“Your support is f**king sh*t”, “Your ground’s too big for you” and even the introspective “Where were you when we were sh*t?” are some of the familiar songs belted out at grounds up and down the country every weekend without any sense of irony or self awareness.
There’s a lot of debate and oft derision about low crowd attendances home and away amongst football supporters.
If you watch the Pathe films on t’internet or similar sentimental footage that gets reeled out on Football Focus it is common to see packed out stadium full of rattle- waving, rosette- wearing men and women jostling for position in vast crowded stands.
So why the decline? Surely now the average football fan has more leisure time and expendable dough than ever before and certainly more than in the black and white era of rosettes and flat caps?
The difference from those days and now are that back then is that those scarcest of commodities, time and money, are actually rarer now for many than in days gone by.
.
Whilst people probably had less money years ago they also generally had less expectations of expenditure and certainly didn’t have exotic foreign holidays, two cars and all the expensive mod cons that a lot of people wrongly feel pressured into paying for in modern life. People have got themselves into debt by getting everything on credit in recent times to satisfy these perceived necessities whereas that was unheard of in previous generations where the common ethos was “If you can’t afford it you cant have it”.
The cost of games has increased disproportionately too. Whilst before ticket prices were more affordable it is the whole package of going to football that has become a pricey affair nowadays.
Charlton has always been good value for money even during our pinnacle in the Premiership yet even following the addicks is a costly duty for many but even so a £300- £500 season ticket is still out of reach for many.
It is not just the initial lay out for a ticket that hits the wallet. There are costs involved before you even set foot in the stadium.
With more people moving away form the areas of their roots and out of the built up inner cities to suburban dwellings clubs now draw a lot of their support from further afield. Whereas before the majority of West Ham followers may have inhabited the East End and other areas a stones throw from the Boleyn Ground many of their faithful now reside out in various parts of Essex. Same with Charlton who now find a large proportion of their fan base travel from the commuter belt of South East London and even deepest darkest Kent. Travelling to home games for many is no longer a half hour walk down the road at 2pm but a train or car journey which isn’t gratis.
I’ve heard tales that back in the day many South East Londoners would go to Charlton one week and up the road to the Den to watch Millwall the next when Charlton were away and vice versa. This practice appears now to be extinct (for a plethora of reasons I would imagine) and many people choose to follow their “one” team around the country which in itself is very expensive.
Once you have bought the ticket, travelled up to whichever Northern outpost the boys are playing at, had a few pints and a dodgy black pudding pie the bill is usually near the £100 mark.
A home game for example may cost £20 a ticket, add this to said beers and travel and God forbid a programme then you are looking at around £40 a game.
So on average with 2 home games and 2 away in a “quiet month” it will cost in the region of £300. In a busier month, for example we are scheduled to play 5 times in September and 6 in November the cost of following Charlton will be around £320- £380 and £420 respectively.
Even if you can afford the initial outlay of a season ticket and therefore null that cost you would still be looking at about £200 to £300 and month on away games not to mention the further cost- incurring cup games that crop up frequently.
Now when you consider the demographic and income of the average football supporter of Charlton, Millwall or Crystal Palace the cost of attending every game their club plays becomes somewhat unachievable without purging themselves further into debt.
Additionally time, or lack of it, is a key factor in the decline in attendances. Many folk are now working longer hours every day than before to secure much needed overtime or just because their jobs have evolved whereby they are wary of leaving at 5.30 on the dot for fear of giving their employers any reason to satisfy criteria for redundancy. Many self – employed football fans have to work 6 or 7 days a week to even keep their heads above the water. And this is all before they fulfil their commitments outside of work to their families, friends and other elements important to their lives.
Traditionally games were scheduled for 3pm on a Saturday allowing the largely working class supporter to finish up their graft on Saturday morning before heading to the pub for a well earned pint before heading on to the game.
Gone are the days when small clubs like Millwall could get dispensation for late kick offs to allow their dock worker support to finish their shifts and make their way down to watch their team. Now the fixture lists are dictated by Sky, the Police and other authorities and the common fan has to fit their lives around it rather than the games being organised for their convenience as before.
Now to attend every away game over the course of a season often involves the use of numerous days of holiday for midweek evening clashes in awkward locations followed by a day of work after a few hours of sleep or negotiating the ever so efficient Sunday service so helpfully provided by the national rail network.
Whilst it is inevitable that there is an element of “plastics” who turn up for the big games or when a club is entertaining world class players on opposition teams in the top flight this perceived crowd swell is often deceiving.
Whilst Manchester United and Chelsea may enjoy revenue- inducing sell outs at every home league game it isn’t definite that the 60,000 in attendance each fortnight are the same punters. Success attracts interest and whilst they may be sold out each game I very much doubt that it is the same 60,000 die hard, life long supporters from Salford and Shepherd’s Bush filling those seats each time. More likely is that they have garnered enough custom through their years of success to give the illusion of a consistent faithful but the reality is it us unlikely that the average person could afford to pay the extortionate price of going to Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge each week which would surely run into the thousands each year.
Added to this those fortunate souls, many of whom will have only boarded the football bandwagon post Euro 1996, and whose substantial income allows them this luxury are more likely to be drawn to the success and glamour provided by the big clubs rather than parting with their cash to provide much needed income to grittier clubs such as Charlton, Millwall and Palace. If you were a late comer to the game and didn’t have a club “in your blood” like we do then it’s academic that watching Drogba and Lampard battle against Torres and Gerrard is, albeit superficially, a more enticing proposition than spending your hard earned to witness a season of hit and hope affairs against Scunthorpe and Tranmere.
I am currently part way through training to be an accountant. The hours and studying are long and cut into a large part of my time and the remuneration isn’t rewarding at present but in two years when I hopefully qualify I will be in a position where I can financially afford to follow Charlton home and away without fail and so the attendance at Huddersfield will increase from 450 to 451.
At present I don’t have that ability and instead spend my Saturday afternoons and many weeknights glued to Charlton Life with the radio on in the corner hoping result goes are way and holding my breath every time the commentator says lets go to X now for an update on the game between X and Charlton Athletic.
As much as I would love to be up among the small number of faithful wherever and whenever we play, to share first hand both the joy of a win, despair of a loss and indifference of a goalless draw, I simply can’t afford it at present.
If that makes me or others in similar situations less of a supporter than those who can afford it or sacrifice other things in their lives to ensure so then so be it. But to say that our support is better or worse than Millwall or Man United is based on numbers and doesn’t give the bigger picture.
Give me those 450 who made the trip to Yorkshire yesterday over a ground full of tourists at the Emirates any day.
Sunday 29 August 2010
Friday 20 August 2010
Viva La Railvolution
After 8 long hours of being subject to the latest enforced doctrine of my rulers I wearily found my way out of my temporary prison into an overcast Docklands evening.
I had fought the good fight and gallantly battled to keep the dogma of my keepers from permeating my consciousness. I had struggled with all my might so as not to be deceived by the “inspirational” slogans, and slick sound bites which had polluted my environment for longer than I wished, secretly knowing that behind the name badges, free biscuits and role plays something sinister was afoot.
Seeing through the wholesome smiles and enthusiastic deliveries of those charged with instilling into their subjects the latest core values and beliefs, I had escaped with mere fragments of my soul and independent thoughts unscathed.
I looked through pitying eyes at my less fortunate peers who had been captured by the rhetoric, milling around like an army of labotomized Randall P McMurphys and made my exit before Nurse Ratched noticed that one of her flock had eluded the latest bout of indoctrination.
Corporate training was over for another day and I had survived….just.
