Sky Sports' Johnny Phillips: Fans just love to see their rivals struggle

The pain and angst of others has been revelled in by supporters after two of the biggest club games of all.

Liverpool’s slapstick stumble in Kiev and Aston Villa’s shortcomings over the final hurdle at Wembley have been seized upon by gleeful fans elsewhere.

Perhaps this is due to the lack of football in the country right now, with the regular league season wrapped up and the World Cup still weeks away. The European Cup final and the Championship play-off decider were played out on a sun-drenched May bank holiday weekend with the rest of the nation watching on.

Schadenfreude has always been an essential part of the football fan’s artillery, a dark trait of human nature that could have been designed specifically for this sport.

For some, the success or failure of their own team will always be measured against the success or failure of rivals. So, it has become as common to revel in the failure of others as it has to celebrate one’s own successes. Social media provides the perfect platform for schadenfreude to thrive in, with memes and gifs spreading like wild fire across the country before the final whistle has been blown.

It is also the most dangerous of emotions in football, for there will usually be a future day when the person revelling in the misfortune of a rival is confronted with that same failure.

Liverpool – and particularly goalkeeper Loris Karius – were subjected to ridicule from rival fans after their defeat to Real Madrid, which came in such desperate circumstances.

Targeting a club is generally fair game but we can only hope that the individual at the centre of the derision recovers. An intelligent 24-year-old with most of his career ahead of him, Karius will know only too well what happened to his goalkeeping countryman Robert Enke when the pressures of life became too much at the age of just 32.

Schadenfreude also has some roots in envy and most supporters could only dream of Liverpool’s success. No other English club has come remotely close to their five European Cups, so the Anfield club can hardly have expected well-wishers lining the streets in their thousands from west to east across Europe.

Hubris comes into it too, of course. For many, Liverpool’s stumble at the final hurdle was comeuppance for what had gone on before. Perhaps this was best illustrated by the behaviour of celebrity Reds supporter DJ Spoony – a man who never knowingly under promotes his own credentials – who tweeted Gary Neville in the build-up to the final promising him a deluge of texts, videos and tweets if Liverpool won. When they lost, Neville responded with an unflattering rewording of Liverpool’s ‘Allez Allez Allez’ song that left Spoony with nowhere to go.

That’s the thing with excessive self-confidence, it’s as well to be on very solid ground before piping up. The Villa fan who interrupted Boro Fan TV now knows that, too. After Villa secured their place in The Championship play-off final with a two-leg victory over Middlesbrough, Boro Fan TV conducted an interview outside Villa Park with a despondent Boro fan.

He was interrupted by a gleeful Villa supporter interjecting, ‘Have fun in The Championship, mate’. The clip has been widely shared since and the two fans will now have the chance to meet up twice more next season.

Villa’s demise has been noticeably lapped up by many fans of Blues, Albion and Wolves this week. Partially this has been down to owner Dr Tony Xia’s overzealous tweeting throughout the season. And perhaps it is only natural that the struggles of the region’s biggest and most decorated club will be enjoyed elsewhere locally.

The West Midlands rivalry is also the only one outside the capital that pits so many big teams against each other in such close proximity. The traditional two-team rivalry is blurred at times, with all four sets of fans often engaging in a unique form of schadenfreude.

In such a success-starved football region this is not necessarily healthy. One League Cup in over 20 years of football between Albion, Blues, Villa and Wolves is a pathetic return. So, it is perhaps understandable that it has become easier to enjoy the misfortune of others when there has been so little to celebrate at home.

But it does create the impression that fans are more bothered with what is going on down the road than raising their own club’s standards. That is not to down play the importance of rivalry, though. It is a crucial part of what makes the game so engaging. The atmosphere within our football grounds is forged by rivalries and the passions they draw up within supporters. It is what brings strangers together too, be it in the workplace or further afield. It gives the game a spark.

But schadenfreude in football is definitely on the rise and it is debatable how much of a good thing this is. It has certainly become the over-riding emotion on social media.

Should we expect anything else in this day and age? Probably not. But if schadenfreude is your game be prepared for all that follows. For ‘tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard. Hamlet was talking about football, wasn’t he?

Elsewhere, there is an important event taking place locally tomorrow in memory of Richard Eades, who was better known to most as Baggie Bird.

The man who paraded as Albion’s mascot at The Hawthorns died suddenly on Boxing Day.

A memorial fundraising event in his honour is taking place at Birmingham County Football Association’s headquarters at Ray Hall Lane, Great Barr.

It is being hosted by The Whistle Foundation, which was set up in 2017 by Richard along with Ajay Sharma, Jamie Lunn, Greg Rollason and Matthew Bond, a group of Midlands-based referees whose aim was to raise money for local good causes.

The amateur referees came together last year to host a successful charity football event at Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Academy which raised £1,800 for St John’s Ambulance. The game that took place was between two teams consisting solely of referees and the kits were supplied by Richard. As well as his matchday role at Albion, Richard worked for Macron and sold kits that teams wear around the West Midlands.

This year Sharma and all the participants from last year’s game have decided to raise money for a cause very close to Richard’s heart, SmileForJoel.

SmileForJoel is a charity founded by the family of Joel Richards, a talented non-league referee, from Wednesbury, who sadly lost his life aged just 19 in the terrorist attack on tourists in Tunisia in June 2015. SmileForJoel was set up as a fundraising entity to support and help families who are victims of traumatic bereavement through homicide. It offers very diverse support, from time out for family breaks to special counselling needs.

Tomorrow’s event promises plenty of entertainment for all the family and kicks off at 10am with a youth friendly tournament involving local teams aged from under-7s to under-13s.

Alongside the tournament, there will be a bouncy castle, inflatable slides, refreshment vans and more.

Following the youth tournament, the main game will kick off at 2pm – again this will be played by two teams consisting entirely of referees. This year they have secured the services of former Premier League referee Alan Wiley, and two Football League assistant referees, to officiate the game.

“Richard was an avid enthusiast of local football and he would have done anything to help anyone in need,” says Sharma. “He would referee any game that was given to him without moaning and was also on the West Midlands League committee. Richard provided our kits last year and it was a big shock to us all when he died.”

Get down and lend your support if you can.