Home & Away – The Importance of Transport in Football

As one of the most keenly participated and followed sports in the world, transporting football fans and players from A to B is an essential ingredient in contributing to its cultural and commercial success. English Premier League teams, for example, often travel with anything from a couple of hundred to several thousand fans to away games. These figures are fairly consistent when taking a glance at football league statistics over the past four seasons, and suffice to say the vast majority of die-hard fans will show a preference for the “away day” over a solitary car or train journey.

On a typical Saturday afternoon, the motorways and streets lining the football grounds of England are teeming with coachloads of jersey clad ladies, gentlemen and minors, willing to back their side through promotion and relegation. The weekends which they have long lived for are made all the more enjoyable, and achievable, by the coach and minibus drivers willing to scour the countries tarmac network, kept company by the heartfelt song and chant of six or seven-dozen passionate supporters. At the same time, the trains are awash with similar sights, as are the saloon cars filled with mums, dads and children indoctrinated with the colours, history and passion of their ancestors’ great club.

From the very highest level of the game down to school and university teams, travel to and from matches is what makes the sport both accessible and inclusive; a bus full of excited teammates acts as a marvellous adrenal stimulus. That is why, in order for the professional game to be stacked high with dedicated and skilful stars, it is vital that the youth and academy teams of clubs across every standard have their physical and mental abilities complemented subconsciously by a sense of unity and professionalism.

This attention to detail at granular level sets the future stars of the sport in excellent stead for when they eventually, and hopefully, become established and successful professional sportsmen and women. Professional clubs pay particular attention in ensuring that their young academy prospects disembark shiny new coaches and minibuses and are clad with crisp and laundered tracksuits, enabling any side to have an automatic psychological edge over their opposition. The very same ideal, as I’m sure others would agree, applies to how your team enters a school, university or amateur football club ground.

Be it with your fanatical parents, team scarf adorning the rear window and garish bumper sticker peeling away, with your cash-rich club in a state of the art super coach, or upon an economy class locomotive (once the custom of a certain group of supporters from the East End of London), public and private means of transport are integral cogs in the footballing machine. Its success, particularly with regards to revenue generated by gate receipts, is largely down to the ability of fans to travel to matches. It is, in fact, one of the only things that will remain a constant in an ever changing environment for the sport.