The Exhausting Duty of Protesting Against Football Club Owners

The efforts of Sheffield Wednesday fans provide a reminder of how draining it all is when those that can act won't listen

The black and gold worn by the Sheffield Wednesday fans in the Jimmy Seed Stand was quite striking. It seemed, not least when they waved them around their heads, that every one of the 3,090 visiting supporters had come to SE7 with a scarf in the colours they are using to protest against Dejphon Chansiri. A contrast to their last visit.

When Wednesday travelled to The Valley in February 2023, I watched with immense envy at full-time as their players celebrated in front of the away end. They had won by a single Liam Palmer goal, recording their 20^th consecutive League One game without defeat to retain their leadership of the division, while the Addicks sat in the bottom half. The scarves were blue and white and, while they very much did care about Chansiri’s chaotic ownership, they could afford to only care in that moment about what their club were achieving on the pitch.

I felt sorrow looking at the away end at The Valley this afternoon. As powerful as it is to see football fans collectively protest, to see them empowered, you know they are feeling worn down and desperate within. The situation at Wednesday, with a winding-up order imminent and Chansiri both immovable and distant, most certainly is desperate.

Charlton supporters know the feeling. They’ve known it on multiple occasions. They applauded from three sides of The Valley while Wednesday supporters raised their scarves and called for Chansiri to sell the club.

We’re not the first club Wednesday have crossed paths with this season to understand through lived experience. We’re certainly not the first to feel sympathy and share their anger. Everyone in football is listening and understanding, apart from those at Hillsborough (or wherever it is they’re hiding) who can act.

There was hopefully some recognition in that applause for how draining engaging in protest is, not least when it feels like nothing is changing or working.

Be it wearing a black and white scarf or disrupting games with balls and pigs, you felt a duty to protest to force Roland Duchatelet to sell. That duty would have been tenfold had supporters been inside stadiums while Matthew Southall and friends attempted to bring the club to its knees. It’s not a duty anyone embraces.

Suddenly supporting a football club becomes like working a toxic job that you can’t escape from come 5pm. You can’t switch off, worried about what the next day will bring. You feel duty-bound to give maximum energy to carrying, when really you just want to switch off from thinking about the chaotic state of your football club for a while.

Usually it’s supporting that football club that allows you to switch off, and it really is exhausting when that escapism becomes a burden.

I’m writing this with my feet up, glad that we did just about enough to record victory over Wednesday, and I probably won’t think anything beyond passing thoughts about Charlton until Tuesday. Wednesday fans have got their next protests to coordinate, are no doubt living with high levels of anxiety and fear, and continuously on edge as they wait for the latest (quite often concerning) news. I hope they’re at least ignoring the league table for now.

I think I might have been taking for granted just how peaceful it is to support a club that, both on and off the pitch, is doing most things right.

Like absolutely everyone else who isn’t Dejphon Chansiri, I desperately hope Wednesday fans are able to escape the hellish and draining situation they find themselves in.