Yo La Tranmere

Since I can only assume the nation has been talk­ing of little else since Sunday after­noon, I thought I’d make men­tion of the scin­til­lat­ing no score draw between Mil­wall FC and Tran­mere Rovers FC.

I’m afraid I’m ill-​qualified to pro­vided a blow-​by-​blow match report. Suf­fice to say, both teams played lumpen foot­ball in the first half, with Tranmere’s defence and keeper doing well to pre­vent Mil­wall from scor­ing. As in every game I’ve seen Tran­mere play, they were a better side in the second half, and ought really to have scored; though John Achterberg’s bril­liant penalty save was met with the sort of cel­e­bra­tions usu­ally reserved for a last-​minute goal.

But who cares about the foot­ball? Not me, if I’m honest. It’s a stul­ti­fy­ingly dull game to watch on tele­vi­sion, and not much better in the flesh. No, I like being part of a crowd chant­ing (Super White Army!) and believ­ing, tem­porar­ily but truly, that the most impor­tant thing in the whole wide world is Tran­mere beat­ing the other side. And I don’t even mean that in terms of the two teams on the pitch, but with regard to the oppos­ing groups of fans – it was as much of a joy to see three stands of Mil­wall fall silent in the second half while Tran­mere roared at them (Super Are We!) as it was to find Achterburg’s save had granted the club a second chance to go fur­ther in the FA Cup than they ever have before.

I did, though, feel a little iffy in join­ing some chants – I know I am, I’m sure I am, I’m Tran­mere ‘til I die! – since I prac­ti­cally define the fair-​weather fan. My alle­giance switched from Liv­er­pool (they were the default at Pri­mary School) to Tran­mere when they found some suc­cess in the late 80’s/early 90’s, and due to the real­i­sa­tion that one ought not to sup­port any team but one’s local side.

When I grasped that Tran­mere are more local than most, so to speak – there’s a suc­cess­ful youth train­ing scheme, heavy ticket dis­counts for school­child­ren, and a unique spon­sor­ship deal with Wirral Bor­ough Coun­cil – my sup­port for the club was, more than any­thing else, a polit­i­cal stance. Sure, I’ve always kept a vague eye on the club’s progress (or, let’s face it, lack thereof) and made a little tra­di­tion of going to Pren­ton Park once a year, if I could be arsed, for Boxing Day matches. But I couldn’t hon­estly describe myself as a fan, more an inter­ested observer who delib­er­ately chose to iden­tify with the team over the other two, rather more promi­nent, Mersey­side clubs.

Last night, I went to see Yo La Tengo and realised a pos­si­ble reason for my recent con­ver­sion to, if not true foot­ball fan status, then some­one who gen­uinely cares about his side. Now, Yo La Tengo didn’t, as you might imag­ine, sing a ballad about the shift­ing atti­tudes of a half-​hearted Tran­mere fan, but being at that gig, trying to get into a band I’ve never fol­lowed too closely, offered a little clue to my sup­port for the team step­ping up a gear over the last two years.

This was a gig attended by a keen fan­base – the sort of con­cert where the open­ing notes, let alone bars, of a song are greeted with a cheer – and one that I stood apart from, able to appre­ci­ate the band, but not really caring enough to applaud, since I’ve never been immersed in this par­tic­u­lar subset of inde­pen­dent music, one that a cer­tain gen­er­a­tion of Glaswe­gian fans hold dear. This is in marked con­trast to the way I used to approach the two night­clubs that had a hold on me for ten years: first the insuf­fer­ably naff Cream, in Liv­er­pool, then the insuf­fer­ably hip Optimo, in Glas­gow. Now, I don’t want to down­play the music at Optimo – thrilling stuff, week-​in week-​out – but the real strength of that night­club, as with Cream in its day, lies in its community.

All good night­clubs are, of course, based on strong ties between the people on the dance­floor, their common pur­pose to dance on drugs, and lots of them, but Optimo was (is, I’m sure, for other people) dif­fer­ent, with a pos­i­tively rabid gang of reg­u­lars, clus­tered in cor­ners at end­less after-​parties, and on a thriv­ing inter­net mes­sage board, living in each others’ pock­ets through the week, which revolved around the Sunday night pil­grim­age to the Sub Club.

So, what on earth does this have to do with Tranmere?

Well, stand­ing at the edges of the Yo La Tengo com­mu­nity in Glas­gow, it occured that I’m on the flip­side of the sup­posed cor­re­la­tion between the rise of MDMA and the fall of foot­ball hooli­gan­ism, best doc­u­mented by Kevin Samp­son in his fea­tures and short fic­tion for The Face. I don’t know if dan­ger­ous heads were really turned into loved-​up ravers after pop­ping a couple of Speck­led Doves, but it seems more than coin­ci­den­tal that, after finally decid­ing (thanks to this inci­dent) that ingest­ing Her­culean quan­ti­ties of nar­cotics and danc­ing my ass off every week­end wasn’t such a great idea after all, I’ve started to enjoy foot­ball matches more than ever.

It’s prac­ti­cally a truism to state that night­clubs and foot­ball matches oper­ate on the same level. The only dif­fer­ence, really, is that the sero­tonin floods come cour­tesy of near-​misses, goals and the occa­sional grace­ful move­ment on the pitch, rather than direct tam­per­ing with brain chem­istry and the skill of disc jock­eys manip­u­lat­ing the crowd through music; and the sense of com­mu­nity is as strong, if not far stronger. And, as this post demon­strates hor­ri­bly well, it’s impos­si­ble not to devote the space between expe­ri­ences – on the dance­floor or in the stand – to analy­sis, rem­i­nis­cence and anticipation.

My apolo­gies for wit­ter­ing on so long about this – I’m more than aware that this post reads like some unholy alliance between a Nick Hornby novel and the staple ‘Current Mood: Self-obsessed’ entry on Live­Jour­nal – it just struck me as a funny course to be on: from night­club to foot­ball ground, not the other way around.

Now, I just have to decide whether I can spare the time to travel to Pren­ton Park next Tues­day for the replay. I sus­pect I might, in writ­ing this, have per­suaded myself.

Posted at 1pm on 10/03/04 by Jack Mottram to the art and culture category.
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