In the shadows of the glazed towers that encompass Canary Wharf, I hurriedly made my way to the DLR station, glancing over my shoulder occasionally to ensure I wasn’t being tailed by one of Big Brother’s heavies.
“Lewisham 1 minute” read the digital timetable as I reached the top of the escalator. I let out a sigh of relief, safe in the knowledge I would soon be away from these soulless, sterile surroundings and returning to the oasis of South East London.
As the train approached, I spared a thought for those poor beings still toiling away in front of their identikit computers in the offices up above me. Enslaved in the homogenous, open- planned workhouses tapping away at meaningless spreadsheets and reports, telling themselves it is not forever and that one day they, rather than some faceless fat cat, will benefit from the fruits of their labour. Praying every morning that lottery win will come and rescue them from this grinding existence before drowning their sorrows that evening in All Bar One grounded by the realisation that their numbers haven’t come up and once again faced with the stark reality that they must return for yet another week of spirit- crushing endeavour.
As the carriage rattled along the elevated track I realised that in my haste to escape the concrete jungle I had forgotten to swipe my Oyster card. I contemplated the inevitable confrontation that would ensue with a ticket inspector, involving me squirming as I tried to explain that I was not in fact a common criminal intent on defrauding Transport for London but rather an honest, law- abiding citizen who had just absent mindedly forgotten to tap in after a day of having my brain infused with futile jargon.
It occurred to me that if I was fortunate enough to make it the ten stops to Lewisham national rail station, avoiding said inspectors, I would not need to swipe out at the other end and thus avoiding the disproportionate penalty fare.
The Gods smiled on me.
As we pulled into the station I noticed it was 5.26pm. My train was due to depart at 5.27 and missing it would involve a 30 minute wait on a crowded platform staring into space and trying to avoid the obligatory crack addict that inevitably finds his way to me and acts like I questioned his parentage when I refuse to part with £2 so he can “phone his nan in hospital”.
It was not a risk I was willing to take so with gusto and vigour I battled my way up the stairs, fighting my way through the crowds and got to the barriers catching sight of my train ready to depart. As I got to the platform the doors began to close and I feared than my heroic efforts had been in vain. Just as I was about to fall to my knees in despair, a spotty teenager stood aboard the train, saw my plight and shouted “Come on mate” before mustering up brutal strength to prise the doors open allowing me to join the party. A true hero and an act that has gone a long way to restore my somewhat lapsed faith in today’s youth.
So after a wretched day of mind- numbing, toe – curling obedience to the powers that be I had scored a small result.
Free travel and I made the early train against the odds. Victory for the ordinary man.
Fuck the system.
Today has been a good day for the People.
I had fought the good fight and gallantly battled to keep the dogma of my keepers from permeating my consciousness. I had struggled with all my might so as not to be deceived by the “inspirational” slogans, and slick sound bites which had polluted my environment for longer than I wished, secretly knowing that behind the name badges, free biscuits and role plays something sinister was afoot.
Seeing through the wholesome smiles and enthusiastic deliveries of those charged with instilling into their subjects the latest core values and beliefs, I had escaped with mere fragments of my soul and independent thoughts unscathed.
I looked through pitying eyes at my less fortunate peers who had been captured by the rhetoric, milling around like an army of labotomized Randall P McMurphys and made my exit before Nurse Ratched noticed that one of her flock had eluded the latest bout of indoctrination.
Corporate training was over for another day and I had survived….just.
In the shadows of the glazed towers that encompass Canary Wharf, I hurriedly made my way to the DLR station, glancing over my shoulder occasionally to ensure I wasn’t being tailed by one of Big Brother’s heavies.
“Lewisham 1 minute” read the digital timetable as I reached the top of the escalator. I let out a sigh of relief, safe in the knowledge I would soon be away from these soulless, sterile surroundings and returning to the oasis of South East London.
As the train approached, I spared a thought for those poor beings still toiling away in front of their identikit computers in the offices up above me. Enslaved in the homogenous, open- planned workhouses tapping away at meaningless spreadsheets and reports, telling themselves it is not forever and that one day they, rather than some faceless fat cat, will benefit from the fruits of their labour. Praying every morning that lottery win will come and rescue them from this grinding existence before drowning their sorrows that evening in All Bar One grounded by the realisation that their numbers haven’t come up and once again faced with the stark reality that they must return for yet another week of spirit- crushing endeavour.
As the carriage rattled along the elevated track I realised that in my haste to escape the concrete jungle I had forgotten to swipe my Oyster card. I contemplated the inevitable confrontation that would ensue with a ticket inspector, involving me squirming as I tried to explain that I was not in fact a common criminal intent on defrauding Transport for London but rather an honest, law- abiding citizen who had just absent mindedly forgotten to tap in after a day of having my brain infused with futile jargon.
It occurred to me that if I was fortunate enough to make it the ten stops to Lewisham national rail station, avoiding said inspectors, I would not need to swipe out at the other end and thus avoiding the disproportionate penalty fare.
The Gods smiled on me.
As we pulled into the station I noticed it was 5.26pm. My train was due to depart at 5.27 and missing it would involve a 30 minute wait on a crowded platform staring into space and trying to avoid the obligatory crack addict that inevitably finds his way to me and acts like I questioned his parentage when I refuse to part with £2 so he can “phone his nan in hospital”.
It was not a risk I was willing to take so with gusto and vigour I battled my way up the stairs, fighting my way through the crowds and got to the barriers catching sight of my train ready to depart. As I got to the platform the doors began to close and I feared than my heroic efforts had been in vain. Just as I was about to fall to my knees in despair, a spotty teenager stood aboard the train, saw my plight and shouted “Come on mate” before mustering up brutal strength to prise the doors open allowing me to join the party. A true hero and an act that has gone a long way to restore my somewhat lapsed faith in today’s youth.
So after a wretched day of mind- numbing, toe – curling obedience to the powers that be I had scored a small result.
Free travel and I made the early train against the odds. Victory for the ordinary man.
Fuck the system.
Today has been a good day for the People.
Sunday 15 August 2010
Hopeless sentimentality or dissatisfaction with present reality?
- Why my 30 year love affair with football looks set to end in tears.
In the subsequent weeks following England’s exit from the “Greatest Sporting event on Earth” I found myself assessing my relationship with the “beautiful game”, what it has meant to me throughout my life and what it means to me now.
Football and all it entails is so deeply embedded into my psyche and that of so many men who grew up in England in the same era that I quite honestly cannot envisage having lived my life without it’s existence.
I turned 30 last year a superficial yet significant milestone in a man’s life. Superficial in that it is only a relatively meaningless measurement of time but significant in that it can evoke an assessment of one’s life in general.
In the lottery of life I have been extremely lucky. I have always been relatively healthy. I’ve never lived in abject poverty or found myself homeless. I have never been directly affected by natural disasters, war or other great tragedy and I never suffered the atrocities of the labour camp in Siberia which my Polish grandmother and thousands like her endured. So to me these experiences are, gratefully, unknown.
However, just as the reality of these concepts are so alien to me as to be incomprehensible ,as they are to so many of my generation, so too are the expectations, ambitions and attitudes to life held by previous generations in this country or the more unfortunate in the world today.
Even as recently as my parent’s generation and circumstance, general expectation appeared to be to leave school, get a job or a trade, find a partner, get a mortgage, start a family and be content with that, anything else being a bonus for which hard work and sacrifice would be required. In essence whilst those foundations may not have transformed substantially over time, in recent years the desire and expectation to have more than that has appeared increasingly common. No longer are people content to have these things they want, in fact very often, demand, more. Ironically nowadays merely obtaining a job, a house and general security can be more challenging than ever in Britain’s current economical climate.
