My Football

Union FS  member Chris Baker tells Alice Wright how the group was formed and the hard work that goes into planning tifos. 

When and why was Union FS formed?

Well, it was formed 10 years ago on the 29th of December. I wasn’t one of the day one people, but the reason it came about was the Walkers Stadium, as it was known then, didn’t particularly have a fantastic atmosphere. Basically, one guy with the power of sort of Facebook got people together. It was an open invite to meet at the Old Horse on Vicky Park to come and talk about the atmosphere and ways to improve it. A sizable number came with people like Lee Jobber and it was formed off the back of that meeting.

How many people are there that are involved in Union FS?

There’s probably 80-85 people currently. We actually worked out our average age and I think it was 26. The youngest member is 14 and the oldest members are two chaps in their 60s.

Why did you join?

So I came to Sheffield in 2010 for university and back then when you followed Leicester you didn’t need a season ticket to go to away games either. It was easier, so I gave my season ticket up because I couldn’t afford to come back every game at the time. I got my season ticket back the year we won the championship with Pearson. I’d  read about Union FS online and I clocked some faces that were in it from games before and I replied to an advert about it saying ‘do you want to get involved?’ I was like, ‘yeah’ because I’ve always been quite interested in European football and I knew that there was sort of some sort of links with that and that excited me.

Why do you enjoy going to games as part of Union FS?

I really enjoy it because I get to go to football with a big group of mates and when you’re in a full stadium, you’re not always gonna be with your mates. So for example, you might go with your mates, but you might go with family or you might go on your own and some of your friends might be sat elsewhere. But it’s difficult to get eight seats together if you wanted to go with all your pals. So we’re quite lucky in that respect that we have an area to do that. I think without the group for me personally I don’t think I would go to football quite as much. I think that is one of the reasons that keeps me and others going. So that’s that’s quite nice.

What has been the most memorable part of being in Union FS?

I watched Leicester when I first started going when I was 15. You know, when we were really bad in the championship and then dropped into League One and then I managed to see us became the best team in England with those same lads I went with when I was young. So that was nice to go see it go full circle that I had seen them be proper bad to proper good. Purely Union FS things it would be when we had a meeting with the club about ticket prices and we managed to within this meeting get them to concede on like the Under 16 price being so high and they dropped it. I can’t remember the exact amount but they dropped. They dropped the figure down and actually like that’s a really nice one because we’ve made a difference for a lot of Leicester fans and a lot of generations. Recently we had one where we got the club to open up for general sale and let people go to games who haven’t got the points. That was nice because we just thought, look, if one person becomes a Leicester fan off the back of that, great.

Has there been any surreal moments?

In my spare bedroom I’ve got all the stickers and scarves that we sell on our website. 

I went to Sunderland the other day after work and I saw a chap with one of the new scarves. I thought, oh, that’s nice. It’s come from my spare bedroom. I’ve posted it and he got it then took it to Sunderland, so that was just a small silly one. Then you look back at some of the tifos, we’ve done and we’re massively proud of them, you know. It  takes a lot of work, it costs a lot of money. It’s a lot of stress. 

Would safe standing help to improve the atmosphere at football games?

About five years ago I was like ‘Ohh safe standing will be amazing and it would really help’. My worry is is having seen safe standing at other grounds in England. I don’t think it’s made this amazing difference. I think it’s it probably improved things. It would change our atmosphere and it would make it better.

Have you seen a difference in atmosphere between last season in the Premier League compared to this season in the Championship?

Well, I actually was banned by the club for a year, so I didn’t see a lot of it. I think the atmosphere and the singing section has got better. I think that’s got better than when we started but the wider ground has got worse. Now I don’t know why that is. I don’t know whether that’s because you have named it the singing section, so people subconsciously think it’s their job, not my job. Whether it goes back to that idea of people that are just a little bit doing it in autopilot.

Do you think though that there could be a link between the style of play to the atmosphere?

Yes and no. I think like if it’s like you’ve got wingers, bombing down the wing relentlessly, balls in at the top, fast-paced football that is exciting to watch. Like you can’t deny that and then does that make yoy more likely to sing? Yes, it would make me. I can only speak about me. I would. I would like to watch that. If we’re talking about Leicester City and Enzo’s style of play I like it like and I really like him. I really like the culture he’s created from a really bad culture last season, within the fan base, within the club, within the players. I think he’s been amazing to to turn that around in.a short time. Do you want your football team to to be successful and win games? Yes, he does that. So therefore I think we should enjoy it and sing and support because we’re winning football matches. The idea of having Steve Howard up top with Matty Fryatt like it’s class to remember well like you just can’t do that now like we would just lose football games. 

Union FS: The group’s flag is waved at the King Power Stadium 

How far ahead in advance do you plan your Tifos?

Usually we have a bit of a plan. So we have designs that are on our Google Drive. There are some designs that we have that are effectively ready to go we would just need to buy the materials for them but they’re already mapped out on the stadium plan. So we’ve got a picture of the cop. So every single seat we put on that needs a a blue foil that needs a red foil and then we know the dimensions from left to right, top to bottom. We’ll let you into little secret. We’ve got a design for Vardy lined up. But if he stays, we have a backup design which quite cleverly is made out of. the same colours, it’s a completely different design, but it’s the same materials. It is also next year 140 years of Leicester City in I think November time. So we in our calendar in our mind, we know we need to have a design for that and we need to have enough money in the bank for that then that’s quite a quite an important one. We were looking at it the other day, if we go up and Forest stay up, we would want to do one for the game against them. So there is there is a plan.

Whenever, wherever: Union FS and Leicester fans supporting the team in Europe

Do you struggle to find space to create the Tifos?

To physically find a space is really hard. We’re still quite nomadic like we have a school in Coalville that some lads went to and they know the teachers there and we get to use that sports hall. 

Why do you think that people should get involved with Union FS or their clubs’ respective fan group?

At Union FS I think we’re having the most fun in that ground, even on a turgid early kick off. I believe we have a nice culture internally of bringing people in. Anyone that wants to sing and support. We also have a charity arm. We can make a difference atmosphere wise and I think it’s better for us being there. Without a good atmosphere at the football, even if you don’t directly want to sing for 90 minutes, I think your enjoyment of football is improved tenfold by having people that want to sing.