Where’s the fun in football without the fans?

Football is back — but the fans aren’t. Covid means that clubs have to play their games behind closed doors. Which is a pity, as at dull games (far more common than pundits admit), the fans are the best thing. Their chants are works of genius. When Rio Ferdinand was banned for eight months, opposition supporters adapted Duran Duran: ‘His name is Rio, and he watches from the stand…’ After Andy Goram was diagnosed with mild schizophrenia, Kilmarnock fans sang: ‘Two Andy Gorams, there’s only two Andy Gorams…’ And when successful teams inspired renditions of ‘It’s just like watching Brazil’, fans of lesser clubs serenaded match-day police with ‘It’s just like watching The Bill’.

Barcelona’s supporters literally caused an earthquake in 2017. Facing a 4-0 deficit from the first leg of a Champions League tie against Paris Saint-Germain, the Spanish team somehow pulled the aggregate score back to 5-5. Nigh-on 100,000 fans in the Nou Camp reacted to their side’s goals with such vigour that the effects were detected at the Jaume Almera Institute of Earth Sciences, less than a mile from the ground.