I took the train to Coventry on Saturday, a novelty and the more sustainable option I thought. £60 for two tickets stuck in my throat and made me rethink, but eventually I concluded that it was the right thing to do and a bit of fun. 

My first away day was against Coventry in the FA Cup in 1982, the M40 wasn’t finished so we meandered through countless towns and villages seeing fans emptying their bladders at the side of the road and spilling out of village pubs, we felt amongst it. My previous trips to the new stadium have been by car, shooting up the M40, cocooned away from others, a trip so efficient it’s clinically sanitised. 

The first leg of my train ride to Leamington Spa was a pleasant half-an-hour sitting with other Oxford fans, bridling a sense of occasion. There are few things more English than the FA Cup, and few things more FA Cup than the third round, an arbitrary mid-point in the competition which only makes sense to the culturally attuned.

At Leamington, we switched to a train which was already busy when we decanted into it. We’d sold 3,000 tickets, so obviously the service for the stadium was an hourly two-carriage train which went through Coventry. When we got there, there were hundreds of fans suddenly unable to get to the ground. The mood darkened as people pushed on, but plenty were left behind. Imagine a train system built to service people who use it and not to pay dividends to international overseas investors. What a country we are.

Back at Leamington, through the throng weaved a man in tight jeans, a coat buttoned to his chin, holding a can of lager, despite it not yet being 11am. He affected the ape-like waddle of Liam Gallagher, whose debut album is thirty years old this year and whose style was based on bands from thirty years prior to that, which is like me going to my first game in spats and a white bow tie.  

This is quintessential fan fashion, the football casual; many others were wearing variations of the same gear – it’s barely moved in decades, Stone Island, Fred Perry, Lyle and Scott, Adidas Gazelles and an unhealthy obsession with coats. 

We got into the ground, there was the imposition of a form of apartheid, noisy fans at the top, quiet fans at the bottom. The implication being that the best fans are the ones who should get the best seats to create the best atmosphere. 

Except the stewards were insistent we sat in our allocated seats, so we found ourselves deeper amongst the football casuals, the loyalists, the proper fans, the ones we should constantly kowtow to. The ones in the coats.

The tone was abusive, ‘you fat cunt’, ‘look at her fucking hair’, one fan obsessed over a Coventry fan I couldn’t locate: ‘she’s got a lisp’ he said more than once despite standing at least 50 yards away. I can only imagine he’s verbalising some kind of sexual kink, perhaps his mum has one.

I glanced round to see a row of faces, all male, all spotty and sallow, teenagers who will be doing this for decades. In front someone arrived with a mess of hair, the fluff of a half-hearted beard and the body of a life consuming cheap pizza. He looked like Boris Johnson and a second-wave Britpop bass player had been turned into a muppet. He was flicking the v’s and doing the ‘come on’ gesture to nobody in particular. His body shape suggested he wouldn’t have the cardio to actually fight anyone. When his mate shouted ‘What’s up baldy?’ broadly in the direction of the Coventry fans, The Muppet cackled theatrically like a man anxious for social acceptance.

In 1982, the game ended in a riot, around that time stabbings weren’t uncommon. Fan culture is not that dangerous now, but the underpinning confrontation and abuse is just the same 42 years on.

Coventry City have never had the momentum of a bulging trophy cabinet, but they’ve got a rich history of innovation. From their ‘Talbot’ kit, its magnificent Admiral predecessor and more recently their Specials inspired chequerboard away shirt. They’ve survived near financial oblivion, improvised with new homes in Northampton and Birmingham and negotiated their way to the top end of The Championship.

Their fans turn out in good numbers, they’ve nothing to gain by attending, they’re expected to win and will be embarrassed if they don’t, it’s more cost and kick-off has been moved to lunchtime to accommodate Mumbai’s Buckinghamophiles. 

But, they’re loud and their sanitised enormodome resonates impressively. One person ascends to the back of the stand with a bass drum. He gets abuse from the Oxford fans, obviously, it’s a drum, it belongs up his arse, but acoustically, the rhythm he thunders out gives more resonance to the chants and brings to order larger numbers of people. The painful truth is that drums work.

They score; it looks soft, we look vulnerable, this looks ominous. The Muppet unleashes a tirade of abuse towards the Coventry fans as they celebrate. Minutes later, we equalise and The Muppet unleashes a tirade of abuse towards the Coventry fans. None of his energy is directed towards his team, he only stands in opposition to things. 

It all goes wrong from there, our evident failings which have been picked at by weaker League One teams in recent weeks are exposed by a far better side. It’s not a surprise, the game basically goes to form. It’s painful to watch and a bit embarrassing. Their fans respond, obviously they sing the same songs everyone does, and they have similar people to us, but they’re at their best when they sing their own songs and for themselves rather than mocking their opponents. It’s amazing the difference when you’re there to support your team rather than intimidate those who don’t. Our response is firstly more abuse, then silence, the top lads end up looking at their phones and muttering. 

The Muppet and the wan teenagers don’t make the final whistle, they skulk off long before that. This is entitlement not loyalty. It’s also the Joey Barton’s fantasy culture of ‘proper football lads’, fossilised in ‘proper bands’ with guitars, cheap pints in ‘Spoons and abuse. All clubs have this, it is quintessential English football culture, and it’s stalled.

People talk about improving Oxford’s fan culture and go back to the heyday of the Ultras. No doubt they were an asset, I’d argue the best of their kind in the country at the time. Their success was that they stole from other cultures – flags, pyros and tifos are not English football culture. The Ultras were a melting pot of ideas, creativity, surprise and fun which is why we constantly need new cultural cues, whether that’s more women, more ethnicities, the influences of other sports, the resurrection of our historical cues, new songs, or even just a big bass drum. 

We all lack the ability to self-reflect, I don’t blame The Muppet or the sallow teenagers, they’re just taking their cues from what’s around them. They are comforted and reassured by their familiar experiences, but without something new and different to stir the pot, they will eventually be marginalised and ignored as others move on. It’s not time to do more of the same, it’s time to do something different.

Without a vibrant fan culture, everything rests with eleven players on the pitch and billionaire owners sitting thousands of miles away. If we win, great, when we lose, everything falls apart. That’s not cultural, it’s transactional, and that’s not a football club it’s a football business.