When Sir Alex Ferguson commented post-match that Old Trafford signified little more than a morgue, many batted their eyelids in amusement. The poor atmosphere had nothing to do with a lack of excitement; more a sign of how modern football is slowly drifting away from the fans - an issue that continues to dominate the world of football, and the supporters that live within it. In his search to find the ‘lost soul of football' Matthew Bazell's "Theatre of Silence" is a book that captures the thoughts of football fans who are lost on the once beautiful game. FFC columnist Vinny Banks is one of them.

In January this year, the book ‘Theatre of Silence - The Lost Soul of Football', authored by Matthew Bazell was released onto the shelves of bookshops across the country. One of the main subjects in the book is, believe it or not, the issue of quiet football crowds and hence the title. Therefore, it was a bit ironic that in the same week of the book's publication date, Alex Ferguson took a swipe at the atmosphere at Old Trafford, by comparing the ‘Theatre of Dreams' to a ‘funeral parlour'.

Though I agreed with Sir Alex, what disappointed me about his comments was not his frustration about the lack of support from the stands, but that it had taken so many years for somebody high up in football to actually speak out and acknowledge this problem. Has he only just realised that an English football crowd nowadays wouldn't cause a disturbance to a cinema audience, or indeed on occasions your local public library?

I remember visiting Old Trafford back in 1998, and even by that point the ‘Theatre of Dreams' had lost the roar and the intimidation factor that used to define it in the pre-Premier League days. Say goodbye to the Theatre of Dreams - on Saturday you're more likely to enter the Theatre of Silence - a theatre where the crowd does what it's told to by the stewards; where a crowd are afraid to stand up; and where a crowd are unable to be a vital part of the entertainment.

We have all experienced that empty feeling of sitting in a stadium where the crowd are now simply spectators rather than participants. We've all been at matches where the team has played football from heaven yet at the same time have been left feeling flat by the corporate-like, business-oriented experience that now dominates English fan culture. And Bazell agrees, his comment "football reacts to simple market forces", is perhaps the best way to analyse our beautiful game in our modern era, and fuels the theory that football is no longer a game but indeed a global business.

So what, or who, is to blame for this? According to Bazell, it is connected to the destruction of terraces and the new all-seater stadiums that have changed the matchday experience. Our author believes that fans are now strangers to one another, and that when friends lost the chance to stand together on an open terrace, the game of football lost a sense of community.

Another reason according to Bazell is that football's more vocal support has been shamefully priced-out of the game by high gate admission - partly in order to fund the wage demands of certain players who earn somewhere between £50,000 and £130,000 a week. The new affluent football supporter that some managers and players now criticise for their lack of passion, the author continues, are the ones that they themselves are responsible for due to the wages that go beyond all moral justification.

If the Old Trafford crowd don't give Mr. Ferguson enough support, is that not his problem? After all, these are his new consumers. Bazell agrees: "Football abandoned its true supporters years ago. Football is now limited to a small proportion of fan, in comparison to years gone by where everyone could get their hands on the game". As well as having roaring ticket prices, pay per view games are making football harder and harder to access. Bazell continues: "There are thousands of kids from areas like Salford who would bring that passion back to Old Trafford; but all they have to offer is their passion and that's simply not enough anymore to be an attending football fan."

So the question that Bazell and many of us are wondering is; what is more important to football's elite - better support, or signing players on £100,000 a week?

If the people who run football want better atmosphere in stadiums, then football needs to reclaim its lost soul and make some dramatic reverse changes. As our author reflects, "the unfortunate reality is; that those within the game probably wouldn't sacrifice 1% of what they earn for a return to the ‘People's Game'".

To hear the full interview with author Matthew Bazell, click here or check out all of this week's FanCasts where Matthew talks in depth about the plight of the current game and it's effect on the fans.

Matthew's book is available at Amazon.com and Play.com through publisher Pegasus, or to be in with a chance of winning a free copy of a "Theatre of Silence - The Lost Soul of Football", simply enter the relatively straightforward competition that is on all of this week's FanCasts.

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