The Fans Are Revolting

A new season. And already a dramatic turnaround.

Not on the pitch, mind. As usual, the action takes a bit of backseat in August.

If not exactly a phoney war, it feels like the dress rehearsal hasn’t quite finished while teams jostle for position in the transfer market, none of them entirely sure on their best XI until the window is finally closed at 11pm tonight.

Fans aren’t exactly against it. There is a certain amount of excitement around the possibility of signing new players, although that’s balanced against the threat of losing some. I remember a deadline day – to be fair, a January one - when two of my club’s best players were sold at about five minutes to midnight. No time to do anything other than accept that the season had effectively been written off there and then.

On Saturday, Everton continued their decent start to the season with a late equaliser at Bournemouth. The game was overshadowed, remarkably, by what was happening – or about to happen – off the pitch. It had emerged overnight that the club were in talks with Nottingham Forest to sell youngster and their brightest starlet, Harrison Armstrong, for about £40m. It was not the bid that had enraged fans but the fact that Everton were considering it.

Of course, Everton, like almost all others, are a selling club. Who isn’t? Their fans had, no doubt, already accepted that Armstrong - like any emerging talent – might one day be sold to a bigger club that gave them little option but to cash in. But now? And to Nottingham Forest?

This was what had caused fans to revolt. Forest are seen as a close rival; a club that occupy the same kind of position in the Premier League hierarchy and have similar ambitions to those that the Toffees do.  

Was it also a sign that fans have more power than we realise?

When football, not just followers of the clubs concerned, united against the European Super League in 2021, it was an example of increasing fan power but at a higher level; supporters of all football clubs coming together to ward off an existential threat. The fans of the ‘big 6’ didn’t want it, but neither did fans of Gillingham, or Port Vale, or Exeter City. The perceived threat was to the game as a whole rather than those directly involved.

On Saturday, Everton fans challenged the authority of the club. It’s different to the European Super League, but the end result was almost identical.

To be fair, it wasn’t just the fans. Manager, David Moyes, and captain, James Tarkowski, who scored his team’s late equaliser, both said they didn’t want Armstrong to go either. But it was the 1878s, a fan group responsible for pre-match banner displays at the Hill Dickinson, that really grabbed attention. They threatened to step down if the sale went ahead.

There was also talk of a ‘riot’ if the deal did go ahead. But that peril was fairly difficult to quantify as a 2026/27 riot might look very different from one that took place in the last three decades of the twentieth century. Then, thousands of fans breaking down barriers and ripping up seats to use as projectiles aimed at opposition fans or the police was commonplace. After witnessing the cone throwing competition between Wolves and Stoke fans at the weekend, maybe there’s a little less to worry about on that front.

Toxic

However, the travelling Everton fans did make their feeling known during the game, and the loud and toxic noises coming from the away end at The Vitality Stadium had clearly been heard across the Atlantic. The backlash caused the owners, The Friedkin Group, to reject Forest’s advances for their talented teenager later that day.

Today is deadline day, and Everton will still sell one of their star players before the transfer window closes, but it won’t be Armstrong – seen as a potential future captain – this time. The fans, for now, have gained the higher ground and forced the owner’s hand.

I really can’t recall too many times when this has happened. Fans always bemoan the loss of their club’s best players in transfer windows but rarely stop one happening in such a strong and premeditated fashion. In the lower leagues especially, fan protests might take place to complain about a sale, but they wouldn’t be able to stop it.

The club – and it’s owners – would always say they didn’t want to sell but that they had no choice. Even in the Premier League, Newcastle United’s fans have had to watch as some of their best players, including established internationals and their captain, have been sold to ‘bigger’ clubs. And Tottenham.

Aston Villa have sold their record-goalscorer, Ollie Watkins, to a Saudi club, and most of their other players to Chelsea, so like the Geordies, who have been equally hampered by the financial regulations, their fans won’t be happy with matters, but they haven’t had any say in them either.  

But could that change? Will they see what Everton’s fans have done and take note?

And will the other club owners see it too and change their approach?

As we enter the era of increased regulation in football, where there will be additional scrutiny on clubs and how they communicate and involve fans in their decisions, it will be interesting to see how both parties move forward.

Could well-executed demonstrations by fans actually make their clubs reverse decisions in future?

Or will the clubs ensure that such deals are kept under intense secrecy in future, only letting the news out when it’s too late to do anything to stop it? But, had they happened here, the fallout would not have been pretty.

So it’s very easier to surmise that someone leaked the Armstrong news from within the bowels of the Hill Dickinson specifically because they hoped this exact scenario would happen. And had a pretty good idea it would.

Of course, it could even have been the owners themselves who leaked the story to test the water and gauge the fans’ reaction. If it was, it was definitely a better idea than not doing so.

But there will also be fans of other clubs who are galvanised by the way that the Everton faithful have pulled off such a co-ordinated campaign to cause the about-turn.

However, they should note that it was actually far from a riot in the end, and much more about pulling the correct levers at the right time; making statements that hit the right notes and only hinted at further action while making enough immediate noise to show they mean business.

No throwing of objects. No pitch invasions either. A new approach to fan feedback.

One where fans can make their clubs listen – and act – without resorting to breaking the law and destabilising the already-fragile relationship between the two.

And where the boo is mightier than the cone.