Is cycling getting like football?

YES... I have just finished listening to a certain trios podcast and it was like listening to lineker shearer etc cliche after cliche, on and on about plan B for sky Yawn Yawn Yawn arm chair management is so tedious. You have to ask, if you(they) are so 'expert' then do it for a living. It's sport not life or death, just enjoy it, that is why I no longer follow football, 'the self promoting' self righteous, pontificating experts ruined it. No more podcasts.

I didn't see many of the 'nouveaux' fans on the Pavés de l'Arbre this week! It was miserable, wet, cold, and some of the best riding I've seen up close (those boys were getting a proper dose of Belgian Toothpaste). But on a positive side, the amount of British fans who understand what's going on is a significant increase on even 3 or 4 years ago. I've been particularly frustrated with this nonsense about an underperforming Team Sky, a clueless Brailsford and Wiggomania - Arrrgggghhh (just thought I'd get that out!). But surely it's for the more experienced rider/fan out there to calmly explain to the armchair DS/Sunday rider their 'misunderstandings' however hard that may be?

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Nothing new here, Italians cycling have always had the potential to be yobbish.
Anyone remember Steven Roche in the 1987 Giro? Where Eddie Schepers and Robert Millar (who was not even on the same team) rode either side of Roche to defend him from violent media fuelled fans?
http://redkiteprayer.com/2012/06/the-story-of-the-1987-giro-ditalia/

Of course one big difference is that, in cycling, if a fan boos a rider, he will hear it for maybe two seconds before he has sped on.

Continental fans can be very rowdy. Flanders is a bit like being at a football match with chanting etc going on and everybody getting a little bit tipsy on the golden nectar.

Fan = abbreviation of Fanatic.

Fanatic /fəˈnatɪk/ noun

a person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal, especially for an extreme cause.

all you need to know really...

Soccer values are crossing over into rugby union on and off the pitch, I've yet to see and evidence at British cycling evens but I don't watch that many. But team kit is...

...for the team.

Clearly the OP has never read Derniere Heure or L'equipe, or Gazette Della Sport, or any other newspaper in any country where Cycling is moderately popular. This sort of coverage, this sort of fanaticism has been going on for years in Northern France.

In this country support of cycling is still a minority interest, maybe some folk had a vague knowledge of Boardman, or Hoy, or even Wiggins when he won some medals at the Olympics, but road racing? Giro is something you cash, not watch.

Now it's all changing and people are getting interested, and some of those folk get a little carried away. You didn't think those guys running alongside Lance waving "Old Glory" with stuffed eagles stapled to their foreheads have always been cycling fans did you?

Good article, though I think a lot of this coincides with the massive rise in social media. The rugby worldcup was 10 years, we were pretty much mostly on dial up and facebook twitter fee.

People get angry very quickly on social media and tend post on their immediate reaction rather than pause for thought, we've all done it.

We've seen poor behavior in the giro this year and I expect there is more to come in the tour, partially spurred by the chance of getting your silly face on youtube in a mankini whilst running alongside and shouting in someones ear whilst their heartbeat is at 190 up a 15% slope.....nice.

I think we will see an increase in this but at heart true fans, the ones that fall into the sport and take it to heart will always be - respect for anyone who rides these race, followed by individual rider first, team second, nationality 3rd........or maybe I'm just old school.

Now if you'll excuse me, this is my last post before I douse my sky router in petrol and throw away my Kenyan coffee beans.

Oh come on...hooliganism in cycling is nothing new and it is definitely not a British phenomenon. If anything it is showing that we are catching up with our European neighbours with a more intimate relationship with cycling. All the major races starting from year dot have seen fans jumping in either support for their riders, or to thump their rivals. I don't condone such behaviour but it is not new to the sport.

As for tabloid like headlines - what's wrong with that? It shows an interest in the sport from the UK masses which has sadly been lacking until recently, and is most like a bit of media smoke and mirrors. The papers thrive on a rivalry - as mentioned earlier with Bartali, Coppi et al - and this increase in interest can only be a good thing. It's about time we caught up with the mainland...

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/the-northerner/2014/jun/12/wanted-cyc...

Probably a football fan new to cycling.

The fact he was wearing team kit practically confirms it.

Interesting point although the suggestion that these new football fans are somehow worse than the old generation has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Anyone old enough to remember the football violence of the 1970s and 1980s like myself probably has a rather jaded view of the 'good old days' as they weren't nearly as good as they are now.

Yes cycling is growing in popularity and there are some bad points with that, but in general it's to the good.

Someone might boo Froome? How simply awful I think maybe the author of the piece is more suited to cricket than cyclesport? So long as there aren't bottles of piss or tacks thrown at riders etc. I think the sport of cycling will manage. I recall a few boos for Contador and the sport is still here...

