Nice variation on the usual guardian nickname
It was a genuine typo, which I noticed but purposely decided to leave in.
Had a great response on my FB page, from a Worthing fan who's a good mate:
"Great exposure for you but if I see a "middle class fan finds non league football and believes they're the first ever person to do so and patronises it beyond belief" style article again, it'll drive me mad!!! It's nothing new, we've been doing it all our lives and don't need it validating by anyone!"
I actually bought the paper copy on Sunday, which was even worse with the whole article simply headlined "Hipster FC" in pink type on blue.
Unfortunately the author doesn't really seem to be an experienced football fan as her only previous live game was at the Hamlet fifteen years ago. She's got no other clubs to compare us to, only her experience of the same one in a different era. And there's no mention at all of the fact that the game she attended was against the biggest club in the league with the Championship at stake, with at least 1,000 away supporters, no Police, no segregation, and not the slightest hint of trouble. Now that really isn't 'normal football'!
There's a brief reference to "a diverse crowd" which is really the key to our crowd growth. We're not just attracting one type of people (i.e. the dreaded 'hipsters') it's all sorts. More women, more from ethnic minorities, possibly more LGBT supporters (although obviously we don't necessarily know who they are) young parents with children, and transient incomers who grew up on other parts of the country too far away to continue watching their hometown club and take an interest in their new local team. I reckon we have the youngest average age of any supporter base in our league.
Meanwhile those supporters of other clubs who like to snipe at us are 'typical' Ryman Premier clubs with an average attendance of around 300, mostly locally born and bred white males aged anywhere between 30 and 70 who probably began going as boys with older relatives or schoolmates and just continued out of habit after many of their contemporaries discovered other interests on reaching their twenties. We still have that core of 300, and I'm one of them, but we've extended our club's appeal to all sorts of other sections of the local community, which is fantastic and makes it all the more fun for those like myself.
The classic comment of last season came form a Billericay fan on their forum: "I wouldn't mind the crowd number Dulwich get, but I wouldn't want the type of suporters they get." Priceless! You won't be likely to get one without the other.
FootballLeaguePaper @TheLeaguePaper 1h1 hour ago
