Last night my neighbour Mad Vincent and I went to watch Dukla-Sparta -only in the pub, fortunately, it was a dire 0-0. Sparta fans are in relentless conflict with their owners. Vladimir Smicer meanwhile is an ex Slavia player, now a coach there, under their very murky Chinese owners. He is also a regular pundit on Czech TV. Apparently Smicer publicly slagged off the protesting Sparta fans, and said, in terms, "I played in England, and trust me this would never happen at a Premier League club, such disrespect towards owners". Vincent asked me if this is true, and I nearly spat my beer out.
So I will put something togetherfor social media to show Smicer just how wrong he is. Would appreciate any ideas on specific examples - and linked videos of such protests would be especially good. I think I would focus on FAPL or ex-FAPL teams, names that Smicer remembers, so I can think of
- his own old club Liverpool of course. When was it they walked out during a game?
- Blackburn - when they put a chicken on the pitch
- Leeds.
Any others? Not sure if Hull or Cardiff would register with Smicer as FAPL clubs
Of course I will take the opportunity to showcase us as the absolute world-class creative protesters :-)
Thanks in advance for any ideas
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https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/sport/2015/dec/03/leeds-fans-elland-road-walk-out-protest-cellino-pie-tax
And Hull.
http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11714/10521447/hull-city-fans-to-protest-at-premier-league-opener-against-leicester
Man Utd with the Newton Heath scarf wearing
Villa also did something (may have been turning their backs in the pitch?) can’t remember.
Edit: beaten to it, although forming a whole new club is a rather large protest.
I know he's not Czech, but when you said this, I immediately thought of him for some reason. No idea why!
Brighton fans with a very tasteful banner showing what they thought of their owners. In 1996 their protests included boycotting games. In one match against Mansfield they watched the first half from outside and then scaled the gates at half time to watch the game free.
One time Premier League Wimbledon (though they were relegated about a year before this picture was taken) show Charlton fans how to use black balloons as a form of protest. Perhaps bizarrely from the perspective of your average Charlton fan, they were protesting to stay at Selhurst!
Man Utd fans with a banner that very neatly sums up the fans v owners position.
Charlton fans with a banner that very neatly sums up what they think of their CEO.
Of course, not everything that looks like a protest really is. Here we see Cardiff fans celebrating wildly after managing to scrape a 0-0 draw with Charlton.
Finally, you might find these articles of interest:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/12149746/A-history-of-football-fan-protests-do-they-really-work.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/arsenal/11515517/Arsenal-and-Liverpool-fans-protest-at-ticket-prices.html
It actually gets to be quite a long list...
As the army club Dukla was hated because it succeeded by basically ensuring all the best players were conscripted. They had to stop playing for Sparta or Slavia and instead turn out for Dukla. After the revolution the entire modus operandi fell apart. They descended through the league and at one point a provincial businessman bought the licence and moved the club to some small town. But the stadium was always maintained in pristine condition (most Czech clubs don't own their stadia).
The current owner bought it and them back, and on the field he has done a good job, getting them back to the top flight and keeping them there. The slightly odd thing is the fanbase. I first went there when they were playing Viktoria, and expected to find the crowd of about 2,000 would be grizzled old Communist blokes. Imagine my surprise to find it was full of middle class families doing the happy clappy thing, and apparently oblivious to actual events on the pitch. It is a very strange place to watch football now. That's why we watched it in the pub