“Men are respectable only as they respect.” Emerson
As I write we do not know for certain that the game will go ahead as the nation readjusts to life without our beloved monarch. I know that there will be those who feel that the cancellation of sporting fixtures is an over reaction but I can’t agree with that. Some immediate response to the death of our Queen of seventy years was called for and the reaction of society as a whole has shown how difficult many people have found the end of an era and all the certainties implied by that. The cricket was abandoned for two days and when the Test Match began the way respect for the Queen’s death was observed was, frankly, wonderful. I am sure that a minute’s silence will be immaculately observed as it always is. I remember an Irish Nationalist trying to disrupt the silence held to observe the death of Princess Margaret. The NRE gave him short shrift. Football fans simply aren’t the stereotyped Neanderthals in bovver boots depicted by the media. It is a tedious stereotype which needs to be discarded by the media now.
The link between the Royal family and football is a strong one. The image of Bobby Moore receiving the world cup from Her Majesty is an abiding one and we should remember that Prince William is President of the FA. He should also be a Cambridge United supporter but that is an argument for another day.
Coming back to Barnsley, I suppose their most famous fans would be Michael Parkinson and Dickie Bird, both of whom played cricket for Yorkshire and whose love of sport demonstrated loyalty to where you are born rather than simply “supporting “whoever happens to be the glamour team of the moment. The first time I took my son to a game in Doncaster he asked me why the sports shops were full of Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday shirts. There were no Doncaster shirts to be seen. Real football fans know all about that phenomenon and have a real affinity with their local clubs and with each other. I have enormous respect for Barnsley fans who are as loyal as any.
Like us, they have had great days, and less great ones. They have won the FA Cup and flirted with relegation from the league and extinction but the flame still burns. The first time I visited Barnsley it was as a schoolboy excited to go down the pit at Barnsley Main. It’s impossible to know how tough miners had to be without being at the lowest level of a pit and spending some hours in the dust, confined space and stifling heat. I emerged with huge respect for people who did that day after day for years. I was reminded of my time there when I saw the film KES which captures perfectly what life was like in those communities before they were destroyed by ruthless politics.
At that time Barnsley were called the colliers. Now they are the Tykes or simply the Reds but their traditions are celebrated with respect. They will be a tough opponent and so will we. I hope that our stadium is full of respect on Saturday. A worthwhile society is based on it.
God Save the King.
Andrew Stephen