The game in 2012

[Wiltshire Exile]

An excellent article which, in my opinion, sums up the state of the game today perfectly:

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/armchair-pundit/unhappiest-place-earth-161812042.html

[mattco]

A first-class article in every way.

[Florida Rover]

A very sad but true reflection on what is happening.

[Ian H]

Read it on this Forum - hatred and spite.

[FuzzyDuck]

Yes, sad but true.

Gary Neville was asked after the Olympics why football matches didn't generate the same atmosphere as was enjoyed by all at the Olympics.  The main reason he gave was that at every game, a proportion of football fans are openly hostile to your team and perhaps you personally.

I find it frustrating that even among fans of the same team, there are different camps with people only too happy to label them and pressure them into joining other factions.

We're all different except in the team we support.  It'd be boring if we all agreed so chill-pill and vive la difference!

[andyst79]

I think football could learn a lot from rugby and especially the role of the referee. I'm not a big fan of egg chasing but I've been told you can consume alcohol during the game, the equivalent of giving a maniac a machine gun at a football match.

[belton rover]

I think football could learn a lot from rugby and especially the role of the referee. I'm not a big fan of egg chasing but I've been told you can consume alcohol during the game, the equivalent of giving a maniac a machine gun at a football match.

The game is in a mess, of that there is no doubt, but these kind of hyperbolic statements about the fans drinking on the (seated) terraces don't help.

In this day and age, the fans are secondary, insignificant. Even the football itself is becoming so.

The English game has mutated into some kind of perverted gimp for Murdoch's empire (yes, I subscribe to the lot).

I just wish I didn't love football so much.

[BobG]

I'm a bit smug here tbh. I never have and I never will subscribe to any part that mans' empire. He was, is and always will be a power crazed and evil man. He has neither style nor substance. Money is all. And he is prepared to pervert anything to get more of it and more of the power that it brings. I despise the man, and his company. It' s been no secret for 25 years now. It's shameful that we have allowed him and his ilk to prostitute so much of all our lives.

BobG

[silent majority]

I think football could learn a lot from rugby and especially the role of the referee. I'm not a big fan of egg chasing but I've been told you can consume alcohol during the game, the equivalent of giving a maniac a machine gun at a football match.

Unfortunately statements like this don't help in changing legislation at football grounds. You can drink in a football ground, even binge drink before kick off and at half time, but you can't do it whilst sat in your seat in a responsible manner.

[Colin C No.3]

For good or bad reasons, football is the only spectator sport (boxing on occasions comes close), that is truly 'tribal'.

It's no excuse for the deplorable crowd events (leaving matters on the pitch to one side here), that we 'witnessed' at Stamford Bridge last Saturday of course but, you can see & 'feel' this tribalism for yourself whenever you attend a 'big' away game.

Which pubs are 'safe' to go in, which streets 'safe' to walk down, which away supporter 'safe' to ask directions from? All even more hightened when you travel away independently from the 'relative safety' of organised fan's coaches & the 'safety in numbers' that goes with that.

I'm currently watching 'Being Liverpool'. It portrays what being a part of Liverpool F.C. is all about. A history that speaks of 'glorious campaigns', an alleigence to a 'family', anthems sung & cherished from the past that will be sung for 'eternity'. The badge, the shirt, 'their colours', to be worn so that all that see them are left in no doubt of that alleigence.

To some of us, this is how we show our support of the team & our club. But to others, it is part of an 'armour'. An armour to be 'defended', to wear as they 'take on allcomers' who dare to be seen to decry it.

Liverpool's 'greatest' & most esteemed past manager Bill Shankly said "Football is not a matter of life & death. It's much more important than that."

I doubt if those 'immortal words' would be uttered by the 'great man' today.

[Alonzo Drake]

Outstanding article!

I have enjoyed watching live Premier League, and Championship games -- especially those involving the Rovers during their recent sojourn in D2 -- on ESPN and Fox Sports Channel over here. Indeed, I still love to pour over football results, gates, scorers and other stats. However, over the past two or three years my enthusiasm for the beautiful game has waned.

Football has totally prostituted itself. I totally agree with BobG in his post above, about the scum known as Murdoch.

