tomclare
16th May 2005, 22:01
I think that it is true to say, people who know me well, can see that I care passionately about our National Game. It has been such a large part of my life and has taken me to many countries; through all kinds of experiences; great elation, incredible sadness, wonder, bewilderment; good times, bad times, humour, drama, and has left me with a myriad of memories. It has also helped me forge great friendships all over the world, and has brought me into contact with people whom I call “football people” – people who have a love not only of the Club that they follow, but also for the game. Happenings on Thursday, May 12th 2005, have made me incredibly sad, and I do now wonder about the future of football as I knew it in England, and can’t help but feel that we are starting to see the first nails hammered into its coffin.
Up until the early eighties, boardrooms were populated mainly by local men of trade who expected their investments to yield no greater return than that of a parochial celebrity, comfortable boozing premises, and the right to pester club Managers with their ignorant opinions about playing matters. They were happy to ignore the discomforts, indignities and downright hazards suffered by the tens of thousands who poured into their grounds, just as they had no qualms about exploiting players when it came to wages. So few of them foresaw just how, in this so called modern electronic age, football would be exposed as a large fat goose just waiting to be plucked. In this modern era, the plucking is really gathering pace. Players are just as prominent in this frenzy, but Club ownership brings in the real fortunes.
There is certainly no doubt in my mind, that the key players in football today are the men wearing business suits. Headlines about football occur just as much on the front pages of the financial papers these days as they do on the back pages of the daily’s. At least that’s how it seems to those of us whose ties to football were forged long before the gargantuan television deals, sponsorship and merchandising brought exponential growth to its finances. I am not foolish enough to respond to this transformation with total condemnation – I do realize that this great tidal wave of money that has swept through the game during the last thirteen years has brought some benefits as well as the problems.
Supporters once corralled on the terraces in conditions that would be often described as intolerable to cattle, and in constant danger of having their trouser leg used as a piss-stone, with the prospect of having nothing better to eat than the indigestible meat pie and lukewarm cup of Bovril, are now accommodated in magnificent stadiums where the catering facilities are more likely to merit praise in the good food guides. The risk these days of disasters on the scale of Burnden Park, Ibrox, Valley Parade or Hillsborough have been vastly reduced and almost totally eliminated.
And yet for me, this bold new era has created a very deep unease, and brought me a fear about the widespread willingness to ensure that there is a material enrichment of football, even if the penalty was the impoverishment of its spirit. My misgivings were not connected with the suspicion that this boom could be short lived, but after last Thursday’s events, I have to accept that far from my belief that the financial structure of the game might start to creak, and then fall in an avalanche and come crashing down; I have been guilty of underestimating football’s capacity to go on justifying the expansionist ambitions of football’s money men who are now cementing themselves in the seats of power.
Since 1985, many of the men in suits have walked away with fortunes, but in doing so, introduced a new culture to football. People like Martin Edwards (who has so much to answer for regarding the situation presented to us today) who waited for the right time before offloading his shareholding. He was a man supposedly “in love” with Manchester United – how many times have we heard that tired old cliché from men in suits? But he would have sold his soul if the price was right. This was the man who back in 1989 was ready to sell control of United to Michael Knighton for 10 million pounds. It actually turns out that after his dealings with Knighton, Maxwell and Murdoch, he may well be regarded as a lucky plucker rather than a particularly inspired one! Alan Sugar was another one – he knew nothing about football until the business opportunities at White Hart Lane were brought to his attention by a former England coach who is no longer on Sugar’s Christmas card list, and we all know what happened after that! We all saw the nonsense that went on at Leeds United and how they were eventually left in the mire. Just how many of these “non-football people” as I term them, have ever contributed anything positive and tangible to their clubs and football in particular? At the end of the day, when the goose is ripe for plucking, they take their gains and leave the rest of us plucked! Glazer will be no different – mark my words.
Believe me, this is only going to be the start of things to come. Predators are lying in wait for other rich pickings, and with their foot on the throttle of the money making machine, are certainly not going to ease off. The main objective now seems to be to stimulate the retail market and pay per view. Already the vast majority of the old-style supporters have been priced out of watching matches or are tempted to spend more on their Club than a sensible budget allows. Whatever the torture in those painted faces we see week in and week out on the television at football grounds throughout the country, football in England is already less a passion of the masses than a segment of the leisure industry.
I suppose that most of this is the process of evolution corresponding with other significant changes in our society and in reality, it ill behoves my generation to be so sourly judgmental. Perhaps in England, football has been taken too seriously for too long. But I’ll be truly honest when I say that I don’t want the watching experience to become as shallow as the men in suits are making it. Have we really reached the point whereby the middle-class couple ask themselves whether they should have an afternoon at the golf club, the shopping mall, or the footie? I think that we have.
I do worry for the future of our game, and sometimes when I really sit down and ponder the past years, my aging old eyes could weep because of the direction in which I see the game being pulled. I have had so much enjoyment from football and loved the game with a passion, and at times, with a detriment to the people that I have loved, and still love in my life. I am a football romanticist, and I do yearn for the days to come back again when the game had a soul. I don’t yearn for the piss sodden terraces and poor facilities – that had to change and the money could have been found to do that. When I first started watching football over 50 years ago, it was in a time when football clubs and teams found inspiration and character in the communities that they represented – now they drink from a different well. But I have said it before, there is no cure to being a fan and for me, the link between fan and club will always be a special one. The most difficult job will be to rehouse and reshape football whilst remembering to whom it really belongs.
