The People’s Game

During the World’s most recent pandemic, when among other things there were no football fans at football grounds during the football, the ever-lucid Alan Shearer suggested that when the fans returned, they should do so to reduced ticket prices, such was the impact they brought to matches, evidenced by their absence. 

At that time, everything seemed possible, that effective positive change was the consolation goal, that our shared experience of the Coronavirus would bring hierarchies and authorities and The People together, all shooting at the same target, aiming for the top corner of transparency and justice and the common good; simply, making things better. Even the Tories were acting like socialists in those befuddling, scary and tragic early days. Division and Hate were under threat as peace and unity marched in. The days of a 24-team Club World Cup were all but over. 

When football fans properly returned to stadiums, beyond the staggered, then abandoned, then staggered again drip-feed return, when full capacity was the norm once more, with vaccines rolled out and, eventually, boosters, equating to a fifth round of injections- no replays - they did so, naturally, as the world returned to its offices and its cynicism and its manipulation like nothing had happened (which in fairness, was actually true for many during lockdown if you shied away from baking your own bread, didn’t have Netflix to complete, or your own home to build a pub in, or kids to home-school), bringing into play the acid test for Shearer’s broadcasted wish. Now the masks were off, would the fans, who’d suddenly been noticed and grieved during the era of canned noise as a viewing setting - “our loyal fans” as Premier League executive Richard Masters pronounced - be respected, treated like adults, even see their newly-gained status of worth reflected in that price of admission?

The general feeling is no, that hasn’t happened, and in some cases quite emphatically; for instance, the actual day of the game between Chelsea and Weat Ham in September wasn’t even known to the public less than a week before it’s eventual kick off. But, as Shearer himself might say these days, there are two sides to every story. You might not be told when the match you’ve paid, still extortionately for, will happen, but you can now purchase Arsenal’s official pre-match shirt for just £55. 

 I was first alerted to the pre-match shirt by email, invited to click on the Arsenal Direct link and see what the big news was. I always have a look at the latest offerings (without ever actually buying anything; when you’ve got the green and blue and white trim replica kit from 82-83 in your house, what else is left?), and was left somewhat flabbergasted by the gall of it. A new level of low had seemed to have been found, yet barely a week later, there someone was, at the Worthing summer parade, dressed in it, a real-life, Part of The Problem mannequin. Shearer will never realise his dreams while these people exist. 

Except I forget, of course. Shearer is happy with how fans are being treated now. Or at least Newcastle United fans. The bad Sports Direct man has gone, and the brave Saudi Arabian murderer is in. He’s shown his trillions, given some of us a different perspective on Eddie Howe and spent some of that money on players who wouldn’t have touched Newcastle with a barge pole before last summer. Geordie fans can dream again, they see Cups, Europe, exciting football. They’ve got their Newcastle back. They’ve also completed Netflix, wetting their pants over the intimately detailed disaster movie Sunderland Til I Die. 

Football fans will only be given serious recognition once they choose to stay away from grounds on the basis that they are viewed as gullible peasants rather than because of the law, and also when they stop buying tactless merchandise, which we are told is now the prevalent source of club income over gate receipts (or online booking). Only when fans are no longer “loyal”, will ticketing and fixture dates go their way. Until then we will remain out of pocket and in Richard Masters’. 

 

Parents are easy scapegoats, and I’m sorry

In my last post, I criticised parents for buying their children, or allowing their children to buy, Paris St Germain shirts. I realise now I may have been hasty, even arrogant, in projecting that view.

Some of those children may not have a full set of parents living with them, or may not have parents at all, and last week, while I sat in the part-Saudi Arabia funded Sainsbury’s petrol station, I reflected that it was unfair of me to blame, for instance, a run-off-her-feet single mum or Dad, who might not be into football and it’s politics, for asking no questions about their son’s football shirt of choice. If it was a birthday or Christmas present, well it’s one job less to worry about. 

In my street, there is a Mum with two children, one of who wears a Manchester City shirt. There used to be a man living there, who I know to be a Tottenham fan, because he was blasting out Chas N Dave Spurs songs before their FA Cup semi final with Chelsea in 2017 and whooping with joy over Kane and Eriksen’s goals that ultimately only contributed to a  4-2 defeat. The Dad never shows up now, or rather I never see him show up, but whatever the situation the kid has presumably taken up with the best team rather than his dad’s. Does his mum, who I have seen going out to work, or at least wearing clothes promoting a business, need the bother of drilling down into the details of why he supports a club 300 miles away? Manchester City, eh? The best are they? I always thought they were rubbish; you sure it’s not the United shirt you want?

