Leaving Early

[The Fish 10965]

 

When is it acceptable to leave a football match early?

 

If your team aren't putting in the effort required, why should you bother sticking around to watch them?

 

The reputation of football fans appears to be on the up again. Campaigns calling for a fairer deal on away tickets and the introduction of Safe Standing have shown how supporters can change attitudes when they act together. But scratch the surface and there remains hostility to a group despised by their peers and mocked by broadcasters. They are the fans who leave games early.

This sub-genre falls into two camps. The first will head off no matter what the score and deserve all the scorn that gets thrown at them. It wouldn't matter if their team were grimly holding on to a lead or laying siege to the opposition's goal looking to grab a late draw, at the appointed hour they will gather their belongings, make their excuses and head for the exit.

To attend a game and then leave when the result is still not certain just defies common sense. But there is a second group of early leavers who deserve to be treated with a bit more respect and I am one of them.

Saturday 16 January 1999 was a typically cold winter's day. I was in my usual seat in the Bobby Moore Stand at Upton Park as West Ham took on Sheffield Wednesday. Like many games at the time, West Ham were pretty abysmal and, with just under 20 minutes left, Benito Carbone scored a penalty to put the Owls 4-0 up.

I then received a text from my brother who was sitting with my dad in the East Stand. If I wanted my lift home I would need to meet them in five minutes. They'd had enough. There was no feeling of guilt as I left. The team weren't trying for me so why would I hang around to watch them? Especially as it would mean having to travel home by train rather than car. Yet for some reason fans that choose to walk out of games when their team is getting hammered are treated with the same disdain as the clockwatchers.

Just to be clear, these are not the sort of people who left the 2005 Champions League final at half time. They are the ones who can see that with 20 minutes to go both the current score and performance of the team mean a comeback is highly improbable. Leaving a ground at the end of a match can be a traumatic experience – there are queues everywhere.

You queue to get from your seat back into the concourse, then to get out the stadium and that's before you've even thought about the queue for the train or on the roads. If you're already having a miserable day because of your team, there is no point prolonging it. Inside the ground there is rarely any animosity to the fan who makes this choice. Everyone is thinking it, but some fans, for whatever misguided reason, choose to always stay until the end.

When I have mentioned that I'm quite happy to leave a game if my team are getting thrashed I've been accused of disloyalty. In my mind it's actually the people who stay who are doing more damage. Walking out is a form of protest. You are saying to the players that they do not deserve your support.

Those confused souls who choose to stay are actually telling the team that however badly they perform, however much they choose not to care, they are still valued. These fans also like to say that when the final whistle goes they can vent their frustration by booing.

A far better way of getting the message over would be if, when the final whistle went, your team walked off to stony silence as everyone had gone home. In recent years broadcasters have started honing in on supporters who head off early, a picture which is usually accompanied by some snide remark from a co-commentator. Inevitably this is then followed by criticism on social media.

But there's no reason to give any weight to these comments, especially when they are from people whose biggest effort of the night has been to reach the remote control to change channels. When you've paid up to £70 to watch a game of football, the decision to leave should never be taken lightly. But if you're having a miserable time the best thing to do is cut your losses. Staying until the bitter end has never made anyone feel better – and then you still have to get home.

 

I would only leave early if there was something outside of football. Oddly enough, the result and performance doesn't dictate how long I stay.

[BigWalrus 0]

I would only leave early if there was something outside of football. Oddly enough, the result and performance doesn't dictate how long I stay.

 

My view too.

 

I don't see how booing the team off at the end will improve matters at all. The players know when they've had a poor game and they'll be many times more pissed off with a poor performance than any fan would. All it serves to do is whack the pressure up, as they'll know they're only one poor touch away from a torrent of abuse.

 

I don't get that article though. The bloke says he doesn't understand people who leave early regardless of the score, but then left early so he could get a lift home, citing the faff on of getting out of the ground as a reason. Is this not the reason a lot of people leave early at every game - to beat the crowds?

 

Presumably this sort of fan would have left when we were 4-0 down at home to Arsenal.

[Brock Manson 0]

No excuse unless you have something urgent to get to.

 

You barely avoid any queues or traffic and you always risk missing a goal or comeback.

 

I've never left a game early, nor will I.

[essembeeofsunderland 811]

To miss the traffic you have to leave with a minimum of 5 mins to go and nearly jog to your car to escape the traffic.I've never left early and no circumstances outside of football have ever been important enough for me to miss any part of a game.

