Protesting supporters take up the fight for football's fading soul

Stop Exploiting Loyalty campaign has united supporters who feel their concerns are not being heard

- Paul MacInnes

“I’m a bit younger, so this is all I’ve known,” says Nick Clarke, “but something that defines this moment is the feeling that it’s our last chance. You know that phrase: ‘The game’s gone’? I think the game is genuinely going away. It’s excluding traditional supporters and the communities that built the clubs in the first place.”

Clarke has just celebrated his 30th birthday and is coming off the back of a big season. As one of the four season-ticket holders behind the MCFC Fans Foodbank Support, Clarke has been active among the Manchester City fanbase and in the community since the pandemic. With the growing concern over the pricing and provision of tickets at his club last year, he helped coordinate protests by fans whose rivalries go back generations, but whose problems are increasingly shared. Supporters of Everton, Liverpool and Manchester United and others joined City fans under the banner “Stop Exploiting Loyalty” and in doing so became part of a new wave of supporter activism.

“I know there’s all these things about multi-club ownership, private and state ownership, playing games abroad, accusations of killing the soul of the game,” Clarke says. “But, really, what is the game? It’s the communities that go to it, it’s the communities that have made the clubs who they are, going back four, five, six generations till their very inception.