As fans, as people, as citizens, we deserve better than this « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

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By Tony Attwood

On Tuesday 6th September Mike Dye was at Wembley to watch an international game.  Following an incident which is now the subject of a police investigation he died.

Terrible events like this cause rumours to flourish.  That’s what people do, they tell stories.  The air is full of, “I heard it was…”  It is how it goes.

In such awful situations responsible journalism puts a lid on all this and sticks to facts.  As the Football Supporters Federation said, “a good journalist would understand this and report the story in a responsible and sensitive manner.”

But as Untold has repeatedly said, there are very few  good journalists any more, and hardly any decent editors.

The Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Metro, Star, and Sun all ran the most awful pieces about the events of that night.  Perhaps I feel something extra here beyond my continuing dislike of the press not only because it was football, and it was an awful thing to happen but also because Mike Dye was a father of three, as am I.  I don’t quite know what I mean by this, or how my emotions work here, but somehow I just know the reporting of this terrible event should not have been like this.

The police have (at least at the moment I write this, which may well be a few days before you read it) said nothing about hooliganism being involved.  But that is where the papers went.  They said it was something to do with Cardiff and Swansea rivalry.

Cardiff City FC have made a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission.   Quite right, but it won’t make any difference.  The PCC was the body that found that the News of the World was doing nothing wrong and that there was no “credible evidence” of wholesale phone hacking.  It is a body through which the newspapers monitor the newspapers and generally find they are doing a jolly good job.  I thought the government was going to wind them up – but seemingly they are still there.

Cardiff City said: “It is our view that the tabloid attempts to draw tenuous connections of possible clashes between Cardiff City and Swansea City supporters at the Wales v England match come without any direct evidence or basis for doing so, using this as a means to cite ‘Rivalry fury’.

“This is something that we consider to be extremely disrespectful to both clubs and supporters following many positive steps being taken between both clubs in recent years, specifically in light of the sympathies being shared by both clubs and all supporters over this tragic incident. The club have taken this matter up with the Press Complaints Commission and will be contacting the tabloids named directly in due course.”

Every event can be reported in a thousand ways, and as the FSF pointed out the Daily Telegraph did report facts and appealed for “rumours and whispers” to end.  The South Wales Echo and the Western Mail, the two dominant papers in south Wales, played it calmly.

It seems that at the following Cardiff City v Doncaster Rovers match the fans raised £10,000 in a bucket collection – and the Rovers fans did their bit.  Not the stuff of headlines in the Sun, but it should be.

FSF chair Malcolm Clarke said: “This was a shocking incident and for a fan to go to a game and never return is almost unimaginable. Then, instead of being able to grieve in peace, Mike Dye’s family and friends had to watch as someone they loved was subjected to an appalling character assassination to which he could not respond. They deserve an apology. As a positive, conciliatory gesture we would also suggest the newspapers consider making a donation to Mike Dye’s funeral fund.”

I have approached this little article unsure of whether, in highlighting the awfulness of the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Metro, Star, and Sun, I too am demeaning the memory of a fellow supporter.  Perhaps I should just pay my respects and leave it at that.  Of course, although I have no contact with Mr Dye’s family and only know Cardiff City FC through having supported Arsenal there a couple of times, but I do feel desperate that this could have happened.  It doesn’t matter who you support, no one deserves this.

But in the end I decided to write this, because what those papers do is so awful, that somehow we do need to find a way of getting them to realise that there is a point where one has to stop and make some sort of attempt to get back to a more civilised view of life.

As ordinary people, as family members, as citizens, as fans who go to football games, we surely deserve better than this.