Switching allegiance is one of the biggest taboos in sport. Choosing to ditch one team for another is unthinkable to most, but it is not unheard of – especially if you desert a struggling side like Accrington Stanley or Tranmere in favour of a more glamorous club like Chelsea or Liverpool.
Manchester United fan Lee Price, however, went in the opposite direction. After years of being a self-confessed “glory supporter,” he jumped ship in a bid to rediscover his love for the game. He relocated from Milton Keynes to the suburbs of East London and began to follow League Two outfit Dagenham and Redbridge, comparing the successes and failures of both his ‘old’ and ‘new’ teams throughout.
Price was the kind of fan that lower league supporters tend to instinctively hate. Why would anyone born in London support Manchester United? Why would they support any Premier League team based anywhere north of Tottenham?
But over the years, Price became disillusioned. He felt less like a fan and more like a customer. In this, he is hardly alone. Supporters across the country protest high ticket prices, expensive replica shirts and all the while the TV revenues and players’ wages continue to rise. No wonder Price believes that football is no longer a working class game.
From a draw away at Scunthorpe in the pouring rain to keep the Daggers play-off hopes alive to the discovery of the humble yet hotly contested Essex Senior Cup, Price’s journey is a fantastic insight into how the lower leagues work and survive whilst maintaining a close relationship with its fans. With an average gate of just 2,000, Dagenham have to sell their top-rated players in order to keep the club financially stable and there’s next-to-no chance of an oil rich billionaire like Roman Abramovich coming in to catapult them up the league.
Price battles with the guilt he feels leaving United behind for pastures new, but throughout he contrasts the two sides and concludes that the real beauty of football is in hope and belief, of not knowing what each game will bring and having no expectations. He also realises that many footballers in the lower leagues play because they love the game, unlike some Premier League players. Ex-Tottenham full-back star Benoit Assou-Ekotto, for example, openly admitted in 2010 that his move to England was based on money and that he had no passion for football.
Small clubs are never going to get thousands of fans through the turnstiles itching to see Accrington Stanley against Morecambe, but without the small clubs the whole notion of community football that we cling to could be lost forever. It should not be a faceless business acquisition, but a community-based operation.
Price’s book is a refreshing read, and one all too relevant to disillusioned and alienated fans being priced out of the game, surviving in a world where the media give most of their attention, and money, to the already bountiful Premier League.
It would be no surprise if fans of bigger teams copy Price in opting to follow smaller, less commercialised and closer-knit teams where you really feel like you’re a part of something special; where you are welcomed with open arms instead of feeling like a detached cash cow for a club whose only interest is how much money they can exploit from you.
There will always be those who look down on people who switch allegiance. They will call you disloyal, a backstabber or a double-crosser. They will claim you have betrayed your team. But, in Lee Price’s situation, it turned out to be the best decision he had ever made.
Jodie Minter was our third intern and you can see examples of her photography on the Subbuteo Cup page. She’s hard-working and driven. You should follow her on Twitter (@jnm_x)
