Men behaving badly

During his time at Birmingham David Sullivan called for away fans to be banned – but he was talking about his own supporters. John Tandy is baffled

In the last issue of the Birmingham City fanzine Wake Up Blue there’s an interview with owner David Sullivan in which he describes himself as “pissed off”.

In this particular case it’s because a group of supporters saw fit to challenge last season’s Away Travel Club fiasco (you had to pledge the soul of your first-born to secure tickets to away games), but it has to be said that of late, ‘pissed off’ seems to have become Sullivan’s prevailing mood: ‘pissed off’ with the local press; ‘pissed off’ that local businesses aren’t queuing up to lose half their trade by backing the smaller of the city’s two clubs; ‘pissed off’ that season-ticket sales are still down in spite of buying Gary Ablett.

The latest incident to piss Sullivan off was the game at Maine Road in which a dubious penalty gave a last-minute victory to the club he’d just tried to buy three million shares in, and in turn sparked some minor bother in the away end.

By Monday, Sullivan was in the press demanding a complete ban on travel to away games, and apparently holding the entire population of Birmingham collectively responsible for what went on.

You don’t have to condone violence and vandalism to find this something of an over-reaction. It’s nothing new – he’s always had a thing about Birmingham fans leaving the B9 postal district, but it makes you wonder if he actually knew what he was letting himself into when he bought a football club.

Sullivan’s biography, Sultan of Sleaze traces a fairly familiar rags-to-riches story: step one, you make yourself a pile of money from dealings in dubious taste; step two, you spend that money making yourself respectable.

He tried unsuccessfully to buy the highly-respectable Western Evening News group, then he tried his hand at horse racing. It was only when the horsey set turned him down that he started to look downmarket, at football (Cardiff City, actually).

I don’t know if he’d pictured a scene where football fans wear top hats, always applaud their opponents and drink champagne out of Fortnum’s hampers in the half-time interval, but you’d think so from his evident disappointment whenever he talks about us. This is disappointing. It suggests a distaste for the live supporter and a preference for the passive and undiscriminating consumer that Sky TV seem to be cultivating.

Instead of trying to disown his customers he might take heart from an incident in last week’s game against Coventry City. Arsehole in brown jacket runs down to the touchline, gets escorted from the ground. The level of abuse hurled at him on his way would leave you in no doubt of the majority of fans’ fierce disapproval. Unfortunately, to appreciate that, you’d have had to have been within earshot of the Tilton Road end, which I’m pretty sure David Sullivan wasn’t.

Wherever you get a crowd, you’ll always get people who misbehave or get carried away (even ballet fans rioted at the first performance of ‘The Rite of Spring’) but that’s no reason to come over all Moynihan. You’d almost think he was looking for excuses to move on to other things. Or other clubs.

I’m really grateful for David Sullivan, his millions, and all that he and his team have done for Birmingham City. I just wish he’d stop whingeing about it.

From WSC 117 November 1996. What was happening this month