Bare bum wrote:What was all that rubbish with their stewards? I mean, we are the 'friendliest' supporters in the world and that is official.
Anybody would think we were a menace to society the way they strutted about, muttering sweet nothings into their handsets. I wonder how they would cope with 2000 away fans who refused to sit down?
Ah yes, the sit down / stand up social psychology experiments of the early 21st century. History tells us that these studies into blind obedience became to be known as a microcosm of the general conflict between authority and individualism. The studies, which were a direct successor to the Milgram experiments submitted from Yale in 1963, consisted of observations of the reactions of spectators (subjects) at sporting events (mainly football stadiums in England) to instructions from stewards to perform certain acts. The justification proferred was usually one of health and safety. The experiments became
contaminated by the stewards inability to maintain consistency in their instruction. That is, they often began to instruct spectators to sit down during early parts of the event with much enthusiasm, but due to their low attention span were unable to sustain the expectation into the last quarter of the match. They also had a tendency to focus their instructions more onto the subjects who supported the away team.The subjects, particularly the "away" ones, were often left to feel discriminated against and confused by the disparity, often saying to themselves "why is it no longer unsafe to stand???". This ultimately undermined the theoretical principles behind the study and the whole experiment was aborted in 2026.
The Milgram experiments are a fascinating study into how far we would go to be obedient to an authority figure we don't even know. Basically, when given details of the experiment, only 1.2% of people said they would give a person, after a series of incremental rises, a 450-volt charge of electricity which previous charges showed had them in enormous pain. However in the experiment 60% applied the final charge. Proving that we do listen to the yellow jackets even if they're talking gubbins.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experimentAn alternative view is to study the Bible, e.g the following excerpt from the Book of Ruth. Personally I think this very brilliantly mixes your thoughts on stewarding with the issues related to the purchase of our new ground.
Ruth 4 v 1-6
Boaz the Steward went to the city gate and sat there until the close relative he had mentioned passed by. Boaz called to him, “Come here, friend, and sit down.” So the man came over and sat down. Boaz gathered ten of the elders of the city and told them, “Sit down here!” So they sat down.
Then Boaz said to the close relative, “Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, wants to sell the piece of land that belonged to our relative Elimelech. So I decided to tell you about it. If you want to buy back the land, then buy it in front of the people who are sitting here and in front of the elders of my people. But if you don’t want to buy it, tell me, because you are the only one who can buy it, and I am next after you.”
The close relative answered, “I will buy back the land.”
Then Boaz explained, “When you buy the land from Naomi, you must also marry Ruth, the Moabite, the dead man’s wife. That way, the land will stay in the dead man’s name.”
The close relative answered, “I can’t buy back the land. If I did, I might harm what I can pass on to my own sons. I cannot buy the land back, so buy it yourself.”
And with that the close relative and the elders stood as one and shouted, "stand up if you love the Moabites..."
Here endeth the lesson.
Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 6:57 pm