What in God’s name does the change in society have to do with the result of football match in South Africa you may be asking? At first glance absolutely nothing. However, spending the past few weeks thinking about this I have come to question whether my current discontent with the modern game is attributed to my general discontent with many things in modern society or whether it is merely a case of me personally getting older and more cynical, and perhaps even slightly bitter.
I look at how life has changed over the years and how so much importance is placed on financial success, celebrity and instant gratification and it seems to me that football has followed suit. No longer is football merely a past time of the working man, played by their equals in which for a few hours they could escape the constraints and monotony of their daily lives and an outlet for controlled aggression and pent up frustrations that this entailed. Now it is a billion pound machine, performed by millionaires, dictated by television broadcasters and sold down the river to the highest bidder. Through my eyes, ‘The beautiful game’ started to lose its looks many years ago and its attractiveness continues to deteriorate as each season passes. Regardless of how many expensive cosmetic makeovers are applied by the money men as they continue to polish up and further package the game to market, beyond the shiny aesthetics, for me, football circa 2010, is a mere shadow of it’s former self in terms of its appeal.
Gone is Match of The Day, replaced by “How the big 4 got on”, departed are posthumous knighthoods to real sporting achievers, superseded by OBEs for Beckham- mania, and long vanished are pay on the door everyman- priced tickets as they made way for 300 year waiting lists at £20k a pop (or so some flash Spurs fans would have you believe).
When I was a kid I seem to recall that admitting to being a football supporter was often looked down on with scorn by the literati, a hobby for thugs a pastime for oiks and those devoid of even the minutest grasp of intellect. Now it is dinner party conversation as to how the Arsenal are getting on and Z list celebrities and media luvvies clamour to get their “soccer” references in so as not to miss out on boarding the bandwagon that rolled into town some time in the late 1990s. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not an inverted snob with a chip on his shoulder, far from it, and for every Zoe Ball and Tim Lovejoy there is a Nick Hornby and Danny Baker, however the “gentrification” of the game over the past two decades has been a real turn off.
For years whenever I was introduced to new people of the male gender I would immediately, and seemingly subconsciously, steer the obligatory opening small talk around to “Which team do you support mate?” a process that had probably not changed for twenty years…. until recently.
I’ve sickened of hearing Johnny Come Lately esquire harping on about Liverpool, United or Chelsea despite being born and bred in Tunbridge Wells and having no interest in football until it became a must have fashion accessory. No longer do I wish to feign interest when they regurgitate second hand opinions derived from Sky Sports or Soccer Am. I refuse to entertain conversations with folk so plastic and clichéd that they make Fulham “supporting” Hugh Grant appear to be an ardent connoisseur of the game by comparison. I will no longer engage with those who would sooner recline in their lazy - boy, adorning their replica Chelsea strip in front of their 62” HD television watching SKY’s latest offering rather than actually going to the game or God forbid going down the road to Watford to watch their local team and give them some much- welcomed revenue. But they and their opinions seem to be everywhere these days and so upon meeting folk of a certain profile I no longer enquire as to who they “support” thus saving me from entertaining any banal chat about “how Torres is shit and not fit to lace Rooney’s boots” and other similar warbling of the armchair fan.
Whilst they may whittle away their soulless existences updating their Facebook status’s letting all and sundry know how pleased they are that they watched on ITV their chosen team of multinational mercenaries progress in the Champions League, I take comfort in the fact that I know they will never have the “real” experiences of the highs of seeing Chris Powell jumping out of the tunnel in post match celebration accompanied by the lows of being 3 -1 down to Barnsley on a cold afternoon in SE7.
Although I do despair of these morons, at least they are blissfully happy in their plastic bubble. Those I feel for are the fans of football, including those at the big clubs, who hate what football has become and what it has done to “their” clubs whether it be mass selling out at one end of the spectrum or financial ruin at the other.
Manchester United a club of fine footballing history and tradition, in recent years choosing to disregard the finest cup competition in club football to chase the money and now owned by dollar- thirsty businessmen prompting misguided yet well meaning supporters to don Norwich scarves in futile protest.
Players refusing to sign contracts unless their demands for an extra average national salary is added to their weekly pay packet.
Years of unabashed greed, flagrant exploitation and the ruthless attitude, of those who control the game, have nurtured the footballing monster which in turn has grown and grown and now stands morbidly obese and bloated, corrupt and overindulged, appearing somewhat repulsive to those who remember it in better shape. Modern football synonymous, perhaps, with modern day Britain, as is the increasing disillusionment many now have with both.
From my experience it wasn’t always like this. My first memory of going to a game was as a seven year old in 1987 to see The Football League v Rest of The World at “The” Wembley. I can remember that particular Saturday morning my dad telling me that we had to go shopping for something and reluctantly trudging out to his battered Ford Orion resenting the fact that I would miss Saint and Greavsie to do something that surely was one of my mum's many thankless duties. It was only when we got to the old Kingdom of Leather roundabout in Eltham that I sensed we weren’t going to Tescos. Still nothing prepared me for the excitement and complete awe I felt when we parked in the shadows of the original Twin Towers or later during the game the bemusement I felt when the short, stocky foreign guy kept getting booed every time he touched the ball followed by the expletitives that simultaneously rang out every time he glided past a hapless defender. My dad told me he was a chap called Maradonna who had cheated a few months previously to knock England out of the world cup and I remember wondering why he needed to cheat as he was quite clearly untouchable without doing so.
The next time I visited that magnificent arena was in 1998 for a game that some of you may recall when Charlton won a penalty shootout against Sunderland and a north eastern native named Clive Something- or- other had a reasonably good game. I still maintain that sun- kissed Monday to be the best day of my life so far much to my girlfriend’s disbelief and understandable resentment. I have never since felt so alive or experienced such a broad spectrum of emotions as I did in those few hours that day and regretfully don’t ever imagine I ever will again.
My third and hitherto only other game at the national stadium was a few years back to watch England versus Estonia the result of which I do not recall and, based on the experience, I’m in no hurry to rush back. Perhaps it was an anticlimax after my previous two visits but it just didn’t feel like Wembley. It was New Labour Wembley. New and “improved” Wembley. A fantastic feat of design and architecture costing ten times the GDP of a developing nation for the entire world to marvel at. But to be honest combined with the flat atmosphere and “fans” seemingly more interested in heading down fifteen minutes before half time to part with £4 for a watered down lager and a tepid hot dog it just felt very soulless. Without the iconic towers, the terrible view now eradicated and the sanitised appearance of the concourses I felt like I could have been at Bolton, Leicester or Man City or any of the numerous other out of town monstrosities that now plague the suburbs of many of our city’s landscapes.
Three decidedly different games over three very different decades, which somehow reflect to me the game’s changing status over the past thirty years.
I had a pretty turbulent childhood and family environment growing up, but other than that I would imagine my life so far has been rather average. I went to a number of schools, some good some bad, I’ve had a fair few jobs some enjoyable but most not. I’ve been in some good relationships with the fairer sex and entertained my fair share of wrong uns. I recently counted there are almost 20 different places that I have called home. Throughout all those experiences, transitional periods and often unsettling times the one sole constant has been football. In fact I can candidly recall that I was more distraught when Curbishley announced he was leaving than when my dad did. So integral was football, and in particular Charlton, to life and my general enjoyment of it.
As a youngster football was my life. If I wasn’t playing it, watching it or talking about it I was asleep and even then more often than not I’d be dreaming about it.
