
But there is a simple way to reduce the noise. Results!
Results eliminate a lot of complaints. Good performances change the mood. Winning games restores confidence. Competing for trophies makes people believe again. Fans don’t necessarily demand perfection; they want to see progress and, more importantly, they want to see their club moving towards where it should be.
So, as the season unfolds, let everyone understand the emotion behind the noise. Criticism isn’t always betrayal. Sometimes, it is love wearing an angry face.
And if Enyimba gives the fans what they want, don’t be surprised when the same people shouting the loudest today become the ones singing the loudest tomorrow.
Because after all the complaints, arguments, protests and frustrations, they are still here.
They are still Enyimba fans.
Enyimba Enyi.
