Fan Culture - the differences

Fan culture here is slightly different from what we experience in Ireland.

Firstly, the numbers are significantly bigger. Atlético de Madrid, arguably the third biggest club in the country, have roughly 50,000 fully-paid members. Considering the support of Barcelona and Real Madrid dwarfs that of all other clubs put together, 50,000 is a good number. That is comfortably, to put it as an understatement, bigger than the total attendances in the League of Ireland every week.

However, Barça and Real aside, Spanish fans refuse to travel. In a recent match between Rayo Vallecano and Castellón, about ten Castellón fans made the 417km trip. Comparatively, the distance between Derry and Cork is 357km. I’m confident more than ten times that amount made that arduous journey from Leeside last Friday. Regularly, at least twenty Bray Wanderers fans will head up to Derry when they play there.

Bray’s average attendance for the last few years has hovered around the 1200 mark. Cork City have traditionally had a bigger fan-base, maybe 3,000 to 4,000 but this year who knows what it‘ll be like. What’s Castellón’s average attendance? Well, their last two home matches were attended by 5,563 and 5,921 respectively. They definitely have the fans, they simply refuse to travel.

Fans at matches are vociferous. Everyone has an opinion, like in the League of Ireland. The refs never make a right decision and every player who goes down injured is feigning injury. I have seen two interesting reactions to this.

Firstly, at the Real Madrid versus Málaga match when Cristiano Ronaldo elbowed the Málaga defender Patrick Mtiliga. Mtiliga went down like a tonne of bricks and it was revealed later that his nose had been broken. The Real fans all booed Mtiliga, even when the blood could be seen on his face and the doctor had to run onto the pitch to treat him.

Secondly, at the Rayo and Castellón match, one Castellón player was blatantly feigning injury and, when he walked over to the touchline for the magic sponge treatment, several Rayo fans ran to the front of the stand and spat at him. No stewards intervened, no Rayo fans complained, it was completely accepted.

Yes, players frequently get verbal abuse at League of Ireland matches but incidents like the above are sporadic to say the least Occasionally, some idiot throws something, like at the Rovers-Bohemians match last year, but it is always condemned and the club is punished. To see fans spitting at a player and have it accepted is incredible.

In general, Real fans are impatient and disinterested. When things are going well, they cheer. When the game hits a lull, they are quiet and more concerned with eating and smoking. They adore the melodrama that is Cristiano Ronaldo. He plays to the crowd and they enjoy it. They indulge his ego and he indulges their belief that Real is the biggest club in the world.

Atlético fans try to get behind their team for the full ninety minutes, even when they play poorly. When they lost 2-0 to Málaga, early on it was evident Atlético would struggle but their fans stuck by them and supported them. When Málaga doubled their lead with twenty minutes to go, there was an exodus but those that remained continued to cheer.

Onto Rayo, their fans are the most interesting. Rayo Vallecano are a team from the working-class Madrid suburb of Vallecas. They played in the Primera División for several years and even made it to the UEFA Cup quarter-finals in 2001 where they lost to runners-up Deportivo Alavés. In recent years, they’ve regressed and are currently a mid-table side in the second tier.

Traditionally, Rayo’s fan base is working class and left-wing. Many fans fly the flag of the Second Republic. The Second Republic was the elected, socialist Government which the Francisco Franco-led coup overthrew in 1939. Franco changed the flag and since his death, it hasn’t been changed back. The old flag is now a symbol of the left.

So when the Liga de Fútbol Profesional, the Spanish league’s governing body, opted to move football matches to Fridays and Mondays for more television exposure, it offended traditionalists who wanted to watch football at the weekend and the commercial motivation annoyed the politically-active Rayo fans.

The Rayo-Castellón match was, of course, on a Friday and that is where the Rayo ultras made their point. Once the game started, they were silent but held banners which showed their disgust at the LFP’s decision. After the fifteenth minute, the ultras section began to exit the stadium and whistled as they did so. Within a few minutes, their section was empty except for a banner which stated simply: “No to Friday night football”. They never returned.