English football and the etiquette of leaving the stadium early

Sheffield United fans voted with their feet during this week's demolition by Arsenal, with some heading for the stadium exits after just 15 minutes.

The Blades were already 0-3 down with only a quarter of an hour played when the sight of home supporters leaving Bramall Lane "sparked a mix of sympathy and derision from rival fans" on social media, said The Mirror.

There were similar scenes during Arsenal's recent win over West Ham, when Hammers fans flooded out of the London Stadium before the half-time whistle, as their team slumped to 4-0 down. The mass walk-out was condemned by former Blackburn and Celtic striker Chris Sutton on the Daily Mail's "It's All Kicking Off" podcast. "If you're a football supporter, you support your team through thick and thin, don't you?" said Sutton.

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'True fans stay to the end'

There is "an unwritten rule in football", said the Mail's Kathryn Batte, that "to be a 'true' fan, you must stay until the end – no matter what".

So-called "early-leaver syndrome" tends "to afflict those who are either seriously peeved about an inept performance", said Amy Lawrence in The Guardian, "or those who spent quite a lot of any second half worrying about masses of people, claustrophobic transport, endless traffic jams".

It is also a distinctly English phenomenon and is much less common on the Continent. This cultural difference was highlighted by Jürgen Klopp soon after taking over at Liverpool in 2015, when he complained about feeling "pretty alone" after many of his supporters left Anfield in the 82nd minute in what would end up being a 2-1 defeat by Crystal Palace. "We decide when it is over," Klopp said at the time. "Between 82 and 94 [minutes] you can make eight goals if you like."

A recent survey by YouGov for Betfair ranked the Premier League supporters who were most likely to leave a match early, with the so-called "top six" occupying the top six spots, said TalkSPORT. By contrast, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Sheffield United, Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa had the most loyal supporters, who stay for the full 90 minutes regardless of their team's performance.

'Walking out is a form of protest'

"There are a lot of things in football that do not make sense," said Batte in the Mail. The notion that fans should stay to the end, "even if your team is being humiliated, even if it feels as if they are not trying and even if it is painful to watch", is one of them. And "that's without taking into account how long your journey home is".

"To attend a game and then leave when the result is still not certain just defies common sense," said Mark Segal in The Guardian in 2013. But if your team is getting demolished, "in my mind, it's actually the people who stay who are doing more damage", he argued. "Walking out is a form of protest. You are saying to the players that they do not deserve your support."

Some fans have had cause to regret leaving early, however. Selina Travis and her father left Manchester City's game with QPR in 2012 with the Sky Blues 2-1 down and arch-rivals Manchester United set to win the league. City went on to turn the game around in the last few moments, to win their first Premier League title in decades.

"The thing about missing the goals," Travis told The Athletic, "it's become such a fun story that it's almost become part of the mythology of the day for me. To the point that I don't really regret it – the only thing is that I've been going to City with Dad since 1994 and we missed that moment together."