From Scarves to Screens; Terraces to TikTok

My wife’s a photographer and she recently undertook a shoot with a young male model and produced a number of images in Jimmy Hendrix-style musically-themed poses (they even borrowed a guitar from a local music store to make it more authentic). One of the images featured in a competition at the British Gallery. 

They were absolutely brilliant, even if I am a little biased. But it wasn’t just me who said so.  

Michael – the model - loved them, as did everyone else it seemed. Well, until my wife – aghast – received a message from a young lady on social media who simply said, ‘type shit’. 

‘How rude’ she remarked, doing a very passable Jar Jar Binks. 

I reassured her with all the usual lines like ‘you can’t please everyone’, ‘you know what some people are like on social media’ and similar useless platitudes, hoping she’d quickly move on, but she wasn’t letting it go, and promptly deleted the message and blocked the sender.

It was only when our 18-year-old daughter got to hear about it later that things took a turn. 

She, laughing, told my wife that ‘type shit’ was actually a compliment. It was a younger person’s speak for ‘that’s the type of shit I’m talkin’ about.’ Who knew? 

Well, probably younger people. It’s been used since 2019 apparently. But that’s not really the point. What was clear was that people our age had no idea how that age group (Gen Z) spoke or what they meant. I’d heard my daughter and her friends say low-key a few times recently, but I presumed they were on about a villain in the Marvel Franchise. 

And even after I was informed of its ‘real meaning’ it still made little sense to me. 

But this completely new language is part of the reason, in my opinion, why football clubs don’t do a great deal of engagement with this demographic and why the older ‘junior’ fans – and teenagers in particular – are just not well served by football in general. 

I’ve talked about it in previous articles. While youngsters from six to twelve are generally looked after superbly by clubs - at all levels - the activations and activities for those older kids just isn’t there.

I know that very few, if any, clubs are doing much in this area. Why? My guess is it fits very neatly in the ‘too difficult’ box and it’s much easier to stick to what they know. 

And I get it. Believe me. They are a very difficult bunch to engage with. Not just because they are always right and have zero tolerance for anything. Nor because they are dismissive of perceived wisdom, common sense or advice. Or even because they can be quite grumpy at times. I actually wish my daughter would get out of bed on the wrong side sometimes – at least that would mean she’d be getting out of bed!

It's not even that they use words that seem to defy logic. But the combination of all those things does put parents, teachers, employees and even football clubs in a tough position. If they struggle to communicate effectively with them, then maybe it’s better not to try to communicate at all?

And I’d accept that if the club had tried. But one of the problems I continually see is a refusal to attempt to at least meet them somewhere in the middle. 

For example, I’ve gotten involved with some companies (Crable, Cooksey Technology and Knosis) and products this year where there are clearly benefits for younger fans, and especially teens. But clubs are slow to react. 

Here are three examples that are close to my heart:

Video

My daughter sits watching ‘reels’ (short, funny videos) a lot. When she tries a new item of food it is often videoed and shared online When she talks to her friends it’s often in the form of a short video that they watch, then send a reply back in the same way. In short, video plays a massive role in the lives of teens - whether we like it or not – and if we’re honest, it’s not only confined to Gen Z; it plays a big role in all our lives. 

But I did a little research study this summer and a tiny number of clubs use video effectively to promote themselves, sell tickets / hospitality or showcase their matchday experience. The Fan Experience Company actually recommended the use of video to almost half of the EFL’s 72 clubs.

I’ve seen countless websites where, at best, a club put an image or two up to do this and, at worst, try to describe it in words. If a picture says a thousand words, a video says about five thousand. 

Phone Charging 

The increased use of the phone in the last twenty years is off the scale. Again, it’s not all positive, but try to imagine a world without the smartphone. It helps us in ways that we now take for granted and to do mundane, simple tasks that seemed unimaginable even in the early noughties. They are now a laptop, iPod and iPad in one. It’s often said that the rockets that landed on the moon had less computational capability than the standard smartphone of today. True or not, just a quick experiment on my home screen showed I could check the weather, get a pizza, check my diary, tell the time, exchange currency, park my car, find my way to anywhere in the world, watch TV, hear any song, listen to the radio, bank, gamble, check the scores, pay bills, order coffee, charge my car, listen to or read a book, take a photo, order anything, get my heartrate, sleep better, find my laptop, navigate, translate, find cinema times and do calculations, as well as email, message and, if I searched long enough, probably phone someone. 

But it's veered towards over-reliance. Not wishing to pick on her, but my daughter recently went to a music festival and had to take three power banks amongst her already ridiculously heavy bag of clothes, make up and goodness knows what else.  And that still wasn’t enough! Her phone ran down perilously close to zero on numerous occasions across four days as she recorded her exploits and shared them. She’s had the same issue on holidays and city-breaks in the last 12 months, as I’m sure many people have. Phone batteries degrade over time anyway, but with more and more use, even brand-new ones won’t keep a phone going forever and the reliance on them also makes us more vulnerable without them. 

I’ve mentioned this before, but how many clubs provide the means for fans to charge phones? Especially wirelessly in fan zones, concourses and other areas inside or outside the stadium? Unless they are incredibly well hidden, the number is very, very small. Yet we are talking about something that can help every single fan, because I doubt anyone at a game hasn’t got a phone these days and if we want fans to arrive earlier and stay longer, this has to be higher on the priority list. 

Gamification 

We have to speak the language of Gen Z, and use the same media that they use, if we are to engage them properly. So why don’t we? One of the things that does engage with that demographic is games. Look at the way Fortnite and Pokémon Go took off and had everyone obsessed with them almost overnight.

Yet I’m always amazed at how many kids look a bit bored outside stadiums. And most of any activities are aimed at the youngest age bracket, yet older kids won’t go near a mascot or want to play on an inflatable. They might, however, want to do something if it’s more in line with the things they do like. It might even persuade them to come to games more often. 

The Fan Experience Company partner with a company that provides augmented reality challenges around stadiums. They are fun - and healthy - and offer really interactive ways to encourage fans to go to all parts of the stadium on matchdays to collect and redeem tokens, as well as a way for sponsors to get involved and be connected in a much more innovative and imaginative way than an advertising board around the pitch. 

In fact, all of the above do that. Potential sponsors and brands are itching to get involved but they want to be fully immersed in the matchday, not just plastered around the periphery, so there are revenue opportunities too. But again, so few clubs do this kind of thing and hardly any do it well. 

So the next time I get asked by a league or club about teens, or I hear someone complain that they are such a difficult group to engage with, I’m going to turn it around and ask them what they’ve got going on when it comes to Gen Z.  

Because they might not be easy to engage. But it’s not impossible either if we are prepared to meet them halfway.

Type shit! (I think). 

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