The Perils and Stupidity of the Internet Football Forum

Sack The Board

It is a cry guaranteed to appear on any football club’s internet message board after two consecutive defeats. If the manager remains popular or if the club has failed to spend a couple of hundred thousand pounds it does not possess, the demand becomes deafening. ‘Sack the board!’ serves as a catch-all solution for supporters whose weekends have been ruined, a display of petulance not usually seen outside the bedroom of a thirteen-year-old.

For twelve years now, since the first message boards for clubs like Lincoln City FC appeared in 1997, these forums have provided a platform for fans to exchange views. In principle, what could be better? In practice, they have allowed the worst prejudices and ignorance of the pub and terrace to be recorded for all to see. The angriest, most ridiculous contributors rise to become the self-appointed ‘voices of the fans’, their ill-informed nonsense repeated until it takes on the weight of received wisdom.

The demand to remove the board is rarely accompanied by a credible alternative. When asked who exactly should replace them, the proponents fall silent. For years, the question has been posed on various forums, and for years, a sensible response has failed to materialise. The call is not for a specific change in direction but a howl of frustration, a desire for something, anything, to be done.

Get Your Cheque Book Out

Another perennial favourite is the demand for the chairman to spend money. This plea often ignores the financial reality of lower-league football. A local businessman who has already invested a fair amount of his own money, along with his time for free, is suddenly recast in the image of Mohammed Al-Fayed. The numb-skulls online assume he is vastly richer than he is, and believe his entire disposable income should be spent on their entertainment. It is a demand that also, especially at this time of year, ignores the simple fact that clubs cannot buy anyone until the transfer window opens at the start of January.

This is the natural habitat of the knee-jerk reaction. A single victory against even the most miserably poor opposition convinces posters that the team are world-beaters and promotion is a nailed-on certainty. A loss, however, means relegation beckons with grim certainty. The same dynamic applies to calls for a change in team selection.

“Play the Yoof!” is the chorus whenever a callow sixteen-year-old bangs in a few goals for the reserves. This ignores the vast difference between a casual second-string match and the rigours of League Two football. Clubs may develop their youth systems with some success, but realistically only one graduate a year can be expected to make it to the fringes of the first team. Young players need time to develop alongside seasoned professionals to learn the habits required to succeed.

My own club recently won the sack race in League Two.

The cycle of outrage is predictable and tiresome. If sacking the board fails, other demands follow. ‘Boycott the club!’ is a desperate throw of the dice, sometimes necessary to unseat a poisonous regime but usually just a hollow threat when the board refuses to take dim-witted advice from a forum chancer. Then comes ‘Sell the club!’, a plea for salvation from any passing stranger, so long as they promise to throw money at whatever the perceived problem of the week happens to be. The angst of these supporters practically oozes out of the screen.

It is a world of rank idiocy, short-termism and sheer mind-numbing stupidity. Who knew, back in 1997, that this new-fangled technology would lead to this? It has been twelve years of it, and the cycle shows no sign of stopping.