I’m in the States this week and so thinking more than I might have done about the Oakland A’s being forced to leave their home.
‘Rooted in Oakland since ’68’ signs greet you as you enter the Coliseum, their home stadium of 56 years. As of last Thursday, the roots remain but the foliage has been removed to Sacramento as a staging post before the team’s move to Las Vegas, a nine-hour drive away.
It is the latest savage sporting blow for Oakland, with the NFL Raiders and NBA Golden State Warriors having already left town in the past decade.
The relocation of major teams is considered an occupational hazard of being a sports fan in the US. From over the pond in the UK we watch, faintly baffled, certain that such things would never be accepted here.
Sure, MK Dons happened, but look at the beautiful, British resilience of the AFC Wimbledon fans, rebuilding their club on their own terms. It makes it even crueller that their pitch was hit by devastating flooding last month. Their crowdfunder to restore it is still open on JustGiving by the way if you want to donate.
We have such a wealth of heritage in the UK that it’s possible to forget the huge significance of our football clubs. Manchester United, for instance, is coming up to its 147th birthday. It is older than the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower and a dozen US states.
Derby County is just a few years younger but two years ago it was on the precipice, only surviving because of a Hail Mary pass (forgive me) from lifelong fan David Clowes, who had the resources to invest £50million in the club and keep the wheels turning.
Clowes understood what the Glazer family at United never seemed to – a club is a precious community asset that should be treated with respect. The memories and the passion of those who love what it stands for are everything that is meaningful in life.
A club’s value is not in its stock price or ability to forge global partnerships with sofa firms or noodle purveyors – it is in the lived experiences, relationships, hope and profound ties we forge between one another in its name. And the pride.
I don’t want to make this sound like a specifically American misunderstanding of what sport means. Indeed AFC Wimbledon sponsor John Green, the American author of The Fault in Our Stars, found something there that chimed with him, all the way from Indianapolis, and made it his business to advocate for community football.
And in Lake Placid this week, where I am with the UCI Mountain Bike World Series, the understanding of what sport can be to people is palpable.
This is a place that achieved global fame after hosting the Winter Olympics twice and in 1980 (the second time) providing us with the Miracle on Ice. You assume it will be of a scale to fit its reputation, only to discover Lake Placid is home to little over two thousand people.
I met a good proportion of them over the weekend and each was hugely invested in the progress of our bike race – they wanted their home to shine. A number had moved back there from jobs elsewhere in the world to be a part of Lake Placid’s latest project.
This is what sport can give – it holds everything we pour into it and expands outwards to fill the gaps between people. The people of Derby, Manchester, Bury, Falkirk, Wrexham and in Oakland know this.
Seemingly those who cram the calendar so full as to blight our greatest players, price out fans from their first European Cup home game in 41 years, or continually hone formats to benefit the richest do not. Hell, I learned even Little League baseball (kids being coached in a generally casual manner) is being commercialised.
Can’t someone please just let us have fun and watch sport without a billionaire exploiting us to fund a new private jet?