tomclare
26th June 2005, 23:17
Earlier this year, Arsène Wenger pitched 16 foreign players into a Premiership game against Crystal Palace. There was much debate as to whether this was a good thing or whether or not it would have a detrimental effect on the development, progress, and future, of British born players within the game. Opinions certainly differed, and feelings did run high on the subject. My own views are well known, and I do have misgivings about the numbers of foreign journeymen finding their way into our teams, not only in the Premiership, but in the Championship, and First and Second Divisions as well.
Whilst I have no problems with seeing outstanding foreign talents gracing our game, and they have done great benefit to it, there are still far too many who are no better than the home grown talent that is produced, and have no real place keeping our own players from developing. Extraordinary talent will always come to the fore - that's always been the case in the game, and by this I mean players of the likes of Wayne Rooney, Jermaine Defoe, Steven Gerrard, and many of United's home grown stars like Scholes, Neville etc. But there has always been a place in the game for our own "journeymen" - young men who are blessed with slightly less talent than our prodigious young stars, and it's this area that is suffering greatly from the present policy.
Over the last few months, it's a situation that has had me pondering about what is happening to football in Britain. The advent of the Premiership, and what has happened during the last thirteen years, has moved the game along so fast, at a pace truly unprecedented at any other time in the game's history. For "old timers" like myself, change can be hard to accept.
The game is hyped up more now than at any other time I can remember. Television has brought another dimension as to what happens out on the park, and certainly on how the game is perceived by a world wide audience. It is a commodity that is sold in the entertainment industry, and to keep it up there at the forefront, everything is dissected, analysed, and pontificated upon by all and sundry. Some of the things I hear, see, or read, are nothing but pure baloney. Pundits today would have you believe that the modern era players are from another planet and play on another level compared to their contemporaries of yesteryear. I can assure you that is simply not true.
The game has changed in so many ways - that is undisputable. But what grieves me today is that a lot of the enjoyment and fun seems to have been left behind. There is a cynicism in the game today that I cannot be done with. Honesty has been left behind. I see things every week that I find unpalatable - cheating, players trying to get other players sent off, all in wrestling inside the goalmouths (when did you last see the wonderful sight of a big centre forward hurtling across the area, climbing and bulleting a header into the back of the net? Very rarely because the minute he starts to make his run, he is gripped in a vice like hold), blatant time wasting. The physical side of the game has been eroded and the art of tackling is fast becoming a thing of the past. And since when have Referees been the centre of attraction? Money has become the all important stimulus to a lot of young men, and because of the money that is swilling about in the game, even at Reserve team level, some young players have lost their lives. These are the prices that have been paid for the progress that has supposedly been made since the advent of the Premiership. Martin Edwards, David Dein, Irving Scholar, John Hall, and quite a few more, have a lot to answer for in driving the bus that took our game down the paths that they took it, and along the way, they all greased their own sweaty little hands and made fortunes off the backs of the paying public.
But one of the things that came to me whilst I was meandering and pondering is what has happened to the game at grass roots level, and why? Strange the way that this old grey head's thinking took me. I went back to my young days, and back street football, schoolground football, and how we developed our love of this great game of ours. Yes even if it is now a global game, its home and roots, as far as I am concerned still belong back in Britain. I got to thinking on how the system these days works against the development of young people. The present education system in Britain is doing for British sport what Dutch Elm disease did for the landscape! In a large number of instances, even if teachers wanted to teach sport, they can't because of the many cases of playing fields being sold off. How many times have you seen large playing field areas sold off to property developers? I got to thinking as to how that would have affected me when I was at school? I used to crave for the weekends when I would get the chance to represent my school, on a "proper" pitch be it at football or cricket. I learned two skills at St. Gregory's, both which have proved lifelong afflictions - you’ve guessed it - football and cricket!
Back in those days years ago, long before these so called educational theorists got to work, competitive sport was a very important part of the curriculum. It would have been easier for our Headmaster to fire the French master than get rid of any teacher who took one of the sports teams! To be honest, I smile when I look back on my outlook then - I used to regard academic subjects as something that we did between the periods set aside for sport! I think a lot of my old schoolmates were of the same opinion, and to be really truthful, it was the same for some of the teachers! Old Bert Travers who taught me football, cricket, and maths, was renowned for gazing longingly outside whilst teaching us algebra. He was so easily deflected from a lecture by the proposition that if Pythagoras was alive, then Matt Busby was looking for him to play for United, or that in the summer he would be playing cricket for Lancashire, bowling seam up like Mr. Statham, and not leg breaks or Chinamen, like Mr. Tattersall! Looking back at my schooldays, I care to only remember what happened on the playing fields - the rest was a waste of time. I spent a little time last night trying to remember what I did at school when I wasn't being taught football by old Bert, and the answer was being taught to play cricket!