I remember one of my school reports said “Rodders needs to realise there is more to life than football”. As an football- obsessed eleven year old the teacher might as well have written “Rodders needs to realise there is more to live than breathing”. Whilst I may have been less blatant about my Panini sticker dealing in class thereafter it still didn’t curb my enthusiasm for anything to do with the game. Instead of paying attention to the lesson on ox- bow lakes or the feudal system I’d sit there planning how I could persuade the kid next to me whose mum ran a newsagents to swap me the Conventry City foily badge I so needed to complete that page of the album.
I was not a bad player when I was a kid and had trials for the District and Kent and even got offered a trial for Palace (the irony) after scoring 5 goals in the Cray Valley Schools final at Selhurst. However, I moved to Saudi Arabia the week after for two years and played less regularly than Ledley King whilst there and by the time I returned to England had lost any ability I might have had. Additionally I was quite a late developer and at 13 was one of the smallest in my year whilst some of my peers were already pushing 6 foot and sporting full moustaches. Unfortunately I never did regain any sense of footballing ability or playing regularly after being introduced to the evils of booze, cigarettes and women but at least I did eventually grow pubic hair.
I recall travelling to games on the train with my dad back in the late 80s and early 90s and the excitement of being a child amongst grown men packed into rattling train carriages drinking, chanting and making gestures at rival supporters on the platform. I remember one particular night game it actually “kicked off” in our carriage and the fear combined with perverse exhilaration as the scuffle ensued.
I fondly remember the journeys I’d make when I started going to the valley on my own as a 14 year old and the developing a sense of street- wiseness to replace any predisposed naivety. Although I attended many games in my early and mid teens unaccompanied a feeling of camaraderie would ensue from the moment I’d see the odd Charlton shirt dotted amongst the Arsenal, Chelsea, West Ham or Spurs tops lining up on platform one at Orpington station for the train into London even though we would exchange no more than a knowing nod. The feeling would be magnified at London Bridge with the appearance of even more addicks waiting for the train to The Valley. The hairs on the back of the neck would rise as we pulled into Charlton and I’d find myself being swept up and carried along by the sea of people making their way down the Floyd Road bottleneck excited in anticipation of the game but also wary of the presence of high numbers of seemingly giant skin headed men in their forties who talked like they were in Corrie and who rather than soaking up the cultural delights and ambience of Charlton village appeared to be swaggering round menacingly looking for anyone of an equal mindset.
At that age the atmosphere during games seemed to be electric. Hearing grown men frequently screaming at the ref, players being called all the names under the sun and the baiting of opposition supporters was normality at football and novelty as it wasn’t really present in any aspect other of society with such commonplace.
The outcome of a game would shape your whole weekend if not week. When we scored or won the feeling was akin to getting your first bmx at Christmas, only better. When you lost or the other team scored the slow motion horror of observing the ball hit the back of the net was abruptly burst by the distant yet chilling sound of the away support cheering. As the opponents turned to celebrate you would be overcome with the same heart- sinking feeling as when you opened your Christmas present and it wasn’t the bmx you had spent your whole year pining for but in fact a C&A jumper that your mum hoped you would love even though it resembled a Noel Edmonds starter kit.
Still the great thing about it regardless of the scorer or result was that you shared that particular emotion with thousands of others who you knew were feeling just the same as you at that moment. Hugging complete strangers and dancing up and down on the terraces when you scored enhanced the ecstasy. Seeing the shaking heads and disappointed faces when you conceded, diluted the misery. Whatever the feeling was you left the ground with a real sense of belonging and proud to be by the grace of God a Charlton fan before thumbing through the programme to find the fixtures list and work out when exactly you could next go through it all again.
Now whilst these aspects might not have changed over the course of time many other elements of going to football have. I ruptured a ligament in my knee in my early twenties which is a reoccurring injury meaning that I can’t even have a kick about in the park without it going and frustratingly means I can’t play. The last time it went last summer was during a kickabout in Regents Park and I remember crying when I went to bed as I realised it meant I will probably never ever be able to play again at any competitive standard. I can’t really remember more than one or two occasions in which I had been reduced to tears previous to that since I was a child.
It has been distressing seeing us fall down the league in the manner we have done so in the past few years but this has been softened by the sense of unity and solidarity you get when you go to the valley and see all the fans and drown your sorrows with your mates after (and increasingly so before) games.
I was looking forward to the World Cup with so much enthusiasm. A sabbatical from the frustrations of personally not being able to play and some welcome respite from the seemingly unending disappointment and heartbreak of following Charlton over recent years.
Perhaps, wisened from previous England campaigns or possibly due to a deep resentment of the obligatory media hype that precedes such occasions I was dubious about the team’s prospects in South Africa. Whilst having no realistic expectation of anything other than maybe reaching the second round or quarters before coming unstuck in heroic fashion against a better quality of opponent, inevitably in a penalty shoot out, I still secretly harboured hope that this would be our year. Ignoring the oft cynical, yet justifiable declarations from many friends who declared that they have no interest in the “overpaid prima donnas” I eagerly anticipated 4 weeks of top class football of which England would be my central focus. With military precision I planned everything from how I would start the inevitable negotiations with the missus who would soon find Hollyoaks and Eastenders no longer priority on the tv, worked out what pubs would be airing the games and even cultivated an array of infallible reasons as to why I would not be attending certain meetings at work during a select few weeks in June and July.
I was all set and anticipating the World Cup with the same enthusiasm as I have since I was a nipper, at the same time praying none of our key players would break a toe nail before they got on the plane.
My fantasy of England being crowned World Champions soon dissolved as an gaff against the USA, an impotent effort against Algeria and a nail biter with Slovenia sent me crashing back down to reality as we limped through to the second round to face the old enemy.
Just as the England team failed against the Germans twenty years ago so too did their predecessors in this year’s tournament. Unfortunately that is where the comparison ends in my eyes. The disparity between the courageous failure of Robson’s men in as they nobly crashed out of Italia 90 in an episode that still brings a tear to the eye of even the most hardened England supporter, and the whimpering performance of Cappellos’ boys signified how much in twenty years football has changed.
It is not so much a criticism of the individual players as disdain for modern football in general. I sense that there is an element of integrity and honesty when Jermaine Defoe claims that he is proud to pull on and England shirt and recalls how as a boy he like many of us was inconsolable after Waddle’s sudden death penalty narrowly missed the Mir Space station. Regardless of Terry’s and Cole’s indiscretions off the field I also believe that even they too hurt after what transpired to be a dismal campaign. There is more to it being down to individuals for my disdain for the current England team and many modern day footballers than their individual character flaws. Historically their have always been saints and rogues in football. For every Bobby Moore or Gary Lineker there was a Robin Friday or a Vinnie Jones. George Best’s antics in one weekend would most probably make the collective shenanigans of today’s supposed rogues look like a holiday with the Caravan Club by comparison. Yet today’s young pretenders seem to lack the character and charm of those who graced our tabloids before.
A phrase quoted in the excellent TV Series The Wire states “Don’t hate the player hate the game” regarding the police’s constant battle with drug dealers in Baltimore. Now, whilst in an obviously less sinister context, it can be applied to modern footballers as it is in fact the modern game of which they are products (in many senses) of which has some major bearing on the lifestyles of these ordinary working class men. After watching the moving Gazza’s Tears documentary recently my initial reaction was anger at how far removed the current crop of players were from the Butchers and the Pearces. It was only when I stopped to think that if they had been earning the money and enjoyed the celebrity that the players of today do I realised that it would have been unlikely if a troubled individual such as Gascoigne would have even managed to be in a state to get on the coach to Turin let alone run rings around opponents. It is the game that has changed since then and not those who partake in it.
