VAR and Death

My Dad died back in April. A passionate Albion fan since the mid-1950s and a proud season ticket holder, he attended matches until just a few days before he passed away.

At the funeral, his coffin exited to the strains of Good Old Sussex by the Sea. If the club ever fancy playing a new version of the team’s entrance music, I can recommend an excellent arrangement for church organ.

My brother and I – fellow season ticket holders – didn’t feel ready to attend the first home match after the death but steeled ourselves for the next: Villa.

We knew it was likely to be an emotionally charged afternoon. Going to watch the Albion with our Dad had been a constant, and a constant joy, across five decades since childhood.

It felt rather surreal not pushing him up the hill in his wheelchair from the station to the Amex; even more so as I went to occupy the seat he had occupied for 13 years in West Stand Lower.

Some of the regulars around us had heard the news and came up to offer condolences. If that raised the temperature even further, you can imagine the effect of GOSBTS ringing out to welcome the team.

A team which had largely gone missing in the weeks leading up to the game. So, it was a pleasant surprise to see them click back into gear and outclass Champions League chasing and self-declared (by their fans) ‘massive club’ Aston Villa through the first half.

As so often with the Albion, the only thing missing was a goal to reflect the dominance. And then midway through the second half, it finally came.

A ball in from the left and there was Pascal Gross – a player Dad hugely admired – to prod home. My brother and I went wild.

We’d brought the old man’s scarf with us. Totally spontaneously, we both kissed it. It was a profound, beautiful moment.

The usual elation of an Albion goal, mixed with the poignancy of missing our Dad, knowing that at this moment he’d have been struggling to his feet to celebrate with us. Pent up emotion from preceding days and weeks poured out. Tears came.

And then, so too did a dreaded message on the big screens… VAR check for possible offside.

Professional football was founded and developed on the back of fans: you know, the genuine ones who pay money to watch football matches in real life in actual football grounds.

While TV rights and commercial deals may now underpin the modern game’s economy (such as it is), the eye-watering salaries of both Premier League players and administrators are built on 130-odd years of paying spectators.

We were there long before the Sky millions and Saudi billions arrived on the scene. And we’ll be there if – or when – the current precarious soufflé collapses.

We’re the one constant; yet we’re constantly disregarded and disrespected. VAR and the way it’s deployed is the absolute nadir.

Football is sport but it’s also theatre. Lockdown matches behind closed doors were soulless and anaemic because the latter was missing.

It’s fans in the stadium that make the theatre; and the ultimate theatrical moment is when a goal is scored.

Why do we bother to go to games in real life, through rain and shine? Why do we endure the Falmer station queues and tolerate the infamously over-priced bag of Starburst?

We love the football of course – but there’s plenty of that available on the TV or in the pub. What makes the live experience so wonderful, so addictive, is raw emotion.

That extraordinary, exhilarating moment when your team scores a goal; the sheer elation you feel and that you collectively share with your family, your mates, the sweaty stranger in the row in front who turns round to bear hug you.

VAR has massively undermined our theatre. That’s the main concern of paying fans, not whether it leads to more accurate officiating.

Regardless of who we support – with the possible exception of Manchester United – we know our club will get a seasonal mix of bad decisions and those that go in our favour.

It’s always gone with the territory and acceptance of it is part of the contract we make. Because the payoff is more than worth it.

We can be part of the “absolute bedlam behind that goal”. If it’s a moment of despair, we can at least immediately get down to the business of politely questioning the ref’s competence, or our defenders’ failure to close down the scorer, or both.

No longer. Now you wildly celebrate at your peril. (Oh Coventry fans, your last seconds cup semi final pain will forever be etched in my memory.)

Our muscle memory used to include a quick glance to check the linesman’s flag had stayed down. Now it’s across to the big screen to see if it lights up with the VAR check message.

To discover whether an official in an industrial unit in Hounslow or wherever it is has spotted a toenail seeking to gain an advantage or a possible infringement 20 minutes earlier in the build up.

So we all wait, and wait, the real-life fans in the stadium always the very last to know what’s going on. And eventually, on the occasion of the Villa game at the Amex, up flashed the verdict. Offside. Gross goal disallowed.

It’s always painful. For me and my brother, the pain was acutely heightened on this occasion. A beautiful, profound moment about far more than football, destroyed by Stockley Park.

With the vote to keep VAR for 2024-25, Premier League clubs clearly think it’s a price worth paying for a questionable, marginal improvement in decision-making. Actually, they probably don’t even consider it to be a price at all.

How often do clubs genuinely put their match-attending fans first? And yes Paul Barber, that includes you. We’re fortunate to have you as our CEO but I wish you’d had the courage to defy the groupthink on whether to bin the video assistant.

I’d love you to have sat with me and my brother at the Villa game. Particular though our circumstances were, it might have highlighted to you the negative impact VAR has on a fan’s experience.

The story does have something of a positive ending. As full time approached, the Albion scored a legitimate winning goal. Joao Pedro fired home a rebound from a penalty save, so nothing there for the Stockley boys.

We could fully celebrate and kiss our Dad’s scarf again. But, if I’m honest, not with the same spontaneity second time around.

Dad always despised VAR. As we departed the Amex, we reflected that he’d be doubly pissed off this afternoon: a Gross goal ruled out and our little tribute to him stopped in its tracks.

I could hear his voice offering his usual succinct post-match analysis: “Bloody VAR. Killing the game. Stupid pillocks.”

Paul Jackson @Nrjackson_paul