Bert played semi-pro football in his time for a number of teams in the old Lnacashire Combination and Cheshire League - a very high standard back then. His love of cricket was based on the profound mysteries and subtleties of the game, but his relationship and attitude to football was much, much, more direct! He was a centre-half, and "get stuck right in" and "get rid" was about as deep as he ever intended to go whenever we asked him to expound on his theory. He had no time for "fancy dans" and would reward any of their ambitions with a finger wagging and a swift kick up the a***!
As kids we were reared through contact with teachers like Bert Travers. He loved me when I was playing football and I won him over with my fearlessness as a young aspiring goalkeeper (he was responsible for me going to PNE as a kid) but I used to incur his wrath with my approach to cricket. As a batsman he said I was too timid! One of my happiest memories was playing in a Teachers versus Boys game at the end of the football season. It featured a clash between Bert and a centre forward, a real big lad named Phil Johnson. Phil, when he'd arrived at school, didn't really need any coaching from Bert, he was a tall, strong lad with exceptional skills on the ball, and lightning fast. He could turn you very quickly. Bert to be honest, as a centre half was a fully fledged assassin of anybody who dwelt on the ball - if you weren't alive to him, then bang! You were on your a*** and he was away. Early on in this game, they both went for this 50-50 ball over near the touchline. I can still see it today, there was this terrible clash of studs, bone, snot, gore, and they careered through the crowds of watching spectators and went down in a tangle of arms and legs, whirling around like a couple of epileptic windmills. When they both stood up, both of them looked as though they had been involved in a bad road traffic accident! But the lovely thing was that they were both laughing their a***s off! Oh! that could happen today.
You could argue that my education may have been a touch lopsided. But when I think of it, no more than so than those children who for one reason or another nowadays, are denied a playing field or a sports master. What is also sad about today as I see it, is that in the present set up, there appears to be no place for the Bert Travers of teaching. Where they flourish still, is where they have, and always will do, in the Public Schools. Down the road in the State system, the discrepancy between those who pay for their kids and those that don't becomes more and more apparent. I have never doubted the importance of sport in education, and whilst I know that judged by academic standards, my five years at St. Gregory's were a complete waste of time, what I did learn there carried me through some wonderful, fulfilling years, and allowed me to meet some truly wonderful people.
Maybe it's just that a love of the game is no longer being nurtured in the schools and this is why we are seeing a decline in young kids coming along? Maybe it's because of the changing times, and the demise of the many industries and communities that went with them, like the coal mines, steel mills, shipyards, etc, but then again, I'll leave that area alone for another day!
Whilst I have no problems with seeing outstanding foreign talents gracing our game, and they have done great benefit to it, there are still far too many who are no better than the home grown talent that is produced, and have no real place keeping our own players from developing. Extraordinary talent will always come to the fore - that's always been the case in the game, and by this I mean players of the likes of Wayne Rooney, Jermaine Defoe, Steven Gerrard, and many of United's home grown stars like Scholes, Neville etc. But there has always been a place in the game for our own "journeymen" - young men who are blessed with slightly less talent than our prodigious young stars, and it's this area that is suffering greatly from the present policy.
Over the last few months, it's a situation that has had me pondering about what is happening to football in Britain. The advent of the Premiership, and what has happened during the last thirteen years, has moved the game along so fast, at a pace truly unprecedented at any other time in the game's history. For "old timers" like myself, change can be hard to accept.
The game is hyped up more now than at any other time I can remember. Television has brought another dimension as to what happens out on the park, and certainly on how the game is perceived by a world wide audience. It is a commodity that is sold in the entertainment industry, and to keep it up there at the forefront, everything is dissected, analysed, and pontificated upon by all and sundry. Some of the things I hear, see, or read, are nothing but pure baloney. Pundits today would have you believe that the modern era players are from another planet and play on another level compared to their contemporaries of yesteryear. I can assure you that is simply not true.
The game has changed in so many ways - that is undisputable. But what grieves me today is that a lot of the enjoyment and fun seems to have been left behind. There is a cynicism in the game today that I cannot be done with. Honesty has been left behind. I see things every week that I find unpalatable - cheating, players trying to get other players sent off, all in wrestling inside the goalmouths (when did you last see the wonderful sight of a big centre forward hurtling across the area, climbing and bulleting a header into the back of the net? Very rarely because the minute he starts to make his run, he is gripped in a vice like hold), blatant time wasting. The physical side of the game has been eroded and the art of tackling is fast becoming a thing of the past. And since when have Referees been the centre of attraction? Money has become the all important stimulus to a lot of young men, and because of the money that is swilling about in the game, even at Reserve team level, some young players have lost their lives. These are the prices that have been paid for the progress that has supposedly been made since the advent of the Premiership. Martin Edwards, David Dein, Irving Scholar, John Hall, and quite a few more, have a lot to answer for in driving the bus that took our game down the paths that they took it, and along the way, they all greased their own sweaty little hands and made fortunes off the backs of the paying public.