I would liken my current feeling for modern football to be that of a middle aged man in a stale marriage that has long lost its spark. Waking up every morning and retiring every night next to his wife longing for her to return to the once beautiful bride who made him the happiest man in his life yet now confines him to an existence of frustration, disappointment and misery with Talking Head’s “Once In A Lifetime” stuck on loop within his internal monologue.
Unfortunately the spark in my relationship with football is harder to rekindle as its progression has been and continues to be so far out of my control it is not merely a case of visiting a marriage counsellor or popping down to the local Anne Summers to spice thing up. Equally, when all avenues have been exhausted in a marriage there is still some opportunity of meeting a new partner to share your journey through life with....unfortunately that prospect is not open to football supporters who cannot just go and "pull" another football club when the going gets too tough.
Perhaps this comes across as a bitter rant because the club I hold dear to my heart is going through a poor patch on and off the pitch. It’s not but I wish it was just that. I recall even when we reached the heady heights of the Premiership feeling that my love for the game was in demise. After the initial novelty of arriving in the top flight I soon witnessed first hand how the game had changed so much from the first time I set foot on the terraces of the Covered End. Amidst all the abba tributes, opera singers, “brought to you in association with”, “sponsored by” in “conjunction with”, stock market floating razz mattaz I felt complete disillusion.
Don’t get me wrong I’m sure lots of people enjoy the face painting, foam hand waving, all seater, mind your language “football experience” but for me it seemed a sad departure from the rawness and soulfulness of years gone by that made me fall in love with the game in the first place.
Sky changed the face of British football but for all of the billions of pounds they have brought I do not think they have made the game the slightest bit richer. The opposite in fact. As I sit hear in 2010 reading that some Arsenal season tickets will be selling for nigh on £2k and the papers are rife with transfer news of mediocre footballers signing multi million pound contracts I feel very disillusioned with the whole circus.
I don’t want to pay £30 a month so I can see the Big Four play out a two way title challenge. I don’t care which premiership footballer has been caught philandering with a Wag- wannabe in a Mayfair club and I cant get excited that England’s flops will soon be lavished with praise when they perform wonders in the Champions League.
Yes the game has changed for the better in many ways, the Kick Racism Out campaign spearheaded by Charlton is one of them, however for every great initiative there has been a multitude of additional implementations which have diluted the passion and left once roaring arenas into soulless, venues devoid of any atmosphere or fervour.
Karl Marx wrote that religion was the opiate of the masses. May years later, Bill Shankly aptly observed that football is like a religion and assured it beheld more importance than life or death. In an increasingly secular society, consumerism appears to be the number one form of substitute to spiritual fulfilment. It leaves me wondering where those football faithful whom Shankly’s rhetoric was aimed at are left to worship having being no doubt priced out or somehow excluded in other ways from their now gentrified places of worship.
I envisage that I will continue to go to Charlton for the rest of my life and look forward to the day when I take future generations of my family to The Valley and perhaps they too will rue the day they first pledged unfaltering allegiance to the little club in a forgotten corner of South East London. It’s a significant part of my history, it’s a substantial part of my life and it’s a fundamental part of me. However, when I look back to those younger days the game seemed purer, organic almost. When I look at it now it appears plastic, gold plated even and I struggle to relate to many aspects of its modern form.
Unless football does truly implode and those in control of the game really get back to basics and instead of understanding the cost of everything but start to actually embrace the true value of the game I cannot see things changing. Money will continue to talk. Clubs with histories richer than a multitude of billionaire chairmen will fold without a passing thought from the Big Boy obsessed media. The Ramseys, Cloughs and ,closer to home, Curbishleys will be consigned to folklore as clubs continue the reloving door policies of hiring and firing “Special Ones” in search of elusive, yet essential success.
Whether it is no better or worse than it has ever been and maybe I am looking through rose- tinted spectacles and longing for an era when football seemed better because maybe the world around me in general seemed better I’m still not 100% sure but what I do know is that I don’t feel the same way about football as I did. I still love and will no doubt always love the game but now it is tainted love and with a heavy heart. I don’t know if my relationship with football will ever get back to the heady highs of days gone by although I truly hope it does. But as the game is now with each Sky advert I see, each FIFA/ FA initiative that further dilutes the spirit of football or each story of the next club of many facing financial meltdown it just leaves me thinking …"Please can I have my football back mister?.”
In the subsequent weeks following England’s exit from the “Greatest Sporting event on Earth” I found myself assessing my relationship with the “beautiful game”, what it has meant to me throughout my life and what it means to me now.
Football and all it entails is so deeply embedded into my psyche and that of so many men who grew up in England in the same era that I quite honestly cannot envisage having lived my life without it’s existence.
I turned 30 last year a superficial yet significant milestone in a man’s life. Superficial in that it is only a relatively meaningless measurement of time but significant in that it can evoke an assessment of one’s life in general.
In the lottery of life I have been extremely lucky. I have always been relatively healthy. I’ve never lived in abject poverty or found myself homeless. I have never been directly affected by natural disasters, war or other great tragedy and I never suffered the atrocities of the labour camp in Siberia which my Polish grandmother and thousands like her endured. So to me these experiences are, gratefully, unknown.
However, just as the reality of these concepts are so alien to me as to be incomprehensible ,as they are to so many of my generation, so too are the expectations, ambitions and attitudes to life held by previous generations in this country or the more unfortunate in the world today.
Even as recently as my parent’s generation and circumstance, general expectation appeared to be to leave school, get a job or a trade, find a partner, get a mortgage, start a family and be content with that, anything else being a bonus for which hard work and sacrifice would be required. In essence whilst those foundations may not have transformed substantially over time, in recent years the desire and expectation to have more than that has appeared increasingly common. No longer are people content to have these things they want, in fact very often, demand, more. Ironically nowadays merely obtaining a job, a house and general security can be more challenging than ever in Britain’s current economical climate.
What in God’s name does the change in society have to do with the result of football match in South Africa you may be asking? At first glance absolutely nothing. However, spending the past few weeks thinking about this I have come to question whether my current discontent with the modern game is attributed to my general discontent with many things in modern society or whether it is merely a case of me personally getting older and more cynical, and perhaps even slightly bitter.
I look at how life has changed over the years and how so much importance is placed on financial success, celebrity and instant gratification and it seems to me that football has followed suit. No longer is football merely a past time of the working man, played by their equals in which for a few hours they could escape the constraints and monotony of their daily lives and an outlet for controlled aggression and pent up frustrations that this entailed. Now it is a billion pound machine, performed by millionaires, dictated by television broadcasters and sold down the river to the highest bidder. Through my eyes, ‘The beautiful game’ started to lose its looks many years ago and its attractiveness continues to deteriorate as each season passes. Regardless of how many expensive cosmetic makeovers are applied by the money men as they continue to polish up and further package the game to market, beyond the shiny aesthetics, for me, football circa 2010, is a mere shadow of it’s former self in terms of its appeal.
Gone is Match of The Day, replaced by “How the big 4 got on”, departed are posthumous knighthoods to real sporting achievers, superseded by OBEs for Beckham- mania, and long vanished are pay on the door everyman- priced tickets as they made way for 300 year waiting lists at £20k a pop (or so some flash Spurs fans would have you believe).