What do we expect from these grossly overpaid prima donnas who pose, gesticulate and dive around our screens in HD each week, inciting riots and tribalism? Nevertheless, tribalism is important as a means of identity in this increasingly bland, consumer-oriented world.

I have lived abroad for 25 years now, and I miss my hometown Donny -- and as a proud Yorkshireman I remain tribal. However Britain changed radically from 1979 onwards, and now bears no resemblance whatsoever to the country and community I grew up in.

In those days, my tribalism was reflected in my working class identity, and in my love for Doncaster Rovers. I yearn for the past -- which probably partly explains my fascination and love of Rovers history -- but the past is gone.

What we see today in the EPL reflects cultural, social, economic and politic changes over the last 25 years. Accordingly, it was so refreshing reading the following superb article form the Guardian, which places much of the above into historical context.

The post-war years in the UK were great, despite what the proto-fascists who have sat in Parliament for the last 30 years ago or so claim. Andy Beckett agrees:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/27/1980s-britain-thatcherism-final-reckoning?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038

[graingrover]

it is not JUST Murdoch's Sky that is to blame for the demise of the game .There seems to be no sense of sporting values held by those whose behaviour shapes the way we are to perceive the game . Start with Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini and then listen to the comments from the star players and their managers when the are asked to comment on fair play, respect for officials etc etc .
        Football to some extent has always been tribal but it does no harm to remind ourselves that in post war Britain fans of both clubs could and would stand together on the same terraces . Today we are separated because we cannot be trusted to be together . As much as I love to witness the passion of our own Away fans it sickens me to hear the inevitable chants of hatred and scorn of the opposition that we seem to confuse with supporting our team. I think if clubs like ours are serious about all our Family and Community virtues we should also encourage our fans to show more support of those values.   

[BobG]

Thank you Alonzo. Hadn't spotted that article before.  After a simply horrid week it's done my soul good to see that, at long, long last, some people are beginning to question the values, the behaviours and the morality of what went on back then and the legacy it has left to us all to this day.

I was lucky: I wasn't involved, and, I had insider information. My old Dad used to come back from sitting on the Bench as a JP with some simply dreadful stories of police behaviour. As an outsider, I managed to see some of it for myself too. But when you were talking to educated and intelligent people in London who freely admitted they had never seen a slag heap, what chance had a few individuals against the might of the press, the police and the government? Especially when the maniacal mug of Arthur Scargill was plastered everywhere. That man has got a massive amount to answer for. I think he is the single biggest betrayer that the working class of this country has ever been saddled with. More than Ramsay McDonald even.

BobG

[graingrover]

In the era when 'Going to the Match' was the highlight of a deary week.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmopSVOMSsU

[BillyStubbsTears]

Alonso

Andy Beckett wrote a superb book on the 70s ironically called "When the Lights Went Out".

It re-examines all the idle assumptions about a decade that was supposed to be a disaster, replaced by the golden Thatcherite uplands.

Of course, it's a matter of easily checkable fact that the UK economy did no better at all after Thatcher's revolution than it did beforehand - the average growth rate from 45-79 was 2.1% and the average from 79-2010 was also exactly 2.1%. What we DID get from Thatcherism was a series of manically destructive booms and busts which meant that the last 2 generations have experienced upheavals, insecurity and instability on a scale unknown to the immediate post-War decades.

And now, we are far enough down the line to be able to see the REAL effect of the Thatcherite/Reaganite revolution. Growth might not have changed. But where the PROCEEDS of growth go to has changed. Dramatically.

In the mid-80s, for every increase of £1 in national wealth, median wages went up by 95p. By 2007, the increase was 50p.

In the USA, in the mid 1970s, the top 1% owned 10% of all national wealth. By 2008 it was 22%. And in the USA, after taking inflation into account, median wage levels have not increased since 1990, despite the GDP per capita growing by 30% since then.

A revolution happened under Thatcher and Reagan. They needed to show that the world before them was inefficient and disastrous. They didn't make their countries any more efficient. But they set up a system that massively skewed the proceeds of growth to the wealthy.

What we've been left with is an embittered, stressed, tribalised and trivialised society.