Maybe the mum is a City fan, can’t rule that one out, but in future when I see these oil-friendly shirts, I will try not to leap into the blame game, just as I’ll try not to blame them for letting their kids watch the World Cup in Gilead. We’ve all got so much going on, the kids are entertained, not missing out, not asking questions, and that’s cool because many of us are too distracted to have any answers. 

Germain measles

It has been a summer of laughs, tears, intense heat and senseless squabbling over technology. Oh, and Paris St Germain kits. They are bloody everywhere. 

Wherever we’ve been during this six-weeks of school holiday turbulence, the Qatari-owned colours of sickening wealth, greed and oppression have been on show; Legoland, Ironbridge, Brighton, Canterbury - kids galore in PSG. There was an adult too, in my local shopping centre yesterday, wearing one. Kids, you can forgive, their parents less so. Lone adults, certainly disappointing. 

As I observed the growing number of these ill-informed or shameless specimens, I wondered what the motivation was behind it; what was it that first attracted you to the billionaires, Paris St.German? 

I assumed it must be a Messi thing, or a Neymar thing, or a Mbappe thing, and at Ironridge there was the remnants of Messi’s name on the back of a child’s shirt (all that money and they can’t even do the honour of making wash-proof material), and though I didn’t actually see any Neymar’s, there was a plethora of Mbappe’s. That said, in my local Tesco I noted a Wijnaldum, which sent me into a tailspin. 

Are these people actual PSG fans, or, as was apparently the case with all the Liverpool fans in my primary school days, is it just the shirt they like? As a child I had shirts other than Arsenal’s - Barcelona’s, Scotland’s, Denmark’s, Sweden’s; I had the Swedish one when I was 17 because I liked Tomas Brolin. Or, in an age of satellite television covering all major European leagues and inaccessible and unaffordable ticket prices (certainly in the Prem), are PSG as much a part of peoples lives as Man City? A couple of years ago, over the Adventure playground with my kids, I heard a child say they supported “Chelsea and Real Madrid.”

So, it is all the more uplifting when I see a child in a Watford shirt, as I also saw in my home town that same afternoon of the adult in PSG (Watford isn’t the town team, but the nearest professional one) or a Brighton shirt when we were in Portslade, just a few minutes from Brighton. I noted too, that these junior Watford shirts didn’t have a sponsor on them, even though the first team is regrettably sponsored by a casino company. Perhaps there is an option not to sponsor the sponsor when you buy. A case of more aware parents, perhaps. Literally Gambling Aware. Watford also cancelled a proposed friendly with the Qatar national team this summer after opposition from the club’s LGBTQ+ and Women’s groups. Good for them. 

It’s hard to be morally perfect, and to always keep the devil’s hand at bay, but a show of principled values is always welcome, unlike the PSG shirts. Anyway, the kids are back at school now, and there’s a lot of Spurs kits worn there, which has somehow become a righteous thing, if still deeply disappointing! 

The Good Foul

Newcastle United full back Kieran Trippier defended his foul on Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne during last Sunday’s 3-3 draw in the Anti-Human Rights derby at St James’ Park, suggesting it was right that his red card was overturned by VAR. 

“I’m not the kind of person to deliberately injure another player” he told Guy Mowbray. 

Very commendable, Kieran, although I note you that are more than happy to play for an ownership that beheads people. 

Sorry. Shame on me. Can I not see the possibility that Kieron is trying to bring down, not just De Bruyne, but the regime from within, beginning with this declaration of morality? His signing on fee and wages? Bah! Just part of the plan. 

I should be more open to the goodness of human beings: it may be tempting to disapprove of Newcastle manager Eddie Howe doing the job while pretending not to hear certain journalists asking for his opinion on the alarming death rate conducted by his Saudi employers, but might he too be  working underground, playing the long-game, taking secret messages from like-minded activists covertly positioned in the training ground, the canteen, laundry room, the Men Only Freddie Shepherd lounge?

The challenge of course, is to not to get distracted by the improvement on the pitch, the suddenly plausible prospect of European football, of one day actually beating City. Or fitting into the surroundings like compliant citizens, quite happy actually with how things are turning out. Not being the kind of people to deliberately harm the golden goose. 

Chris and Tel - Gettit?