When I was a kid I seem to recall that admitting to being a football supporter was often looked down on with scorn by the literati, a hobby for thugs a pastime for oiks and those devoid of even the minutest grasp of intellect. Now it is dinner party conversation as to how the Arsenal are getting on and Z list celebrities and media luvvies clamour to get their “soccer” references in so as not to miss out on boarding the bandwagon that rolled into town some time in the late 1990s. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not an inverted snob with a chip on his shoulder, far from it, and for every Zoe Ball and Tim Lovejoy there is a Nick Hornby and Danny Baker, however the “gentrification” of the game over the past two decades has been a real turn off.
For years whenever I was introduced to new people of the male gender I would immediately, and seemingly subconsciously, steer the obligatory opening small talk around to “Which team do you support mate?” a process that had probably not changed for twenty years…. until recently.
I’ve sickened of hearing Johnny Come Lately esquire harping on about Liverpool, United or Chelsea despite being born and bred in Tunbridge Wells and having no interest in football until it became a must have fashion accessory. No longer do I wish to feign interest when they regurgitate second hand opinions derived from Sky Sports or Soccer Am. I refuse to entertain conversations with folk so plastic and clichéd that they make Fulham “supporting” Hugh Grant appear to be an ardent connoisseur of the game by comparison. I will no longer engage with those who would sooner recline in their lazy - boy, adorning their replica Chelsea strip in front of their 62” HD television watching SKY’s latest offering rather than actually going to the game or God forbid going down the road to Watford to watch their local team and give them some much- welcomed revenue. But they and their opinions seem to be everywhere these days and so upon meeting folk of a certain profile I no longer enquire as to who they “support” thus saving me from entertaining any banal chat about “how Torres is shit and not fit to lace Rooney’s boots” and other similar warbling of the armchair fan.
Whilst they may whittle away their soulless existences updating their Facebook status’s letting all and sundry know how pleased they are that they watched on ITV their chosen team of multinational mercenaries progress in the Champions League, I take comfort in the fact that I know they will never have the “real” experiences of the highs of seeing Chris Powell jumping out of the tunnel in post match celebration accompanied by the lows of being 3 -1 down to Barnsley on a cold afternoon in SE7.
Although I do despair of these morons, at least they are blissfully happy in their plastic bubble. Those I feel for are the fans of football, including those at the big clubs, who hate what football has become and what it has done to “their” clubs whether it be mass selling out at one end of the spectrum or financial ruin at the other.
Manchester United a club of fine footballing history and tradition, in recent years choosing to disregard the finest cup competition in club football to chase the money and now owned by dollar- thirsty businessmen prompting misguided yet well meaning supporters to don Norwich scarves in futile protest.
Players refusing to sign contracts unless their demands for an extra average national salary is added to their weekly pay packet.
Years of unabashed greed, flagrant exploitation and the ruthless attitude, of those who control the game, have nurtured the footballing monster which in turn has grown and grown and now stands morbidly obese and bloated, corrupt and overindulged, appearing somewhat repulsive to those who remember it in better shape. Modern football synonymous, perhaps, with modern day Britain, as is the increasing disillusionment many now have with both.
From my experience it wasn’t always like this. My first memory of going to a game was as a seven year old in 1987 to see The Football League v Rest of The World at “The” Wembley. I can remember that particular Saturday morning my dad telling me that we had to go shopping for something and reluctantly trudging out to his battered Ford Orion resenting the fact that I would miss Saint and Greavsie to do something that surely was one of my mum's many thankless duties. It was only when we got to the old Kingdom of Leather roundabout in Eltham that I sensed we weren’t going to Tescos. Still nothing prepared me for the excitement and complete awe I felt when we parked in the shadows of the original Twin Towers or later during the game the bemusement I felt when the short, stocky foreign guy kept getting booed every time he touched the ball followed by the expletitives that simultaneously rang out every time he glided past a hapless defender. My dad told me he was a chap called Maradonna who had cheated a few months previously to knock England out of the world cup and I remember wondering why he needed to cheat as he was quite clearly untouchable without doing so.
The next time I visited that magnificent arena was in 1998 for a game that some of you may recall when Charlton won a penalty shootout against Sunderland and a north eastern native named Clive Something- or- other had a reasonably good game. I still maintain that sun- kissed Monday to be the best day of my life so far much to my girlfriend’s disbelief and understandable resentment. I have never since felt so alive or experienced such a broad spectrum of emotions as I did in those few hours that day and regretfully don’t ever imagine I ever will again.
My third and hitherto only other game at the national stadium was a few years back to watch England versus Estonia the result of which I do not recall and, based on the experience, I’m in no hurry to rush back. Perhaps it was an anticlimax after my previous two visits but it just didn’t feel like Wembley. It was New Labour Wembley. New and “improved” Wembley. A fantastic feat of design and architecture costing ten times the GDP of a developing nation for the entire world to marvel at. But to be honest combined with the flat atmosphere and “fans” seemingly more interested in heading down fifteen minutes before half time to part with £4 for a watered down lager and a tepid hot dog it just felt very soulless. Without the iconic towers, the terrible view now eradicated and the sanitised appearance of the concourses I felt like I could have been at Bolton, Leicester or Man City or any of the numerous other out of town monstrosities that now plague the suburbs of many of our city’s landscapes.
Three decidedly different games over three very different decades, which somehow reflect to me the game’s changing status over the past thirty years.
I had a pretty turbulent childhood and family environment growing up, but other than that I would imagine my life so far has been rather average. I went to a number of schools, some good some bad, I’ve had a fair few jobs some enjoyable but most not. I’ve been in some good relationships with the fairer sex and entertained my fair share of wrong uns. I recently counted there are almost 20 different places that I have called home. Throughout all those experiences, transitional periods and often unsettling times the one sole constant has been football. In fact I can candidly recall that I was more distraught when Curbishley announced he was leaving than when my dad did. So integral was football, and in particular Charlton, to life and my general enjoyment of it.
As a youngster football was my life. If I wasn’t playing it, watching it or talking about it I was asleep and even then more often than not I’d be dreaming about it.
I remember one of my school reports said “Rodders needs to realise there is more to life than football”. As an football- obsessed eleven year old the teacher might as well have written “Rodders needs to realise there is more to live than breathing”. Whilst I may have been less blatant about my Panini sticker dealing in class thereafter it still didn’t curb my enthusiasm for anything to do with the game. Instead of paying attention to the lesson on ox- bow lakes or the feudal system I’d sit there planning how I could persuade the kid next to me whose mum ran a newsagents to swap me the Conventry City foily badge I so needed to complete that page of the album.
I was not a bad player when I was a kid and had trials for the District and Kent and even got offered a trial for Palace (the irony) after scoring 5 goals in the Cray Valley Schools final at Selhurst. However, I moved to Saudi Arabia the week after for two years and played less regularly than Ledley King whilst there and by the time I returned to England had lost any ability I might have had. Additionally I was quite a late developer and at 13 was one of the smallest in my year whilst some of my peers were already pushing 6 foot and sporting full moustaches. Unfortunately I never did regain any sense of footballing ability or playing regularly after being introduced to the evils of booze, cigarettes and women but at least I did eventually grow pubic hair.
I recall travelling to games on the train with my dad back in the late 80s and early 90s and the excitement of being a child amongst grown men packed into rattling train carriages drinking, chanting and making gestures at rival supporters on the platform. I remember one particular night game it actually “kicked off” in our carriage and the fear combined with perverse exhilaration as the scuffle ensued.
