The Last Word: All hail the devoted fans who go that extra mile – or 500

Football is more, much more, than an adjunct to the tourist industry

Reading fans make their way to yesterday’s game at Bradford – after a 419-mile round trip (Getty Images)

It was just before 1.30 on Wednesday morning, in the time-tunnel known as the northbound carriageway of the M6. Paul Butler still had another 90 minutes behind the wheel of a minibus containing 14 other Morecambe fans, returning from a 1-1 draw at Oxford United.

He thought nothing of the car in his rear-view mirror, signalling to overtake, but was startled by the sound of its horn as it slowed and began to cruise alongside, in the middle lane. He looked across and recognised the burly figure of Jim Bentley, who smiled and gave him a thumbs-up sign.

The Morecambe manager, dropped off from the team bus, was heading home towards Merseyside. The supporters peering blearily at him were not anonymous items in a consumer database; they were people whose names he knew, and whose affinity he understood.

At that moment, Carole Bates and 11 other Crawley fans were in another minibus, filtering from the M25 on to the southbound M23. Some played Cluedo to pass the time on a 500-mile, 14-hour, round trip to Bradford City, who had won 1-0 thanks to an error by Crawley goalkeeper Lewis Price.

She would be lucky to snatch four hours’ sleep before getting her sons off to school and, like many in a similar situation, struggled to explain her devotion. “Why? I try not to ask myself that question” she said. “We’re such a small group. I’m part of a second family, I suppose.”

Sam Barker was on the A38, completing a relatively easy 520-mile round trip to watch Plymouth Argyle lose to a late goal at Stevenage. His group, which starts to assemble in Penzance, regularly sets off for Saturday away games at 3.30am and travel 14,000 miles a season; one Tuesday-night match at Fleetwood involved 23 ½ hours on the road.

Lee Etheridge was also on the night shift. Having taken a half-day from his computer business, he would get home from Carlisle, where he was among 92 Cheltenham fans who saw their team slide into the relegation places in League Two, at just past 2am.

He shared his frustrations at overnight roadworks, which closed sections of the M6 and M5, on social media with Russell Milton, Cheltenham’s caretaker manager. Milton, a former player, given his chance after impressing as youth-team coach, embodies the distinctiveness of the lower divisions. A qualified English teacher, he once played alongside Socrates, the Brazil captain, in a Hong Kong team which featured a 39-year-old left-back whose half-time ritual involved vomiting on the floor of the changing room after a soothing cigarette.

Clubs like Cheltenham, Crawley and Morecambe exist on the margins financially, but are central to the game spiritually. The enthusiasm of their fans is an antidote to social toxins like racism, sexism and homophobia, which mutate in a sporting context.

Football is more, much more, than an adjunct to the tourist industry. Yet in New York on Thursday, at a self-congratulatory leadership seminar, Liverpool chief executive Ian Ayre made a virtue of the fact “twenty per cent of our stadium audience come from outside the UK on game day”.

Ivan Gazidis, his counterpart at Arsenal, then launched an international sales strategy with the buzz phrase “connect globally, engage personally”. Perhaps his club should try engaging with Ernie Crouch.

Approaching his 90th birthday, he represents living history. He watched Arsenal, under Herbert Chapman, win the League in 1933. He attended his first FA Cup final in 1936, when an Arsenal team containing George Male, Cliff Bastin and Alex James defeated Sheffield United by a solitary Ted Drake goal. He never missed a game until recent hip problems.

Football is a constant factor in his, and many other, lives. It is sustained by armies of the night, unseen and under-appreciated. Despite everything, the old game is still worth fighting for.

Suicide haunts racing

Animal Aid protestors continue to condemn the “inherently lethal” nature of Cheltenham racecourse. Yet safety concerns have been addressed, with limitations being placed on the size of Festival fields. At some point, horseracing must concentrate on looking after its own.

To do so, the National Hunt set must look beyond this week’s tear-stained farewell to their greatest jockey and finest ambassador, AP McCoy. He is a man of huge integrity and remarkable resilience, who will understand the bigger picture.

Racing owes a profound debt to those who are glimpsed, briefly, leading horses around the parade ring. Poorly paid stable staff work long and unsocial hours in a fraught, introspective environment. Suicide is a worryingly prevalent problem.

A 24-hour helpline, set up after a spate of fatalities in Newmarket, takes more than 1,000 calls a year. Many are from young, isolated grooms, prey to a culture of drink and drugs. Others are from elderly stable lads, suffering from ill-health and fearful of enforced retirement.

Racing Welfare, a charity set up to assist support staff, is being backed in 2015 by the Racehorse Owners Association. It is time for the bookmakers, who profit massively from Cheltenham’s rite of spring, to show similar generosity.

Same old cliched formula

Bernie Ecclestone reminding teams to include decorative ladies on the pit-lane walk? Check. Lewis Hamilton posting selfie with models at Paris Fashion Week? Check.

Jared Leto, Lewis Hamilton, Kanye West, Olivier Rousteing, Kim Kardashian attend the Balmain aftershow dinner (Getty Images)

Petrolhead on BBC, predicting the contest for third place in the Constructors Championship will be a “real thriller”? Check. Baling out three lesser teams with £20million to avoid a 12-car grid? Check.

Contrived pre-season advertising, featuring Hamilton and other vaguely familiar drivers as a wolf pack? Check. Only another eight months of this nonsense to go. Pass the earplugs, Murray.

Howe heading for the top

Eddie Howe has boy-band sheen. A solitary tattoo, the letter R, commemorates his first dog, a Labrador named Rodney. He quotes Abraham Lincoln and reveres Arsène Wenger. He will be in the Premier League next season, with or without Bournemouth, the club he is building in his refreshingly intelligent, relentlessly positive image.