I've been lucky enough to see some of the biggest punk bands on the planet.

I've seen Agnostic Front tear up Klub Eskulap in western Poland. I've run a gauntlet between protesting Christian fundamentalists and Marilyn Manson fans lining up to buy tickets, on my way to see legendary Los Angeles act Bad Religion in Düsseldorf. I've witnessed an on-stage marriage proposal - and acceptance - at a Sick Of It All show, and had the same band dedicate Injustice System to me in front of more than 15,000 fans at an outdoor festival in Germany.

I've watched bands like Raised Fist and Ensign play in front of twenty-five people and invest more energy into their sets than some people do their entire lives. I've heard the strain of emotion in Zoli's voice when Ignite played Poverty For All in Prague, and I've seen hundreds of fans burst into the Yokohama Cultural Centre as the opening riff of Everready boomed out from New York's prodigal sons H2O. I've seen just about every recent Australian punk band you care to name.

The memories of these shows, acquired over years of blurry nights at sweaty clubs packed with angry kids, share a common theme. Passion. That's something that I don't see a lot of on the football pitch these days.

What I see a lot of are players who talk the talk. You know the type. They sign for a club. They kiss the badge every time they score. They engineer some kind of falling out with the manager, sign for their former club's biggest rivals, kiss a new badge and tell all and sundry that it has always been their dream to "play for this club." And then two years later they do it all again. It's an insult to the fans.

Fans seem to be the forgotten factor in some leagues. Back in 2000 I called the ticket office of Southampton FC and had a conversation that went like this...

Us: "Hello, can you please tell me what your cheapest ticket costs for the match against Liverpool?"

Them: "28 pounds."

Us: "28 pounds? Do you have anything cheaper?"

Them: "That's how much it costs to watch top quality football."

Us: "But I pay about five pounds to watch Borussia Dortmund - and they won the European Cup three years ago.

Them: *click*

Welcome to the brave new world of the English Profit League - Where We'll Always Treat You Like A Customer, Hold The Line Please!

If ever a league has misunderstood fan culture, it's the J-League. If ever there was one team synonymous with that misunderstanding, it is the Yokohama Flügels.

The Yokohama Flügels don't exist any more. Ever wondered where the "F" in Yokohama F. Marinos comes from? Now you know. The Flügels were absorbed by the Marinos in 1998 when the bubble burst in Japan and some men in suits calmly informed their respective clubs that they were merging. The merger took place overnight, with no consultation of coaches or players - let alone fans. In Japan, business mergers happened all the time... the respective owners of the Marinos and Flügels saw little difference between those mergers and the merger of two football clubs.

Yet at a time when the mercurial Hidetoshi Nakata was thumbing his nose at the Japanese hierarchy, the merger of the two Yokohama clubs unleashed the wrath of Hades on these bumbling Japanese bureaucrats. Fans from both clubs reacted furiously and set in motion concerted campaigns to have the merger annulled. If there is one thing that Japanese bureaucrats love more than making hare-brained decisions, however, it is steadfastly refusing to back down from those decisions, no matter how inappropriate they seem.

So, fast-forwarding almost a decade, you could forgive Yokohama FC fans for being a tad more passionate than usual about this weekend's clash with cross-town rivals Yokohama F. Marinos. "But who are Yokohama FC?" I hear you yelp. They're a club founded by former Flügels fans, after their own team was taken out from under their feet. Around 40,000 of those fans descended upon Nissan Stadium to watch their rock bottom misfits lose 1-0 to JEF United in the last match before the mid-season break. If the J-League isn't careful, Nissan Stadium could well be rocking to the tune of 70,000 fans this weekend.

Fans, huh. Remember them?

http://www.tribalfootball.com/article.php?id=32619