I fondly remember the journeys I’d make when I started going to the valley on my own as a 14 year old and the developing a sense of street- wiseness to replace any predisposed naivety. Although I attended many games in my early and mid teens unaccompanied a feeling of camaraderie would ensue from the moment I’d see the odd Charlton shirt dotted amongst the Arsenal, Chelsea, West Ham or Spurs tops lining up on platform one at Orpington station for the train into London even though we would exchange no more than a knowing nod. The feeling would be magnified at London Bridge with the appearance of even more addicks waiting for the train to The Valley. The hairs on the back of the neck would rise as we pulled into Charlton and I’d find myself being swept up and carried along by the sea of people making their way down the Floyd Road bottleneck excited in anticipation of the game but also wary of the presence of high numbers of seemingly giant skin headed men in their forties who talked like they were in Corrie and who rather than soaking up the cultural delights and ambience of Charlton village appeared to be swaggering round menacingly looking for anyone of an equal mindset.
At that age the atmosphere during games seemed to be electric. Hearing grown men frequently screaming at the ref, players being called all the names under the sun and the baiting of opposition supporters was normality at football and novelty as it wasn’t really present in any aspect other of society with such commonplace.
The outcome of a game would shape your whole weekend if not week. When we scored or won the feeling was akin to getting your first bmx at Christmas, only better. When you lost or the other team scored the slow motion horror of observing the ball hit the back of the net was abruptly burst by the distant yet chilling sound of the away support cheering. As the opponents turned to celebrate you would be overcome with the same heart- sinking feeling as when you opened your Christmas present and it wasn’t the bmx you had spent your whole year pining for but in fact a C&A jumper that your mum hoped you would love even though it resembled a Noel Edmonds starter kit.
Still the great thing about it regardless of the scorer or result was that you shared that particular emotion with thousands of others who you knew were feeling just the same as you at that moment. Hugging complete strangers and dancing up and down on the terraces when you scored enhanced the ecstasy. Seeing the shaking heads and disappointed faces when you conceded, diluted the misery. Whatever the feeling was you left the ground with a real sense of belonging and proud to be by the grace of God a Charlton fan before thumbing through the programme to find the fixtures list and work out when exactly you could next go through it all again.
Now whilst these aspects might not have changed over the course of time many other elements of going to football have. I ruptured a ligament in my knee in my early twenties which is a reoccurring injury meaning that I can’t even have a kick about in the park without it going and frustratingly means I can’t play. The last time it went last summer was during a kickabout in Regents Park and I remember crying when I went to bed as I realised it meant I will probably never ever be able to play again at any competitive standard. I can’t really remember more than one or two occasions in which I had been reduced to tears previous to that since I was a child.
It has been distressing seeing us fall down the league in the manner we have done so in the past few years but this has been softened by the sense of unity and solidarity you get when you go to the valley and see all the fans and drown your sorrows with your mates after (and increasingly so before) games.
I was looking forward to the World Cup with so much enthusiasm. A sabbatical from the frustrations of personally not being able to play and some welcome respite from the seemingly unending disappointment and heartbreak of following Charlton over recent years.
Perhaps, wisened from previous England campaigns or possibly due to a deep resentment of the obligatory media hype that precedes such occasions I was dubious about the team’s prospects in South Africa. Whilst having no realistic expectation of anything other than maybe reaching the second round or quarters before coming unstuck in heroic fashion against a better quality of opponent, inevitably in a penalty shoot out, I still secretly harboured hope that this would be our year. Ignoring the oft cynical, yet justifiable declarations from many friends who declared that they have no interest in the “overpaid prima donnas” I eagerly anticipated 4 weeks of top class football of which England would be my central focus. With military precision I planned everything from how I would start the inevitable negotiations with the missus who would soon find Hollyoaks and Eastenders no longer priority on the tv, worked out what pubs would be airing the games and even cultivated an array of infallible reasons as to why I would not be attending certain meetings at work during a select few weeks in June and July.
I was all set and anticipating the World Cup with the same enthusiasm as I have since I was a nipper, at the same time praying none of our key players would break a toe nail before they got on the plane.
My fantasy of England being crowned World Champions soon dissolved as an gaff against the USA, an impotent effort against Algeria and a nail biter with Slovenia sent me crashing back down to reality as we limped through to the second round to face the old enemy.
Just as the England team failed against the Germans twenty years ago so too did their predecessors in this year’s tournament. Unfortunately that is where the comparison ends in my eyes. The disparity between the courageous failure of Robson’s men in as they nobly crashed out of Italia 90 in an episode that still brings a tear to the eye of even the most hardened England supporter, and the whimpering performance of Cappellos’ boys signified how much in twenty years football has changed.
It is not so much a criticism of the individual players as disdain for modern football in general. I sense that there is an element of integrity and honesty when Jermaine Defoe claims that he is proud to pull on and England shirt and recalls how as a boy he like many of us was inconsolable after Waddle’s sudden death penalty narrowly missed the Mir Space station. Regardless of Terry’s and Cole’s indiscretions off the field I also believe that even they too hurt after what transpired to be a dismal campaign. There is more to it being down to individuals for my disdain for the current England team and many modern day footballers than their individual character flaws. Historically their have always been saints and rogues in football. For every Bobby Moore or Gary Lineker there was a Robin Friday or a Vinnie Jones. George Best’s antics in one weekend would most probably make the collective shenanigans of today’s supposed rogues look like a holiday with the Caravan Club by comparison. Yet today’s young pretenders seem to lack the character and charm of those who graced our tabloids before.
A phrase quoted in the excellent TV Series The Wire states “Don’t hate the player hate the game” regarding the police’s constant battle with drug dealers in Baltimore. Now, whilst in an obviously less sinister context, it can be applied to modern footballers as it is in fact the modern game of which they are products (in many senses) of which has some major bearing on the lifestyles of these ordinary working class men. After watching the moving Gazza’s Tears documentary recently my initial reaction was anger at how far removed the current crop of players were from the Butchers and the Pearces. It was only when I stopped to think that if they had been earning the money and enjoyed the celebrity that the players of today do I realised that it would have been unlikely if a troubled individual such as Gascoigne would have even managed to be in a state to get on the coach to Turin let alone run rings around opponents. It is the game that has changed since then and not those who partake in it.
I would liken my current feeling for modern football to be that of a middle aged man in a stale marriage that has long lost its spark. Waking up every morning and retiring every night next to his wife longing for her to return to the once beautiful bride who made him the happiest man in his life yet now confines him to an existence of frustration, disappointment and misery with Talking Head’s “Once In A Lifetime” stuck on loop within his internal monologue.
Unfortunately the spark in my relationship with football is harder to rekindle as its progression has been and continues to be so far out of my control it is not merely a case of visiting a marriage counsellor or popping down to the local Anne Summers to spice thing up. Equally, when all avenues have been exhausted in a marriage there is still some opportunity of meeting a new partner to share your journey through life with....unfortunately that prospect is not open to football supporters who cannot just go and "pull" another football club when the going gets too tough.
Perhaps this comes across as a bitter rant because the club I hold dear to my heart is going through a poor patch on and off the pitch. It’s not but I wish it was just that. I recall even when we reached the heady heights of the Premiership feeling that my love for the game was in demise. After the initial novelty of arriving in the top flight I soon witnessed first hand how the game had changed so much from the first time I set foot on the terraces of the Covered End. Amidst all the abba tributes, opera singers, “brought to you in association with”, “sponsored by” in “conjunction with”, stock market floating razz mattaz I felt complete disillusion.
Don’t get me wrong I’m sure lots of people enjoy the face painting, foam hand waving, all seater, mind your language “football experience” but for me it seemed a sad departure from the rawness and soulfulness of years gone by that made me fall in love with the game in the first place.
