Hello Chelsea Fans!

I hope you don't mind me using your forum for purposes of research, but it is a fascinating topic and I am seeking fans who use football forums to unearth the state of football spectatorship and community in the modern era.

I am an Events Management MSc student from the University West of England and I am currently writing a thesis analysing how well new digital, social and broadcast media outlets replicate the experience of attending a football match.

I am in the process of contacting bloggers, forum contributors and key opinion-formers for Premier League football teams and am writing to you in the hope that a Chelsea fan might be interested in answering a few questions to help inform my research.

If there is anybody who has a spare 5-10 minutes to answer a few questions, I would be very grateful and happy to provide a blog/article/details of my thesis and research for you to read and discuss at your own leisure.

Please let me know if this might be a possibility.

Many thanks,
Will Potter

I'll do it if you need someone.

13 minutes ago, PloKoon13 said:

I'll do it if you need someone.

Thanks, that's very kind! I'll post the questions here - happy for you to post answers on here to trigger discussion, or if you'd prefer - DM me. Answer as many as you like. I would be more than happy to provide a blog/article/details of my thesis and research back to you if of interest too. 

The Questions:

1. How old are you?

2. Where do you live?

3. What football team do you support in the UK?

4. How often do you attend a live football match?

5. Do broadcast media outlets (e.g. Sky Sports, BT Sport) manage to replicate or enhance the experience of attending a live football match?

6. Describe the level of connection you feel to the team you are watching? Has this changed over your lifetime?

7. Do you interact online with other fans/spectators? If so, when (before/during/after a game) and what do you gain from this?

8. Can the sense of community of the ‘traditional spectator’ be replicated without travelling to the stadium and watching their team? E.g. At a pub, online, or on TV.

9. Do you tend to (and prefer to) watch football with other people?

10. How do you feel when watching the game on your chosen platform?

11. Does a constant stream of consumer material online help or hinder your football community?

12. Do you try to watch football games live? Does your intensity / interest change when watching a highlights programme or catch-up service?

13. Do new football-focused digital, social and broadcast media outlets help to provide you with a sense of community and well-being?

@potterwec Happy to help.

1. How old are you?

25.

2. Where do you live?

Leicester.

3. What football team do you support in the UK?

Chelsea.

4. How often do you attend a live football match?

I work at a football stadium (not Chelsea), so roughly every fortnight or so. For Chelsea maybe once a season or so - it would be more often if not for logistical and financial constraints.

5. Do broadcast media outlets manage to replicate or enhance the experience of attending a live football match?

No, not even close. Other than the inane commentary and obvious failure to replicate the atmosphere and sense of camaraderie, you also can't see the entire pitch at all times, which can be a very useful tool in fully understanding a player. That said, they have the enormous benefit of making more or less any top flight game accessible, which would otherwise be impossible due to cost.

6. Describe the level of connection you feel to the team you are watching? Has this changed over your lifetime?

I consider being a Chelsea fan to be a fundamental part of my personal identity. This has been the case for as long as I can remember (i.e. since I was a small child).

7. Do you interact online with other fans/spectators? If so, when (before/during/after a game) and what do you gain from this?

Yes, very regularly. I'm on here more or less every day, and on most matchdays (i.e. before, during and after the game). Apart from it giving me the opportunity to gauge the opinions of some people whose take on football I respect a great deal, I feel like a site as popular as this one, which crosses several generations of Chelsea fans, is a fairly effective barometer of what the fanbase is thinking as a whole.

8. Can the sense of community of the 'traditional spectator' be replicated without travelling to the stadium and watching their team? E.g. at a pub, online, or on TV.

Not at all really. You get a tiny sense of that when there are a group of you at the pub but it's a tiny fraction of what it's like at the stadium.

9. Do you tend to (and prefer to) watch football with other people?

Generally yes, although it depends what I want from the game. If it's a game in which I want to fully participate then definitely, without a doubt. If it's a game I happen to watch on a late Saturday evening because I have nothing better to do and want to 'scout' (for lack of a better word) a particular player I've read about (e.g. Gaya or someone like that) then I prefer to watch it alone so I'm not distracted.

10. How do you feel when watching the game on your chosen platform?

I watch most games online, so it's usually a fairly quiet affair (unless I've been drinking or it's against Tottenham or something).

11. Does a constant stream of consumer material online help or hinder your football community?

Consumer material as in merchandise or as in a great abundance of articles and opinion pieces? The former really has no impact whatsoever; the latter probably gets more people thinking about deeper aspects of the game but gives a far more shallow and frankly dumb portrayal of it.

12. Do you try to watch football games live? Does your intensity / interest change when watching a highlights programme or catch-up service?

Obviously, it's far better and it's almost impossible to avoid the score. I don't watch programmes like MOTD very often as the highlights are so truncated (by necessity) and the analysis is usually fairly poor, so it doesn't do a particularly good job of holding my interest. Watching games after the fact obviously removes most of the tension, in fact I watched the Burnley game late last weekend; usually I would have been tense late in the second half when we began to retreat (the cliché of '2-0 is the most dangerous score in football') but the knowledge that we weren't going to concede (and in fact were going to score again) completely removed any tension. It was still enjoyable though.

13. Do new football-focused digital, social and broadcast media outlets help to provide you with a sense of community and well-being?

No, not in the slightest. I find almost every single open access internet discussion on football to be incontrovertibly filled with morons and ill-conceived opinions gleaned from lowest common denominator sources. www.theshedend.com is almost the sole exception.

@PloKoon13

Thank you so much! Very helpful & thoughtful answers.

I will post my thesis back on here if it is of interest. Thanks again!!