I think a lot of sports get destroyed by their success. You get focused on the fans, but it's the win at all costs that does that. The failure to fail is what really kills sport. Tennis became sterile when it's Champions kept championing. Football has become stale because the big teams never lose. Cycling will become stale if it allows the same to happen. It was the worst thing about watching Lance. There was no drama in watching him dominate.....

....it is, to come back to one of my favourite topics, why we should be wary of champions. To fail is human, we all do it. When people don't succumb to pressures, injuries and chance it isn't real anymore - that's how you knew Lance was cheating. Nothing he did was chance. Some things you can control, but not everything. That's one reason to be vigilant and suspicious.

That's the worst thing about Sky too. Most people like dependability, we don't like randomness, we don't like the tension of not knowing - but actually that's what makes sports great when heroes falter and a new champion rises.

There will always be people with different view points and ways of expressing themselves. I didn't like the fans that ran and screamed at their heroes on the mountain climbs, but they add a bit of tension. They add jeopardy and that's what the best parts of life are about - drama.

Well done Jimmy the cuckoo for bringing this subject up.

Why do we Brits become stupid when a sport comes to town, I like many others follow and support the sport, you will always get the odd idiot fuelled with drink and good spirit. As long as all the riders are safe and allowed to race I, like so many true fans of the sport couldn't care less who wins. I believe the best man wins on the day that's Cycling it's entertainment for millions. If the sport does decline and follow many other sports it will be due to sponsors and shareholders not the odd mindless idiot.
Roll on the remaining Grand Tours and other tours and long live cycling........

Multinational media company with a hefty specialism in sport sponsors cycling team and media coverage increases.

Whodathunkit?

This is just yet more cycling snobbery, if people have a different view point then they must be Johnny-come-lately types, which is why people feel compelled to shoe horn in that they joined a club in the 70s or how many Tours they have watched, or they are football fans, which in turn means they must obviously be violent braindead hooligans or retarded tribalists.

Football fans bring their retarded tribalism over to cycling. I'm sure it's these idiots that are getting upset about Wiggins not being selected for the Tour. They have very little understanding of the sport.

I would generally agree with this blog posting. There does appear to be a change in the attitudes shown by some British fans and it appears to be heading to the football-style tabloid melodramas where the handbags and tiffs are focussed upon more than the actual racing. 20 years ago you could not really get a clash of 'national' interests in cycling. Millar, Boardman, Yates etc were not direct competitors really. Perhaps Obree vs Boardman was as close as it came to that. Even then it was generally polite and the press interest was not such at it would inflame things.

The average Brit cyclist was used to supporting foreign riders as much as British ones and I think that due to the lower and perhaps more restrained media coverage, a rider's exploits on the bike were what mattered in choosing your favourites.

There are more column inches to fill now and more fans have been drawn into the sport. There will always be more extreme views the more fans there are and the more of a circus things become in the press.

But I do not agree that Brit fans are the only cycling fans who are a little nationalistic. In most countries fans support riders from their own country, or perhaps who ride for a team from it (just look at the Giro for loony insular fans!). What is different is that we actually have a choice now who to support, and those who like to have a tribal soap opera can enjoy getting themselves all upset over what they read in the papers (like Anquetil vs Poulidor, Bartoli vs Coppi did in previous years in other countries). If Wiggins had not won the Tour, then I guess most Brits would be behind Froome without a doubt.

Oh get a grip.

Who do these armchair fans think they are!

I'm sure Chris Froome can handle a few people booing him from the roadside. I can't imagine there will be so many people committed to going through with that.

Unless thing descend into physical violence, bring on the razzmatazz. Its all part of the theatre of professional sport.

Such, unfortunately, is the price to pay for success. That price being the media world. Look at women's cycling. It is often said it cannot raise sponsorship money because of the small audience, for which it relies on the media world to bring. Media brings bandwagons when it brings money.

I quite enjoy these meaningless tiffs and speculation, anything to distract me from my miserable life!

Interesting take on something I'd been thinking about for a while now. Every year sees the emergence of the armchair Director Sportif and the current popularity of cycling has meant that there are ever more of them commenting with various degrees of intelligence and insight on pro cycling.

One problem which is becoming more pronounced is that the majority of new cyclists now develop an understanding of cycling as an activity and as a sport through the internet rather than in any face to face context. This allows opinion and cycling old wives tales to develop into a kind of received wisdom which is then perpetuated with every post.

We are also saddled with a peculiar kind of patriotic and insular appreciation of any kind of sport which does not sit well in a sport like cycling where national allegiance is of little consequence to everyone except the Brits.

This seems to have combined in an almost perfect storm with the Wiggins/Froome issue which has beautifully exposed the new UK cycling scene as immature in comparison with other countries especially in Europe.