Yes, another football really is possible

Any group of people who want to create an organisation that is different, that is seen by the world as different because it strives to organise in a way that reflects a fairer, more inclusive and more democratic society, will eventually run into opposition.

This isn’t really surprising. Capitalist societies function on the basis that there is no alternative and the measure of success that is almost always looked to are corporations: hierarchies claiming to possess empty ‘values’ purely as a means of increasing profit. Corporations are happy to take our money as long as we remain passive consumers: anything else is perceived as a nuisance, or even a threat. Nowhere is that more true than in modern-day football.

All of which brings me to the amateur football club I am a member and part-owner of (along with 1554 others), which plays in east London. From its revival as a member-owned club in 2018, Clapton Community FC has deliberately sought to stand out as different from other clubs.

Proudly identifying as anti-fascist, it also decided early on to abolish the position of “chairman” (sic), hand most day-to-day control to committees that are open to any member and to make the club’s membership, rather than a board of directors, the ultimate decision-maker.

There are plans to eventually replace the board with a general organising committee made of representatives from different parts of the club, a federalised model borrowed from radical trade unionism.

It has been a bold experiment that hasn’t always worked, indeed has made some really bad errors. However, the club has also achieved an awful lot in the last two years, especially considering the closure of football for months on end as a result of the covid pandemic. Its proudest moments include returning and restoring London’s oldest senior ground to the local community in Newham after years of neglect.

Clapton Community FC has, however, attracted some hostility from the men’s football authorities at the level it plays — 10 levels below the Premier League. Even at this lowly tier of the English Football Pyramid System, I know of one official who has talked about “the way things should be done” — and whatever he meant by this, we’re clearly not it.

A confrontation was always likely to happen at some point. A radical club made up of political supporters must expect it as an inevitability.

It might have been around any issue, but it turns out this time it is about ‘pyro’ — smoke flares let off by supporters. This isn’t something that is unique to our club, but we are told if we don’t put a stop to this completely, then we risk sanctions, which could ultimately include expulsion from the league.

Clearly, the choice between no longer playing, or some supporters agreeing not to let off smoke flares during games, is a simple one: even though a great many of the club’s founding members were formerly part of the Clapton Ultras and fond of a smoke flare from time to time.

We are a football club. First and foremost, we need to play football.

The cultural clash comes, however, from how we implement what the league wants from us.

As a non-hierarchical, member-based organisation, our ethos and values point towards trying to bring people with us, convince supporters why this decision is necessary and demonstrating there are other ways we can show our passion for the club.

By aiming to reach a consensus we can agree on, the intention is to encourage members, together, to ensure any decision is then adhered to — because this is in our collective interest.

Rejecting the idea of simply punishing people is a radical idea, but it is also about the starting to create the kind of different society we want.

The trouble is, the football authorities aren’t interested in the way we choose to organise. They want us to impose a top-down decision and to demonstrate that we are enforcing it though punitive measures, by stewards ejecting people from the ground or banning individuals completely.

It doesn’t even matter that this probably won’t work. What seems to matter more is that we act in “the way things should be done”.

There are some within the club who argue we simply have no choice but to accept this: the FA and league officials make the rules and we have to abide by them.

But it is never that simple, not if you continue to aspire to remaining a different kind of organisation centred around active supporters rather than passive consumers.

What happens when the club next comes under renewed pressure, backed once again by threats to our continued existence unless we knuckle down and comply with the rules?

What if in future, league officials start to demand we are less “political”, because some right-wing club official is unhappy about supporters displaying anti-fascist banners and songs showing profound disrespect for the memory of Margaret Thatcher?

What if in future football authorities want to change their rules and insist we must have a hierarchical board of directors that makes all the decisions?

What happens if one day — maybe soon considering the beleaguered trans community in Britain has become the constant target of an abhorrent culture war — we are told whom we can and cannot allow to play for any of our women’s teams?

“The FA and league officials make the rules and we have to abide by them” suddenly starts to sound a whole lot less appealing.

Unless we are prepared to insist that another kind of football is possible — not in theory, but in practice — we risk becoming just another non-league football club, no different from anyone else. Just another failed experiment in horizontal organising.

I am sure we can find a way around the current concerns about pyro, but the way we resolve this matters for the way we are treated in the future.

To paraphrase the oft-repeated quote from former RMT general secretary Bob Crow: “if you push back, you might lose, but if you never push back, you’ll always lose.”