But one of the things that came to me whilst I was meandering and pondering is what has happened to the game at grass roots level, and why? Strange the way that this old grey head's thinking took me. I went back to my young days, and back street football, schoolground football, and how we developed our love of this great game of ours. Yes even if it is now a global game, its home and roots, as far as I am concerned still belong back in Britain. I got to thinking on how the system these days works against the development of young people. The present education system in Britain is doing for British sport what Dutch Elm disease did for the landscape! In a large number of instances, even if teachers wanted to teach sport, they can't because of the many cases of playing fields being sold off. How many times have you seen large playing field areas sold off to property developers? I got to thinking as to how that would have affected me when I was at school? I used to crave for the weekends when I would get the chance to represent my school, on a "proper" pitch be it at football or cricket. I learned two skills at St. Gregory's, both which have proved lifelong afflictions - you’ve guessed it - football and cricket!
Back in those days years ago, long before these so called educational theorists got to work, competitive sport was a very important part of the curriculum. It would have been easier for our Headmaster to fire the French master than get rid of any teacher who took one of the sports teams! To be honest, I smile when I look back on my outlook then - I used to regard academic subjects as something that we did between the periods set aside for sport! I think a lot of my old schoolmates were of the same opinion, and to be really truthful, it was the same for some of the teachers! Old Bert Travers who taught me football, cricket, and maths, was renowned for gazing longingly outside whilst teaching us algebra. He was so easily deflected from a lecture by the proposition that if Pythagoras was alive, then Matt Busby was looking for him to play for United, or that in the summer he would be playing cricket for Lancashire, bowling seam up like Mr. Statham, and not leg breaks or Chinamen, like Mr. Tattersall! Looking back at my schooldays, I care to only remember what happened on the playing fields - the rest was a waste of time. I spent a little time last night trying to remember what I did at school when I wasn't being taught football by old Bert, and the answer was being taught to play cricket!
Bert played semi-pro football in his time for a number of teams in the old Lnacashire Combination and Cheshire League - a very high standard back then. His love of cricket was based on the profound mysteries and subtleties of the game, but his relationship and attitude to football was much, much, more direct! He was a centre-half, and "get stuck right in" and "get rid" was about as deep as he ever intended to go whenever we asked him to expound on his theory. He had no time for "fancy dans" and would reward any of their ambitions with a finger wagging and a swift kick up the a***!
As kids we were reared through contact with teachers like Bert Travers. He loved me when I was playing football and I won him over with my fearlessness as a young aspiring goalkeeper (he was responsible for me going to PNE as a kid) but I used to incur his wrath with my approach to cricket. As a batsman he said I was too timid! One of my happiest memories was playing in a Teachers versus Boys game at the end of the football season. It featured a clash between Bert and a centre forward, a real big lad named Phil Johnson. Phil, when he'd arrived at school, didn't really need any coaching from Bert, he was a tall, strong lad with exceptional skills on the ball, and lightning fast. He could turn you very quickly. Bert to be honest, as a centre half was a fully fledged assassin of anybody who dwelt on the ball - if you weren't alive to him, then bang! You were on your a*** and he was away. Early on in this game, they both went for this 50-50 ball over near the touchline. I can still see it today, there was this terrible clash of studs, bone, snot, gore, and they careered through the crowds of watching spectators and went down in a tangle of arms and legs, whirling around like a couple of epileptic windmills. When they both stood up, both of them looked as though they had been involved in a bad road traffic accident! But the lovely thing was that they were both laughing their a***s off! Oh! that could happen today.
You could argue that my education may have been a touch lopsided. But when I think of it, no more than so than those children who for one reason or another nowadays, are denied a playing field or a sports master. What is also sad about today as I see it, is that in the present set up, there appears to be no place for the Bert Travers of teaching. Where they flourish still, is where they have, and always will do, in the Public Schools. Down the road in the State system, the discrepancy between those who pay for their kids and those that don't becomes more and more apparent. I have never doubted the importance of sport in education, and whilst I know that judged by academic standards, my five years at St. Gregory's were a complete waste of time, what I did learn there carried me through some wonderful, fulfilling years, and allowed me to meet some truly wonderful people.
Maybe it's just that a love of the game is no longer being nurtured in the schools and this is why we are seeing a decline in young kids coming along? Maybe it's because of the changing times, and the demise of the many industries and communities that went with them, like the coal mines, steel mills, shipyards, etc, but then again, I'll leave that area alone for another day!