A curious factor occurred in our nook of south east London final month. Normally quiet facet streets have been rammed with double parked vehicles, the babble of excited younger followers with accents from across the nation stuffed the air and the bought out indicators went up at The Valley for the primary time in a few years.
Since the absentee proprietor Roland Duchâtelet started his one man warfare in opposition to Charlton Athletic’s fanbase, it has typically been laborious to inform when there’s a dwelling match in SE7 as a dispirited, determined and dwindling band proceed their estimable protest in opposition to an proprietor who has hollowed out their proud membership.
But these hordes of youthful and giddy followers have been sporting not the crimson of Charlton however the black and white duplicate shirts of Sidemen FC – an internet phenomenon who have been to play a group of YouTube Allstars in a charity match.
As simply the most recent iteration of a dizzying set of developments which have left these of us who discover the prospect of watching clips of different folks taking part in the online game Fifa as baffling as dad and mom of the 1950s discovered a Chuck Berry 45, it was an indication that one thing is shifting.
There is a palpable nervousness amongst tv executives, expensively attired sporting executives and the concentric circles of advisers and analysts that populate the business that one thing could also be taking place past their speedy imaginative and prescient.
Television rankings for dwell sport, the rights charges for which have for therefore lengthy been the engine that has powered the expansion of sport within the fashionable period, are down. The Olympics, as soon as seen as the head of sport however now tainted by cynicism, are struggling to draw a youthful viewers.
Meanwhile curiosity within the likes of the Sidemen and Spencer FC, a gang of Sunday League footballers that attain audiences of 2m plus on YouTube for his or her matches in an imaginary league, is up.
Rather just like the swirl of the present political local weather, there’s a sense through which the mix of modifications in media consumption and the sporting panorama have led to a youthful thirst for types of sport and leisure that the mainstream has been sluggish to choose up on.
Perhaps it must be no shock that because the outdated locations the place the younger carved out an identification away from their dad and mom – soccer grounds and live performance arenas – have develop into the overpriced area of their elders, they need to hunt down new methods of defining themselves in opposition to earlier generations and discover these digital areas the place they will collect, play and posture.
It is these shifting tectonic plates that the Guardian’s Sport 2.0 series, which grew out of a collection of 4 documentaries conceived by our award successful sports activities photographer Tom Jenkins, has this week tried to trace.
As ever, future gazing is an inexact science. In attempting to foretell the long run it’s unattainable to flee the whiff of these a lot parodied black and white documentaries that predicted we might all be travelling to work in hovercrafts.
And but, simply because we can not inform the place any of those tendencies are main it doesn’t imply that we must always not attempt to determine them. Our collection of movies and articles – from drone racing and driverless F1 to the controversy over whether or not video gaming is a sport, from the idea of watching holographic gamers beamed in from the opposite facet of the world to the challenges going through conventional codecs to take care of an viewers – have raised extra questions than solutions.
They transcend the outdated pub argument of what makes a sport, and problem lengthy held assumptions. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that they’ve performed out in opposition to the backdrop of a continuous drip feed of ennui-inducing information from conventional sport – most just lately from British Cycling.
As Jenkins and author Simon Hattenstone proved in their final dispatch from South Korea , the dystopian darkish facet of e-gaming doesn’t counsel that new types of sport shall be any much less prey to malevolent forces.
Amid issues over grassroots sport and participation, the prospect of a era bathed within the glow of screens can appear miserable.
Yet there may be hope right here too. The children taking part in Fifa, following Spencer FC or worshipping on the digital altar of a Neymar avatar then practising their occasion tips within the park are simply as in thrall to soccer as their dad and mom who have been hooked in via yellowing programmes and Jimmy Hill.
It is difficult to see the place all that is all finally headed. But what is just not doubtful is that the outdated order is altering and people sports activities that don’t stay curious sufficient to at the least ask the questions will ultimately wither and die.