Up until the early eighties, boardrooms were populated mainly by local men of trade who expected their investments to yield no greater return than that of a parochial celebrity, comfortable boozing premises, and the right to pester club Managers with their ignorant opinions about playing matters. They were happy to ignore the discomforts, indignities and downright hazards suffered by the tens of thousands who poured into their grounds, just as they had no qualms about exploiting players when it came to wages. So few of them foresaw just how, in this so called modern electronic age, football would be exposed as a large fat goose just waiting to be plucked. In this modern era, the plucking is really gathering pace. Players are just as prominent in this frenzy, but Club ownership brings in the real fortunes.
There is certainly no doubt in my mind, that the key players in football today are the men wearing business suits. Headlines about football occur just as much on the front pages of the financial papers these days as they do on the back pages of the daily’s. At least that’s how it seems to those of us whose ties to football were forged long before the gargantuan television deals, sponsorship and merchandising brought exponential growth to its finances. I am not foolish enough to respond to this transformation with total condemnation – I do realize that this great tidal wave of money that has swept through the game during the last thirteen years has brought some benefits as well as the problems.
Supporters once corralled on the terraces in conditions that would be often described as intolerable to cattle, and in constant danger of having their trouser leg used as a piss-stone, with the prospect of having nothing better to eat than the indigestible meat pie and lukewarm cup of Bovril, are now accommodated in magnificent stadiums where the catering facilities are more likely to merit praise in the good food guides. The risk these days of disasters on the scale of Burnden Park, Ibrox, Valley Parade or Hillsborough have been vastly reduced and almost totally eliminated.
And yet for me, this bold new era has created a very deep unease, and brought me a fear about the widespread willingness to ensure that there is a material enrichment of football, even if the penalty was the impoverishment of its spirit. My misgivings were not connected with the suspicion that this boom could be short lived, but after last Thursday’s events, I have to accept that far from my belief that the financial structure of the game might start to creak, and then fall in an avalanche and come crashing down; I have been guilty of underestimating football’s capacity to go on justifying the expansionist ambitions of football’s money men who are now cementing themselves in the seats of power.
Since 1985, many of the men in suits have walked away with fortunes, but in doing so, introduced a new culture to football. People like Martin Edwards (who has so much to answer for regarding the situation presented to us today) who waited for the right time before offloading his shareholding. He was a man supposedly “in love” with Manchester United – how many times have we heard that tired old cliché from men in suits? But he would have sold his soul if the price was right. This was the man who back in 1989 was ready to sell control of United to Michael Knighton for 10 million pounds. It actually turns out that after his dealings with Knighton, Maxwell and Murdoch, he may well be regarded as a lucky plucker rather than a particularly inspired one! Alan Sugar was another one – he knew nothing about football until the business opportunities at White Hart Lane were brought to his attention by a former England coach who is no longer on Sugar’s Christmas card list, and we all know what happened after that! We all saw the nonsense that went on at Leeds United and how they were eventually left in the mire. Just how many of these “non-football people” as I term them, have ever contributed anything positive and tangible to their clubs and football in particular? At the end of the day, when the goose is ripe for plucking, they take their gains and leave the rest of us plucked! Glazer will be no different – mark my words.
Believe me, this is only going to be the start of things to come. Predators are lying in wait for other rich pickings, and with their foot on the throttle of the money making machine, are certainly not going to ease off. The main objective now seems to be to stimulate the retail market and pay per view. Already the vast majority of the old-style supporters have been priced out of watching matches or are tempted to spend more on their Club than a sensible budget allows. Whatever the torture in those painted faces we see week in and week out on the television at football grounds throughout the country, football in England is already less a passion of the masses than a segment of the leisure industry.
I suppose that most of this is the process of evolution corresponding with other significant changes in our society and in reality, it ill behoves my generation to be so sourly judgmental. Perhaps in England, football has been taken too seriously for too long. But I’ll be truly honest when I say that I don’t want the watching experience to become as shallow as the men in suits are making it. Have we really reached the point whereby the middle-class couple ask themselves whether they should have an afternoon at the golf club, the shopping mall, or the footie? I think that we have.
I do worry for the future of our game, and sometimes when I really sit down and ponder the past years, my aging old eyes could weep because of the direction in which I see the game being pulled. I have had so much enjoyment from football and loved the game with a passion, and at times, with a detriment to the people that I have loved, and still love in my life. I am a football romanticist, and I do yearn for the days to come back again when the game had a soul. I don’t yearn for the piss sodden terraces and poor facilities – that had to change and the money could have been found to do that. When I first started watching football over 50 years ago, it was in a time when football clubs and teams found inspiration and character in the communities that they represented – now they drink from a different well. But I have said it before, there is no cure to being a fan and for me, the link between fan and club will always be a special one. The most difficult job will be to rehouse and reshape football whilst remembering to whom it really belongs.