At a tender age, my 14-year-old son Oliver decided to follow in his father’s footsteps all the way up Tottenham High Road to White Hart Lane – in other words, to become a Spurs fan.
I must admit, I was – and am – delighted. It’s a big bonding thing. We’re season-ticket holders, pretty much ever-present home supporters. Being there at Wembley for our victory over Chelsea was a fantastic experience for Ollie and me.
What’s not quite so fantastic for him is going in to school on Monday mornings.  Spurs, as I wrote a couple of weeks ago, are consistent only in their inconsistency. The weekend after we beat Chelsea at Wembley, for example, we lost 4-1 to Birmingham. Ollie’s classmates all support one or another of the Premiership’s big three, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United. Tremendous jeering takes place.
That’s what happens among football fans, right? Supporters of more successful teams jeer at supporters of less successful teams. ‘Twas ever thus.
Except that with only a couple of exceptions, these so-called “supporters” of the Big 3 aren’t supporters at all. They’re just glory-hunters. Most of the self-styled “Man U fans” don’t even know where Manchester is. I don’t think any of them has ever been to Old Trafford. They know nothing of the history, the legends, the characters, the jokes, the chants, the triumphs and the disasters.  Being mocked by fans as synthetic as these is like being beaten about the head with a thin strip of wood veneer: there may be a good deal of flailing, but the flailer can’t inflict any real pain.
What does any of this have to do with financial services marketing? Not much, to be honest. But maybe it says something about one of those terms that we all tend to bandy about a little too lightly. “Loyalty,” whether between employee and employers, provider and distributor, customer and provider or whatever, is one of those ideas that we talk about a lot, look to find ways of supporting, developing and rewarding. But what kind of “loyalty” are we actually envisaging? The all-too-perishable veneer that lasts till something more appealing comes along? Or the commitment which – barring a really appalling breach of trust – is likely to last a lifetime?