For someone who exhausts the patience of my dearest ones with terrible puns, it comes as a massive jolt to the system when I miss one. My favourite Only Fools and Horses Christmas special is from 1987, To Hull and Back, yet it was only after I'd watched it numerous times over numerous years that I learned that the title was a play on words of (yes, I know, you know) 'to hell and back'. Like Trent Alexander Arnold’s part in Real Madrid’s Champions League Final winning goal, I’d somehow failed to see what was right in front of me. At the film’s centre is a hellish journey over land and sea, from London to Hull to Zeebrugge to Amsterdam and back again. Near the end, Del even complains "I've been to Hull and back!" It should have been as obvious as Uncle Albert’s over-theatrical act of instant recovery the second Del applied to him his healing back massager in front of the market stall crowd. 

There have been other examples of my television-based pun ignorance - BBC's All Quiet on the Preston Front stands out - so with my own history of word-play inadequacy, it is perhaps understandable that I have delayed the release of my biography on Chris Waddle and Terry Venables, which I want to call ‘Chris and Tel.’

I'll level with you, it's the pun that motivated me to write the book. In the way that some managers are minded to build their teams around a couple of star individuals, I was prepared to play hostage to the guaranteed few seconds of initial customer appreciation. Other managers build from the back…I was plotting success from the front cover.    

In fairness to me, there is more to my work than the title (I hope), and it’s not like it I haven’t ever spoken to either of my subjects. Chris was a novice Burnley manager when he found me in my porter's outfit at the Watford hotel I worked at in the mid-late 90’s, and asked me for a flipchart stand and pad so he could conduct his team talk in the Aldenham suite with greater credibility. Unfortunately, the last one had just gone to Cabuchon, a jewellery company - news he received with minimal grace.    

Venables I haven't actually met (I did say 'either'), though I was one of the few to note to his low-key walk to the Middlesbrough dugout on his return to White Hart lane on Boxing Day 1999, when he was helping out Bryan Robson. Or at least I'd assumed it was low-key, Tel emerging from the tunnel as play was ongoing. I admired it at the time, anyway; perhaps, really, his secret intention was to instigate a play-stopping standing ovation, him being a revered player there of course, and one of only three managers in the last 30 years to have brought a trophy to that stadium. Given that I want to write a book about him, I'll stick to the low-key theory.

I have no other muck to throw at these men, and certainly no stories of illicit liaisons with scorned or financially-ambitious lovers (episodes, in tabloid parlance, that would constitute a 'kiss and tell', yeah?) but to justify the book, there are a number of intriguing career clashes between them: both played for Spurs; both have managed (one more successfully than the other); both have played or managed abroad; both have experienced international semi-final penalty shoot-out heartbreak (one more responsible than the other); both have been pundits, both have branched out in the entertainment industry while still in football (neither that successfully). This is more than enough to get my teeth into. And I did get my teeth into it; there are pages and pages of fillings.

It's just that title. The strength has become the weakness. Will the nation see the joke? Will it pull them in? Or will they simply assume that I have called the book after the subject's names/nicknames? I'm hesitating, I can't deny it. I may need a few days, get lost a bit further in Glenn Hoddle's autobiog. Hod was not only one of my playing heroes as a kid, but on page 4 of his book, he says he gets his hatred of injustice from his mum. Can't wait for the chapter on his downfall as England manager.

Hoddle has called his book Playmaker, a perfect title for a midfielder who made the play. Not that that was always on show. There was the occasional sin of going missing when he was needed. But at least the London boy never started out at Hull, and would have to wrestle with his own book title in the future.                  

‘On me be-head, son’ - time for a final Steve Bruce chapter?

One day I won't have to put up with a leaking boiler, or have to go through the front door to look at my broken fence in the back garden because the patio door won't open, and there won't be a hole in my bathroom ceiling letting in rain water, and I won’t have to contemplate living in a house that isn’t big enough to contain my three children and them sharing rooms that aren’t clean because I also don’t have the money for a fully functioning hoover.

I can't confirm whether that 'one day' constitutes greater finances or death, but I can say for sure that none of these bothers will be shared by Steve Bruce. Steve Bruce has £7,000,000 extra squids in the bank thanks to being sacked by his hometown club Newcastle United, or rather what stands for Newcastle United these days.

Despite his lifelong allegiance with NUFC, his own people never took to him as manager, and he says that the personal abuse he has received from the fans, and the toll it has taken on him and his family, will likely mean he won't be managing another club. He certainly doesn't need to, of course - the beheading fully comp will ensure that he can comfortably produce another acclaimed football mystery trilogy to rival Defender, Sweeper and Striker. But what of the passion for which he isn’t ridiculed (NUFC spell excepted)? Can the flowing of blood money and coalmine language in his direction stem the tide of desire?