Sky changed the face of British football but for all of the billions of pounds they have brought I do not think they have made the game the slightest bit richer. The opposite in fact. As I sit hear in 2010 reading that some Arsenal season tickets will be selling for nigh on £2k and the papers are rife with transfer news of mediocre footballers signing multi million pound contracts I feel very disillusioned with the whole circus.
I don’t want to pay £30 a month so I can see the Big Four play out a two way title challenge. I don’t care which premiership footballer has been caught philandering with a Wag- wannabe in a Mayfair club and I cant get excited that England’s flops will soon be lavished with praise when they perform wonders in the Champions League.
Yes the game has changed for the better in many ways, the Kick Racism Out campaign spearheaded by Charlton is one of them, however for every great initiative there has been a multitude of additional implementations which have diluted the passion and left once roaring arenas into soulless, venues devoid of any atmosphere or fervour.
Karl Marx wrote that religion was the opiate of the masses. May years later, Bill Shankly aptly observed that football is like a religion and assured it beheld more importance than life or death. In an increasingly secular society, consumerism appears to be the number one form of substitute to spiritual fulfilment. It leaves me wondering where those football faithful whom Shankly’s rhetoric was aimed at are left to worship having being no doubt priced out or somehow excluded in other ways from their now gentrified places of worship.
I envisage that I will continue to go to Charlton for the rest of my life and look forward to the day when I take future generations of my family to The Valley and perhaps they too will rue the day they first pledged unfaltering allegiance to the little club in a forgotten corner of South East London. It’s a significant part of my history, it’s a substantial part of my life and it’s a fundamental part of me. However, when I look back to those younger days the game seemed purer, organic almost. When I look at it now it appears plastic, gold plated even and I struggle to relate to many aspects of its modern form.
Unless football does truly implode and those in control of the game really get back to basics and instead of understanding the cost of everything but start to actually embrace the true value of the game I cannot see things changing. Money will continue to talk. Clubs with histories richer than a multitude of billionaire chairmen will fold without a passing thought from the Big Boy obsessed media. The Ramseys, Cloughs and ,closer to home, Curbishleys will be consigned to folklore as clubs continue the reloving door policies of hiring and firing “Special Ones” in search of elusive, yet essential success.
Whether it is no better or worse than it has ever been and maybe I am looking through rose- tinted spectacles and longing for an era when football seemed better because maybe the world around me in general seemed better I’m still not 100% sure but what I do know is that I don’t feel the same way about football as I did. I still love and will no doubt always love the game but now it is tainted love and with a heavy heart. I don’t know if my relationship with football will ever get back to the heady highs of days gone by although I truly hope it does. But as the game is now with each Sky advert I see, each FIFA/ FA initiative that further dilutes the spirit of football or each story of the next club of many facing financial meltdown it just leaves me thinking …"Please can I have my football back mister?.”
Charlton Athletic.... music to my ears
Something overly sentimental I made to reaffirm why I have let this football club rule my emotions for nearly three decades.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT3ny7T2B1k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT3ny7T2B1k
Not so rosey school days.
"One of the earliest memories of my childhood which I can still recall with a semblance of detail is when during my first week at primary school I was sent to the headmaster for “petulance”. Our teacher had asked us to each bring in some rose buds for the next day’s class. I informed my mother of this when I returned home and although evidently perplexed she assumed they must be for a nature project or something of that ilk. Luckily, our garden at the time harboured a solitary rose bush tucked away amongst the bushes and even more fortuitously it indeed did have some available buds that had not yet bloomed. Where my classmates who resided in blocks of flats and other gardenless homes would be sourcing theirs from was a mystery but not one I pondered as a five year old.
The next morning my mum woke me up earlier than usual and went out to the garden to acquire the items necessary for my project. After observing her clip and then delicately wrap the buds in cling film before carefully placing them in the pocket of my duffel coat I headed off to school proud of my haul.
It was a Roman Catholic school and so after the calling of the register we embarked upon the daily recital of obligatory Morning Prayer. This predominantly consisted of asking the Lord to forgive us for the “sins” we had committed since the previous morning’s ritual… a bizarre concept for a young child and one that no doubt often encourages its participants to develop and nurture an unwarranted guilt complex throughout their lives.
What happened in the next ten minutes gave me my first real insight into how experiences in life are not merely confined to feeding ducks in the park and watching the Flumps on the magic little box in the living room.
The teacher asked us to all get out our rose buds and place them on our desks. Excitedly I fumbled in my coat pocket for mine hoping they wouldn’t get too damaged by the in-dexterity of my clumsy five year old fingers. I retrieved them and put them on the desk admiring them blissfully unaware of the children sat next to me trying to stifle their giggles.
My pride at my offerings was abruptly ended when the teacher stormed over and shouted “What is the meaning of this boy?!!” I looked up to see the face of the stout middle aged woman contorting with a mixture of anger and confusion. “My rose buds miss” I meekly replied, daunted as to what had provoked her outburst. “Get out. Get out now. Go to see the headmaster” she continued grabbing my prized rose buds up in one swift movement and crushing them in her meaty hands.
It was only as I left my desk and walked furtively to the door and she said to the other pupils “Right, has anyone else not brought in their “Rosary Beads” that I noticed that my fellow classmates were holding up crucifixes on elegantly decorated chains and not in fact the colourful flowers as I had unwittingly brought to the party.
From what I understand of modern schools had this incident occurred today I would have been held up as some sort of frustrated genius, examined for symptoms of Attention Deficiency Disorder or at the very least been offered a hearing test
Unfortunately for me this was High Wycombe in 1984 and the education system was still somewhat Dickensian so off to the headmaster I trudged."
The next morning my mum woke me up earlier than usual and went out to the garden to acquire the items necessary for my project. After observing her clip and then delicately wrap the buds in cling film before carefully placing them in the pocket of my duffel coat I headed off to school proud of my haul.
It was a Roman Catholic school and so after the calling of the register we embarked upon the daily recital of obligatory Morning Prayer. This predominantly consisted of asking the Lord to forgive us for the “sins” we had committed since the previous morning’s ritual… a bizarre concept for a young child and one that no doubt often encourages its participants to develop and nurture an unwarranted guilt complex throughout their lives.
What happened in the next ten minutes gave me my first real insight into how experiences in life are not merely confined to feeding ducks in the park and watching the Flumps on the magic little box in the living room.
The teacher asked us to all get out our rose buds and place them on our desks. Excitedly I fumbled in my coat pocket for mine hoping they wouldn’t get too damaged by the in-dexterity of my clumsy five year old fingers. I retrieved them and put them on the desk admiring them blissfully unaware of the children sat next to me trying to stifle their giggles.
My pride at my offerings was abruptly ended when the teacher stormed over and shouted “What is the meaning of this boy?!!” I looked up to see the face of the stout middle aged woman contorting with a mixture of anger and confusion. “My rose buds miss” I meekly replied, daunted as to what had provoked her outburst. “Get out. Get out now. Go to see the headmaster” she continued grabbing my prized rose buds up in one swift movement and crushing them in her meaty hands.
It was only as I left my desk and walked furtively to the door and she said to the other pupils “Right, has anyone else not brought in their “Rosary Beads” that I noticed that my fellow classmates were holding up crucifixes on elegantly decorated chains and not in fact the colourful flowers as I had unwittingly brought to the party.
From what I understand of modern schools had this incident occurred today I would have been held up as some sort of frustrated genius, examined for symptoms of Attention Deficiency Disorder or at the very least been offered a hearing test
Unfortunately for me this was High Wycombe in 1984 and the education system was still somewhat Dickensian so off to the headmaster I trudged."
rather than
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