Human nature, tribalism and football - a Doncaster Rovers fan's perspective

Who is in your tribe? Is it people within your neighbourhood, your town, your county, is it to do with specific political views, interests, values, maybe it’s the whole human race as you play Kumbaya around a campfire?

My tribe changes. It’s circumstantial. If I’m at the Keepmoat Stadium watching Doncaster Rovers my tribe is the thousands around me in red and white that for ninety minutes in my mind share my understanding of how I grew up.

If I’m stuck in the Keepmoat car park just after the game my tribe swiftly narrows to my family who I now want to get home to, so I’m sorry mate, you might be in red and white too but I’ve already let one car squeeze out in front of me, you’ll have to wait.

If I’m outside of Yorkshire, my tribe broadens to anybody I hear drawing out their vowels as they speak. Where’s tha’ from mate? Wakey. Nice one, I’m from Donny. Has tha’ sin? They call butties cobs down ‘ere.

Take me further from home and I’ll cast my net even wider in search of a tribe. Have you ever met somebody from England in a far-flung place abroad? Suddenly a complete stranger, who might share nothing with me except the island which I was born, is being afforded as much time and energy as I would afford a long serving friend simply because we’re both wearing an English football shirt in Alicante. Deep down, me and the stranger in the Shrewsbury Town shirt both know we’d walk straight past one another if we were in the United Kingdom. But we aren’t, so I’m smiling, asking him how his breakfast was and moaning about why a ‘pint’ isn’t the size of a pint over here.

The search for a tribe can be about more than where we were born. Collective struggle also brings with it a feeling of unity and a broad sense of community. Have your parents or grandparents ever spoken of how things were during the war? How things have changed, and people are more self-centred than they were in those days of little? Mine have and in response will a receive polite nod as I think to myself ‘hindsight is playing tricks on you Nan; it’s always been the same’.

In his book Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek suggests that those that lived through World War II shared a greater sense of togetherness and community than we share now. The goal of the Allied Forces defeating the Axis Powers meant that men enlisted to serve, women worked to produce clothes, materials and weaponry, those who could not assist in similar ways helped to financially fund the war effort or to grow vegetables to assist with rationing. This co-operation was possible because the nation all shared the common goal of defeating the Axis Powers. This is symbolic of a whole nation behaving like one singular tribe and proof that 50 million people can all look out for one another. Maybe my Nan was right.

Seems hypocritical then, that in different circumstances, such as a football league match between Shrewsbury and Doncaster Rovers, I may well be slinging insults at my mate from Alicante. Or that it is commonplace that xenophobic slurs are shared between Doncaster Rovers fans and opposing fans of teams less than twenty miles from Doncaster.

These people, in different circumstances (a holiday in Alicante, or a World War, for example) would surely be in my tribe, wouldn’t they? So why am I behaving like this? And isn’t it all a bit unauthentic?

It’s human nature to seek out a tribe. We are a social animal gifted with incredible communication skills. We formed tribes to increase our chances of surviving by co-operating in numbers. How would one human being take down a Woolley Mammoth?

Mother nature (or God, depending on where you lay your hat) even gave us chemical rewards for tribal behaviour to help us along the way.

Endorphins help us mask the pain as we stalked our prey for hours. Dopamine as the reward for catching the prey and achieving the tribe’s objective. Serotonin as the feeling of happiness for our tribe being fed and healthy. Oxytocin as the feeling of compassion and empathy with those within our tribe that encourages us to share and to trust one another. All this behaviour ultimately serves to ensure that the tribes’ (and in turn the human race’s) numbers flourish.

So, if we are hard wired to seek tribes, isn’t it authentic of me to seek belonging and isn’t my hurling of insults to opposing fans justified? I am naturally a tribal animal and for ninety minutes I have chosen my tribe, exclusively Donny Rovers fans, players and maybe the linesman if he happens to miss our eternally offside number nine.

Beyond it being authentic, tribal behaviour also produces lots of positive actions and endless examples of selfless community service. Doncaster Rovers recently helped retired former captain Graeme Lee raise money for his wife’s private brain cancer treatment by donating a percentage of shirt sale profits to the Lee family. At Doncaster Rovers, Graeme Lee and in turn his wife Gemma are part of our tribe.

Following the tragic plane crash that saw Brazilian side Chapecoence’s first team almost entirely decimated on their way to Colombia to face Atletico Nacional, the Atletico Nacional fans in Colombia held a vigil in respect to those fallen victim. Hundreds of thousands of Colombian fans (with no direct link to their Brazilian counterparts) travelled to the stadium where the game would have been played to pay their respects. In this instance, Brazilian and Colombian fans were bound together by tragedy and formed a collective tribe. A special relationship between the two clubs lives on to this day.

Football tribalism can also bring about a special form of humour that is hard to find in other sporting cultures. The wry wit of a football chant that can often lift somebody’s Saturday afternoon regardless of the result. A great example of this is the first encounter of MK Dons and Wimbledon back in the football league where Wimbledon fans chanted “Where were you when you were us?” to their newly formed neighbours.

So, tribalism is natural, brings positive actions and good humour to football. Case closed.

But ignorance isn’t always bliss and as we all well know; tribalism isn’t all positive. A feeling of belonging to a tribe can trick us into thinking that we must hurt those we deem to be outsiders. Often this comes at the cost of our dignity and serves only to provide temporary thrills for those whom have let tribalism manifest into behaviour that hurts others.

Take for example the Manchester City fan that mimicked an airplane at Manchester United fans in the derby last January. An act of direct disrespect to the relatives and victims of the Munich air tragedy and indirect disrespect to any Manchester United fan. Assuming he understood the sensitivity of his actions, did he also understand the reason that in that moment he felt he belongs exclusively to the blue side of the city rather than the red? Does he really want to hurt Manchester United fans? Or does he just want to feel a sense of belonging?

Or the Newcastle fan that, following a 3-0 defeat to Sunderland in 2013, punched a police horse in the face during a riot in which bottles were hurled at police and bins set alight. Where would he rank his hatred for his Mackem neighbours from down the road? Does he know not one Sunderland fan he can stomach? If not, can’t he imagine there might be one? Was the police horse also a Mackem? Even in a world where the horse was branded with a picture of Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips on it’s rear, is that behaviour which the Newcastle fan would be proud of?

This is the point. If we can understand why we act tribally, why in any moment we want to belong to a particular group (and why, inevitably that will mean we don’t want to belong to another) then can’t we be more aware of the triviality and fluidity of tribalism?

If we are aware of the nature of tribalism and its important role in the history of our species, can’t we each choose to be selective of which tribal behaviour to engage with and when to engage in it?

To treat tribalism like a box of Celebrations, pick out the Mars Bars’ and Dairy Milks’ and leave behind the Bounty’s. To zoom out and realise that in any moment it would only take a small change in circumstances and we may treat those outside of our tribe as though they were within it.

If I can understand why I feel the urge to act in a tribal manner, maybe the next time I’m supporting Doncaster Rovers I will be less likely to cause hurt to another human being, more likely to maintain my dignity and more likely to have somebody to go for a full sized pint with next time I’m in Shrewsbury.