Is she dead yet?

[BillyStubbsTears]

PS. The article in the OP is quite superb and sums up why I despise top level football today, and what Murdoch has done to it.

The headlines this morning are a reflection of that change in football. A 20 year old on loan from WBA to Portsmouth has critically injured a pedestrian last night after hitting him in his AudiQ7.

Read that again. A 20 year old kid who is good enough only to play in a shit 3rd Dividion side is paid so much that he can afford a £50k cock-substitute car.

What the f**k has happened to the sense of proportion in football?

[graingrover]

BST
       I use Twitter sparingly but there is an ex Rover's loanee( with Tottenham) whose tweets reveal a view on life that I would describe as a spoiled brat's . Meanwhile the band plays on in the slowly sinking Titanic that is  ' top level' football in this country  . 

[Mr1Croft]

it is not JUST Murdoch's Sky that is to blame for the demise of the game .There seems to be no sense of sporting values held by those whose behaviour shapes the way we are to perceive the game . Start with Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini and then listen to the comments from the star players and their managers when the are asked to comment on fair play, respect for officials etc etc .

Well when you look at the people in charge of football clubs today they are the ones who control football in this Country. Leagues such as the EPL are owned by their 20 clubs, which is 20 owners. They make the majority of decisions for the entire country. The FA and FL don't have the financial backing and receive too much from the PL to even try to challenge them.

So think about that. The Premier League, which runs the football in the country is owned by Roman Abromavich (Chelsea), Shiek Mansour Zayed Al Nahyan, (Man City) Malcolm Glazer (Man U), Stan Kroenke (Arsenal), Randy Lerner (Aston Villa), Bill Kenwright (Everton), Mohammed Al Fayed (Fulham), Tom Werner & LeBron James (Liverpool), Mike Ashley (Newcastle), Delia Smith (Norwich), Tony Fernandes (QPR), John Madjeski (Reading), Markus Liebherr (Southampton), Ellis Short (Sunderland), Mel Nurse (Swansea), Joe Lewis (Tottenham), Dave Whelan (Wigan), Jeremy Pearce (West Brom) Straumur Investment Bank (West Ham, based in Iceland).

Of that, only 8 of those 20 owners are based in the UK, with 2 of those Delia Smith and Mike Ashley. IF a fit and proper test was brought into play for Football owners, how many of these 20 owners would pass it? When you think about that, and then remember that these are the people running the game in the country, it doesn't make for good reading at all. Only Swansea have a Supporters Trust that is very involved in the running of the club with a significant shareholding, and they aren't even English.

Everybody is quick to say that the game lacks the community and supporters significance in this country, but when they have an organisation such as the VSC and supporters trusts up and down the country which exists for exactly that purpose right in-front of them, they don't join. This happens up and down the country, look at Portsmouth; their Supporters Trust only took off when the club was in real danger, and it may be a case of too little too late for their club. Supporters are quick to judge everyone who runs the game but they fail to take responsibility, despite how corrupt they feel the game is, they would still rather see people like Abromavich in charge of football then themselves as a collective, community based organisation.

[The L J Monk]

You can drink in a football ground, even binge drink before kick off and at half time, but you can't do it whilst sat in your seat in a responsible manner.

You can in Germany though.

[Dutch Uncle]

The most thought provoking thread on here in a very long time

Some excellent articles and comments - thanks Wilts, Alonzo et al

[Sammy Chung was King]

This article practically sums up what football is now,and life in general,too much hatred ans spite in the world,talking politely to people is seen as a weakness unfortunately,when we win,it doesn't enter my head that great we've got one over on them,i'm just happy that we have won,it doesn't matter who the opposition are,local rivalry for me should be having a laugh and the best team wins,what does violence solve if you've lost the game,part of being a sports person is taking defeat and victory in equal measure,and having the class and goodwill to admit sometimes your team wasn't the best on the park that particular game,just because you don't kick off or cry it doesn't mean it hurts any less,it just means you understand the game and the nature of it.

[Pintolager]

You can drink in a football ground, even binge drink before kick off and at half time, but you can't do it whilst sat in your seat in a responsible manner.

You can in Germany though.

You can in Spain too