Football appears to have an uneasy relationship with technology at times, it has never fully embraced the possibilities of it on the field of play when compared to say, the big four American sports of American football, baseball, ice hockey and basketball. Most recently this has been manifested during the recent Manchester United v Tottenham game when a shot which by most reasonable accounts was way over the goal line and into the net before referee Carroll cancelled the marker.

One area of technology that our game has not been to slow to utilise however is that of the media, in particular the Internet. It would be interesting to know just how many fans of our own club Hibernian have no access to the online news and views of the players, officials and fans of the club at all. For me personally, and for most fellow Hibbies I am of the acquaintance of, the days of not being able to communicate by this method seem in the far and distant past.

Obviously not living in or around The Lothian’s, the amount of contact and closeness that distant fans like myself are able to feel to the club and to other fans is not comparable to years ago in the days when my personal Hibernian lifeline was the Sunday Post – delivered to my folk’s house on a Monday lunchtime here in Nottingham. At that time a fuzzy monochrome picture of a Stanton or Cropley was about as good as it got, accompanied by a few well-worn clichés from the likes of Doug Ballie.

How different things are now. Daily news, chatter and rumour provided by websites such as Mass Hibsteria and the other sites have succeeded in filling a huge void, not just for us ‘distants’, of which there are many all around the world, but for local supporters too.

Customs are changing around our old game whether we enjoy that or not. Many decry the passing of standing terraces, and some of the more roughly-hewn facets of the game, on and off the field. These are issues for another day. It’s interesting however to compare how football friendships and communities are forming these days.

I’m sure that I speak for many when I relate how I got into football as a youngster by the traditional method of being taken by my father and other family members. As the years go on though many of us find ourselves visiting Easter Road or wherever our chosen ground is, with friends and contemporaries, perhaps from school, college, University whatever. Perhaps we are members of supporters clubs. Often these relationships through football are very long-lived and certainly habitual. Perhaps a sizeable few drop by the wayside as marriage, children and work pressures come along, only to return at a more convenient window in people’s lives.

Socially speaking

Over the past few short years I have observed football fans and friends meeting and getting together in new ways by means of Internet messageboards and the like, indeed this has been my happy experience on returning home to Edinburgh to see the Hibs on many occasions I’m very happy to state. A group of Hibbies these days drinking in a pub on Easter Road before a derby game might have members from England, Australia, Canada or Germany. Just as our children might have a best friend in Singapore by way of the Internet. Things are changing.

One age-old custom that many of us away from the home of our club miss is that of a pint and a chat about our team pre-game and of course, the post-game review of where it al went right/wrong that afternoon. Nothing can truly replace the kindred feeling of being amongst ‘your own’; however conversing on the net as a substitute does shrink the miles, of that there is no doubt.

Printed versus online matter in football

Recently I noted a debate as to the relative pros and cons of the above forms of communication within the game. This debate could easily be widening out to the reading of website material as against books and magazines generally, for example some will always prefer a good tome, a glossy magazine or a decent broadsheet to peruse over at leisure on a lazy Sunday morning. It’s indisputable for me that this will be the case for a long time to come yet. Anyone actually tried reading an e-book yet?
 
To come to the point, the conversation was comparing match day programs against gleaning information and entertainment from football websites. Obviously both have their strengths and weaknesses. Not being a collector myself, it’s rare that I will buy an official program from any event, including a football match, though conversely I have always been an avid reader of fanzines and their more irreverent view! I see official programs as somewhat sanitised, out of date in many circumstances and certainly overpriced.

Collectible?

For me too, for something to be collectible it has to be very worthy in the first place. If I may, I’ll use the analogy of the classic car market. A Ford Anglia may be rare and unusual, in 2005 but it was never an E-type Jaguar, nor was it intended to be. I’m sure the Ford Motor Company would have been astounded all those years ago if they imagined that anyone would revere and keep the ‘Anglebox’ today! No, it was intended to use and throw away afterwards.

Compare the match program to the modern rush of technological opportunities though. These days, not only can up to the minute news be viewed on the Internet, it can also be downloaded onto a personal pc and carried around. Scoreflashes and news can be collected by WAP Internet on mobiles. Bluetooth and other technologies will take us way beyond what we have now.

The technology is, as we know, also roughly in place to show live Internet coverage of games through our PC’s – both radio and pictures. Things will never be the same again nor should they be as technology relentlessly moves on. Occasionally this same technology is industry-led and there is a public resistance but generally the public have a thirst for it I feel.  It might be that the tradition of the match day program could well in time end in the same place as the football rattle and rosette did - a long forgotten memory. In some ways we will all be sad about that perhaps as it will be another part of football’s heritage gone forever. It just wouldn’t be the same keeping your digital images in the loft would it?