There’s no doubt that the focus of sport, especially in the big-money sports, is on the teams or players who play at the top.
Mention soccer, and fans invariably picture players like Messi and teams like Real Madrid – and probably have never heard of Crewe Alexandra.
When it comes to [American] football, although college sports are popular, the main attention is paid to the giants of the NFL. Outside the USA, the only thing NFL fans know about the college game is that new players are drafted from its teams each year.
There can be no complaints about this, and even though they don’t always admit it, fans of lower-ranking soccer teams want their club to join the elite bracket. Who wouldn’t want to go to a stadium and see the likes of Manchester City run out alongside their players, rather than Tranmere Rovers?
English Soccer Is More Than The Premier League
It stands to reason that most English soccer fans, although by no means all, support a Premier League side. This is largely due to demographics. Put simply, teams in larger cities get more fans in the stadium, more income from ticket sales and have more to re-invest in the playing staff.
English soccer, however, doesn’t stop at the foot of its Premier League, boasting instead a rich pyramid of teams down about 24 levels.
At the lower reaches, almost all those watching amateur matches tend to favor a professional side. They then root for their local team either out of curiosity, sympathy or gallantry, helping to keep the club alive with a few pounds every Sunday afternoon. They may also have nothing better to do.
The higher up you get, the more committed people are to their own local clubs. From as low as the sixth or seventh tier, many of the fans would categorically deny any interest in the Premier League (truthfully or not).
The reality works both ways. Most followers of Premier League big fish have little more than a passing interest in the minnows swimming in the tiny, silty streams of non-professional soccer.
There is one thing that unites fans of all levels, though. That is their insistence on having a ‘soft spot’ for a team that they have no direct association with.
That team whose results and league placing they always check after their own. The team whose Youtube channel they subscribe to, to watch the highlights and experience that vague, ungrounded sense of satisfaction when they win.
The encouraging remark they post in the comments to ‘earn their place’ alongside the real fans. The half-hearted fist pump on seeing them score, and with all that, the ‘not really knowing why’.
It’s the second-favorite team, and every soccer fan has one.
Introducing Crewe Alexandra
For several decades from the late 1980s, Crewe Alexandra, a small team of perennial last-placers became the proverbial ‘soft-spot team’ for millions of English soccer fans.
In 1983, the arrival of a clever new coach called Dario Gradi signalled a new start for the club. Until Gradi, Crewe Alexandra had relied on the town’s status as a major rail junction to retain its membership of the professional hierarchy.
With Gradi came new ideas, new players, a new style and new fans coming to a rebuilt stadium, all bringing cash to a struggling club.
It was invested wisely, not only on ageing journeyman professionals, but on young players who attended the academy, the first of its kind outside the Premier League.
Players who hadn’t made the grade at Premier League clubs were carefully chosen and turned into the best, later sold back to top clubs at massive profit.
Those funds were re-invested and the cycle continued.
Meanwhile, the long-term commitment to the academy started to bear fruit, with the kids now reaching ages and ability levels which saw them picked for the first team. The youngsters were confident and talented, but more importantly had grown up together and played together for years.
They gelled and it worked. Slowly but surely a team which wouldn’t exist as a professional club in today’s cruel world, climbed several steps up the English football league. This, not by booting the ball randomly forward for a six-foot striker to lumber after, but by playing an attractive, tiki-taka passing game. At their most stylish, they wouldn’t have seemed out of place in La Liga.
Academy players were sold and went on to play for top clubs and for their national sides. Crewe Alexandra gained a reputation as the best producer of talent in the country.
The team won the Fair Play trophy many times, their disciplinary record and sportsmanlike approach to the game winning the admiration of all.
The smallest town to have a league football club went on and on. 15 years after Dario Gradi arrived with his grand plan, Crewe Alexandra sat in the places for the playoffs, one level below the Premier League.
Fans emerged from nowhere in their thousands. Locals previously embarrassed to call Crewe their team now walked the town proudly displaying the club’s red and white colors.
Alex fans up and down the country were stopped in the street by random strangers and thanked for what their team had done. Crewe fans were everybody’s friends, even rival teams admired and envied their achievements. If there was any downside to it all, fans were occasionally accused of being glory hunters; staggering, for a club which had finished 92nd of 92 clubs countless times.
Crewe Alexandra was a happy thing to be a part of for two decades.
Nothing Lasts Forever
As with most things, it didn’t last forever. Selling the then top striker, Dean Ashton, set the club back so much the Premier League was not to be. Since then, all clubs have opened academies meaning that players dropping down from the best clubs no longer had Crewe right at the top of their Plan B list.
Dario Gradi finally retired, the advantage of growing talent from a young age was lost, all other clubs building their futures partly based on the Crewe model.
Then the unthinkable happened. The Alex (alongside several other teams) were rocked by scandal as a rogue youth team coach was hauled up on abuse charges. An investigation was completed, but with awkward questions left unanswered.
Several of Dario Gradi’s former proteges testified that he was not involved, and he continues to advise the club today.
End Of My Crewe Alexandra Rant
What was once a dream is now mostly over. Crewe Alexandra is competitive today, within its means, but few fans believe that the adventure will ever repeat.
I haven’t been to the stadium for 20 years, but in my defence, it is 3,500 miles away these days.
As for being everybody’s second favorite team, well, you can imagine, this is also an old reality, although thousands of older fans still respect us for almost achieving the impossible.
But The Alex is still there, players still try their best, and we still love them.
So, if you follow English soccer, stop by to see how we are going on, and learn what the English ‘soft spot’ for a second team is all about.
The post Crewe Alexandra: Soccer’s Softest Spot appeared first on Stadium Rant.