Brucester's millions doesn't necessarily have to be about settling down with a pen and pie and a grateful dispensing of all this bollocks about 'progressing the ball'. When Brian Clough was given a pay-off by Leeds United after his legendary 44-day tenure in 1974, he used the financial security to bolster his football principles, and set up his teams in the way he wanted them to play rather than compromise to stay employed and feed his family. This apparently turned out rather well.

Steve Bruce is not Brian Clough, that much is true, but there is a vacancy going at Norwich City, who he played for before Manchester United (£900,000 the fee, I seem to believe). I would enjoy seeing him managing the club he led so well as a captain, and serving Delia would be so much more rewarding, no matter what you put on her plate, than the mask of Amanda Staveley that is clearly concealing the face of Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Maybe the only thing stopping the former Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield United, Aston Villa, Birmingham City, Sunderland and Newcastle manager from being chauffeur driven to Carrow Road is that he hasn't yet managed Ipswich Town. And he can always turn to them afterwards.

The other thing stopping Bruce replacing Daniel Farke might be the preliminary talks Norwich are reportedly having with Frank Lampard. And maybe it would be better all round if the ex Chelsea and Man City disciple were instead to preside over their slow death this season. If there is something Bruce couldn’t accuse his most recent former bosses of, it is dithering over the end of a life.

              

The Premier League: Please watch irresponsibly

 In July 1991, when I had just turned 16, I was in the Arsenal end at Watford for a pre-season friendly, thrilled by the hilarious homophobic chanting directed at the hosts chairman, Elton John. 

The emphatic rounds of “Elton John’s a homosexual” as soon as he appeared on the pitch as part of a presentation for the club groundsman, not only added a new dimension of gloss to my recently acquired life on the terraces, but kept me in good spirits for several days after; it was as memorable a moment that night as when former Watford and Arsenal full back Pat Rice had waved our way during his own on-pitch introduction. 

In October 2021, aged 46, I must reconnect with that 16 year old in order to support my excitement of the Premier League and not get bogged down in fusty old morality. If I want to avoid conflict with my natural desire to be engaged with the league that Arsenal compete in, then I have to ignore my natural grievances that the game in this country continues to produce as frequently as Vicarage Road introduces new managers these days. 

My ‘bothered’ amnesty with football lasted three weeks; I couldn’t help myself looking forward to Arsenal’s home game with Norwich City as the one that would stop the rot; I wanted to be at The Emirates to see them bashing up Spurs; I started watching Match of The Day; I am counting up the points that my secured players in the auction-based fantasy league are earning me. I am weak of will, a yellow, lily-livered let-down incapable of walking away from an abusive relationship, hooked forever on the nicotine that will one day kill me. I am good at making noises about leaving but it’s no good, I love it, and I can’t help what I love, right?

I mention the Emirates, and it’s bad enough the ground being called that, with the anti-human rights statement it brings, let alone the shirt sleeve recommending you ‘Visit Rwanda’, a country run by an Arsenal fan who orders the deaths of those who threaten to expose the appalling injustice there. 

So, onto the Prem’s latest bit of business - and their compliance in overseeing Newcastle United’s takeover by a Saudi Prince, who puts the outgoing Mike Ashley’s zero-hour contracts in the shade, with a profitable career in beheading. The Prem’s much-lauded Fit and Proper Persons Test has, with his arrival (though not in club affairs, honest) been dealt another decisive blow.

Of course, the 19 other innocent bystanders of the Prem have voiced their opposition, a number which includes Manchester City and Chelsea, who are probably so engaged in and deluded by their own sportwashing agendas that they truly cannot believe anyone has the temerity to plough billions of pounds into a football club that they have no connection to just to cleanse their reputation. 

But what City and Chelsea have to do is leave their principles at the turnstiles. To get the most out of this Prem showcase, they and we must go all-in. Newcastle’s legendary 'greatest fans in the world' have been celebrating the return of their club to them, discovered in the Sports Direct eternal fire-sale by the Arab saviours. This is the spirit. Welcome without examination, the murderous regimes; support that lovable old rogue, Rupert; chuckle at your mate Jeff as he advertises betting, which has cost his friend and colleague 7 mill; sneer a bit at the taking of the knee; roll your eyes at the Rainbow laces; say bollocks to #MeToo while you’re at it. As long we’re all 16, we can enjoy this never ending thrill-ride.