[BigWalrus 0]

I've been late a few times mind, which doesn't seem as bad somehow...

[Bibble 0]

I used to complain about the early leavers.

Then I walked out early for the first time after the sixth Liverpool goal went in.

They didn't bother. Why the f*ck should I?

And it meant I could start drinking to forget earlier.

[The Fish 10965]

I used to complain about the early leavers.

Then I walked out early for the first time after the sixth Liverpool goal went in.

They didn't bother. Why the f*ck should I?

And it meant I could start drinking to forget earlier.

Would you have stayed if they'd torn themselves apart trying, yet still were losing 6-0? Henderson scored the 6th in the 75th minute, Shearer scored a hattrick against Leicester in less than that. I'm not saying we could have clawed 6 back, but wouldn't you have liked to be there if Cisse had scored a wondergoal? I don't believe an extra 15 minutes would make that big a difference to drinking time?

Would you fuck off early if neither side were trying and it was 0-0?

[Anorthernsoul 1221]

It's purely subjective if someone wants to leave early, I wouldn't take it personally if someone did.

[David Kelly 1260]

I fucked off when the bin dippers sixth went in the other week and im not ashamed to admit it. It's one of three occasions I've left a match early (once when I was a bairn and dragged out the othe against Arsenal and I suppose I deserve all I got there but it was more a protest at the way I saw the club was going after the Carroll sale than it was to do with that match in particular) and I just couldn't take how pathetic we were. I saw no reason to stay just to boo at the end or slag off the players or manager any more than I had for the previous eighty minutes or so.

It takes a lot to make me so seething that I would do that but I can understand anyone who would do it.

I can't understand those who leave every week when the match is still in the balance. That's lunacy to me.

[luckyluke 2]

I remember reading something by a Forest fan when they got bum raped 8-1 by Man Utd at home. It was along the lines of "I've never left a game early before and always hated those that did, but when the sixth went in I thought "this is just self harm"". I certainly wouldn't begrudge anyone leaving in such circumstances.

[The Fish 10965]

It's purely subjective if someone wants to leave early, I wouldn't take it personally if someone did.

What if 3,000 did?

[BigWalrus 0]

Each to their own, like. People can do what they want.

 

Suppose its whether you're a supporter or a spectator.

[The Fish 10965]

I think this is more about those that leave when the result isn't assured.

[luckyluke 2]

Is it? Looked pretty assured in the example in the first post.

[The Fish 10965]

Is it? Looked pretty assured in the example in the first post.

The conversation moved on.

[luckyluke 2]

It didn't look like it, but whatever.

[Renton 22001]

I've left early twice, when inter beat us 4-1 with Bellamy sent off iirc, and last home match. But then again, I probably go to a hell of a lot more matches than the OP. That's you I'm talking about Fish btw. You can't say for certain if you'd gave left early cos you weren't subject directly to the shit the matchgoers were.

[Christmas Tree 4827]

Leave whenever you like tbf. You pays good money so can do whatever the fuck you like.

[Bibble 0]

I'm a supporter not a soopafan and don't reckon what I did compromises that. Christ we've watched some shite this season but I (still) don't boo the team, only the ref and opposition and like I said, I'd never walked out early before.

 

Tbh it was the combination of anger at Debuchy's idiotic 2nd yellow and the sixth goal tipped it for me. Snap decision. That's it.

 

The drinking to forget only started after a miserable drive home. And failed.

 

Give it a couple of matches and I'll be back complaining about the 85th minute early leavers again without any hint of irony.

[Monkeys Fist 43067]

Leave whenever you like tbf. You pays good money so can do whatever the fuck you like.

Extra pie time?

[Christmas Tree 4827]

Extra pie time?

 

And why not

[Monkeys Fist 43067]

Because you're a fat blob?

[Kid Dynamite 7170]

The ground was more than half empty at the end of the Liverpool game.

[David Kelly 1260]

Each to their own, like. People can do what they want.

 

Suppose its whether you're a supporter or a spectator.

Spectators don't care, they're just there to watch the game. Supporters feel it much more when things go so bad. Some times too much which is why they can't take it and leave. No ones going to tell me that I don't care just because I've left early!

[BigWalrus 0]

Fair dos. We all deal with it in different ways I suppose.