Empowering supporters (@ArsenalFanTV)
Spreading fans' views far and wide
By Chas Newkey-Burden
A finger-jabbing fan by the name of Chris Hudson gave Robbie an interview that somehow combined fury, weariness, utter chaos and razor-sharp clarity
“I thought it would be nice to hear from the people who invest all their time and money into going to games,” Arsenal Fan TV founder Robbie Lyle tells FFT. “I wanted to give the fans a voice.”
Together with his partner Tao, Robbie grabbed a video camera and a microphone and stood outside the Emirates Stadium as fans streamed out following a 2012 north London derby against Tottenham.
“We were unknown at that stage,” he explains, “but my thinking was: ‘There are 60,000 people here. By the law of averages, someone will want to talk about the game.’”
They initially enjoyed a cult following, before the opening day of the 2013/14 campaign proved to be a breakthrough. Arsenal fans had grown exasperated by the club’s lack of transfer activity over the summer, so when the Gunners lost their season opener 3-1 at home to Aston Villa, emotions were running pretty high. A finger-jabbing fan by the name of Chris Hudson gave Robbie an interview that somehow combined fury, weariness, utter chaos and razor-sharp clarity.
“Everything he said encompassed what everybody was feeling that day after the Villa defeat,” remembers Robbie. “He was just talking straight from the heart.” The video went viral and has now been watched over one million times on YouTube.
Having initially ignored the project which was filmed on its doorstep, the club has since invited Robbie to press launches and behind-the-scenes events. Even Arsenal’s chief executive Ivan Gazidis, a regular target of some colourful outbursts on the channel, has admitted that he enjoys the videos.
“I spoke to him at a club event once,” Robbie recalls. “He said to me: ‘Look, I know I often get some criticism on your channel, but I think you guys do everything in a very professional and fair way – so just keep on doing what you’re doing.’”
Robbie has fulfilled his dream of giving the fans a voice, but he’s done so much more than that. He has made them stars.
Getting paid for playing FIFA (@SpencerOwen)
It was once a crazy dream, but YouTube has made it a reality
By Gregor Macgregor
For every two hours of FIFA, there will be at least another three or four hours of editing - until the back end of last year, I went more than a whole year without having a holiday!
If you’ve ever typed a football team’s name into YouTube’s search engine, you will probably have stumbled across a video of someone at home, playing as them on FIFA.
“What a lot of people don’t understand is how seriously integrated into football things like FIFA and Football Manager are to younger fans,” says Spencer Owen, AKA Spencer FC, star of the FIFA-heavy YouTube channel.
“That doesn’t mean I just sit there and start shouting about how I’m losing a game; I like to talk about real football as I do it. If I’m buying a player on a game, I will also mention what things I know about him in real life.”
If you think this all sounds like a piece of cake, think again. “We release a brand new video every single day,” Spencer explains to FFT. “For every two hours of FIFA, there will be at least another three or four hours of editing. Until the back end of last year, I went more than a whole year without having a holiday!”
Not that he’s complaining. Spencer’s status has helped him rub shoulders with some of football’s real stars.
“I’ve got a series called ‘Selfie Squad’ in which I can only use players that I’ve met in real life,” Spencer says. “It’s becoming a star-studded team, slowly but surely, including Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville and Teddy Sheringham. I have also done a thing called the Wembley Cup, in which we put a team of YouTubers together and actually played a game at Wembley Stadium. It got a crazy amount of views – we put together 10 episodes and over the whole series it reached 45 million.
“In football environments I get recognised quite a lot, but it’s a good level of popularity because YouTube is big but it’s niche. I can go down the street during uni hours and no one will know who I am – but if I go to some events I feel like Brad Pitt!”
Birth of the YouTube footballer (@TheF2)
More from the F2 on FourFourTwo's YouTube channel
Ascent of the e-scouts (@ScoutNationHD)
You don’t need a plane ticket and notebook to go scouting anymore
By Tom Payne
The first videos I made were of Jackson Martinez, who had signed for Porto, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who was still playing for Saint-Etienne at the time
Your club’s been linked with an exotic foreign signing about whom you know nothing. Where do you turn? FourFourTwo.com, obviously, but soon after that it’s Adam Ali’s channel, ScoutNationHD.
“I started making scouting videos on New Year’s Day, 2013, so I have been at it for nearly four years now,” Adam says. “The first videos I made were of Jackson Martinez, who had signed for Porto, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who was still playing for Saint-Etienne at the time. The standard of them was pretty poor, to be honest, as it was the first time I had ever edited video.
“I used to search the internet to find articles about young players I could feature, but there’s a new system on YouTube that lets you do polls, so now I get the subscribers to tell me who they want to see next.
“The one I’m the most proud of is probably Martin Odegaard, as he quickly went from being a complete unknown, when the video went live, to being a superstar a few months later [when he left Stromsgodset to join Real Madrid]. That video has had three million views.”
Adam’s videos aren’t made just for giddy supporters, though.
“I’ve had a few scouts say they’ve used my videos to take a quick look at certain players – some agents, too,” he tells FFT. “I have even had a few players share their videos on social media, including Anthony Martial before he left Monaco to sign for Manchester United.
“Anthony only had about 10,000 followers at the time I tweeted it – then he moved to Old Trafford out of nowhere and suddenly got to about 750,000. It’s a bit crazy to think that he shared it and liked something I had made.
“I don’t know what the future holds, but for now the channel is going well. Maybe an opportunity will arise from it all – a full-time job or something – but for the moment I’ll just carry on doing it!”
