The death of football

[radge]

Word nebs its its totally insane. it aint gonna die but maybe its gonna have to rethink whats most imprtant...wishful thinking that though.

[dwad]

Although football has died many times before and this is by no means the definitive mortal blow, I do feel it marks a spectacular new low. This isn't spiralling capitalism, or the first million pound player or high wages. This is so inflated it no longer really bears any relation to reality. For one billionaire to offer that much for one man, particularly during the current financial climate realy sticks in the craw. It is precisley the kind of guys that will pay his wage that are facing redundancy. It just feels really wrong. I'd like to see Kaka make the move and offer his cut to people being made redundant in the area in a massive show of two fingers to the money that he doesn't need.

I hate football. I really really hate it.

[radge]

love the game hate the business.

[dwad]

Love the sinner hate the sin. I kind of do, I still like playing, but actually I don't like going to games any more. Apart from the constant whinging, play-acting and abuse from players, I've found that the angry hostility in the stands just makes the whole thing ugly. I'm a former Everton season ticket holder and this Christmas I turned down free tickets to see them play Chelsea and watched Harry Potter on tele at home instead - that's just how far football has fallen on my radar. Funnily enough I saw an article in the Times this morning about how Everton Liverpool derbies used to be a fun family affair and have gone sour - I kind of see this as indicative of all football.

[radge]

Do you not think it just might have something to do with the fact youve mellowed with age, and cant be bothered with the whole banter of the thing and think some things in life are more important to you rather than football?

[dwad]

Nah, I remember the "banter" fondly. What's getting worse is the proper abuse. Like angry, red-faced, spittle flying obscenity that leaves me (at 6'5") physically afraid. I can handle the references to the adjudicator's pechant for onanism and the like, but some of the stuff people shout is prett sick. I wouldn't take a kid under 16 to a football match any more.

[radge]

i have never been to a football match but seeing as how the clientel of a game is now much more middle class than working, i would have thought that brought a little bit more of a gentile approach gone are the pies and bovril, bring in prawn snadwishes and cups of free trade tea? Are you sure you just havent got the rose tinted glasses on? Im not convinced it could have gotten worse, just that you have changed. But then again, i havent been to a game so what do i know?

[dwad]

Try going. In fairness the lower leagues are better. I've been to some good games at Hereford. But particularly in the premier league I do think things have got worse. It may be rose-tinted spectacles, but I remember being abused as a 10 year old by Millwall fans but somehow it was still good-natured "banter" - it feels much more like angry abuse now.

[radge]

hmmmm i get ya, i cant speak from experience but i think it might have more to do with what youu see is acceptable and how you feel to things now. When you were ten it was all part and parcel or the game, you took the abuse well so the banter was just that, banter. Now you stay quiet and think what a bunch of morons are standing around me? And the more it happens the more you find it obnoxious and degrading If you got involved or if you could be bothered getting involved (maybe you have just evolved my good man, be proud then you might still enjoy the "banter" maybe... talk about something, im bored, but i think there could be a bit of rose tinted glasses going on here

[dwad]

Nah, I don't think so. I'm actually pretty tolerant. I'm happy with f'ing and blinding. To give you an actual example at the last game I went to, within hearing distance, a "fan" told the ref he would f'ing r*pe his wife and hang his kids, the bstrd nctus. Not in a jocular banter way but in a screaming red faced angry way. That's not banter. It's sick.

Just to compare the last rugby match I went to an opposition fan bought me a pint. Football is just getting nasty.

[radge]

i stand corrected by your own personal experience dwad, but one other thing, was that just one guy? or is it just a minority that take it that far? Its always been an agry game from the supporters point of view. The majority dont live and die with their team, they just enjoy their team and support them, but as with everything in life, theres always a fundamentalist that takes it too far

[dwad]

Jan 19, 2009 12:42:12 GMT radge said:

i stand corrected by your own personal experience dwad, but one other thing, was that just one guy? or is it just a minority that take it that far? Its always been an agry game from the supporters point of view. The majority dont live and die with their team, they just enjoy their team and support them, but as with everything in life, theres always a fundamentalist that takes it too far

No, I think it's a shift in culture. You should read Oliver Kay's column on it in the Times today. Here is a selcted highlight:

What changed? Society changed. Football terrace culture changed... While Heysel remains a highly complex issue, it alone does not explain the way that the rivalry has sunk so far into the gutter that even the ultimate taboo, Hillsborough, has been broken while Steven Gerrard and Phil Neville, two of the nicest footballers you could wish to meet, are subjected to vile, hurtful chants about their young offspring.

The poisoning of the Merseyside rivalry is one of the most depressing developments of the modern era, but it is a microcosm of what is happening elsewhere. Supporters can sit in safety and comfort in all-seater, smoke-free stadiums without fear of being charged by hooligans, but in another sense the atmosphere is more rancorous than in the 1980s. Where once there were generic threats of violence, which might just occasionally be carried out, these days the idiots compose and belt out horrific and deeply personal chants at individuals. Sticks and stones? Try talking to Gerrard, Neville, Sol Campbell, Arsène Wenger and Mido.

Merseyside Police will be out in force this evening, having made clear their intention to clamp down on and eject anyone they find guilty of what they call “criminal chanting”. If the threats from the police have their intended effect, it could be the best thing that has happened to Merseyside football since the 1980s. If they do not — and if the type of poisonous atmosphere, compounded by squabbles with the police, that some fear, is witnessed tonight — you might be advised to avert your gaze and indeed your ears.

[radge]

i'd prefere sticks and stones to violence anyday. I dont get offended by words and names, and if i was Campbell Wenger Gerrard etc, it wouldnt bother me cause you know that they are a bunch of muppets, or they are just getting alot of pent up anger off their chests
I have a hard time with this criminal chanting thing too. thats total bollocks. freedom of speech in all forms, whether it be nasty or lovely. its should be respected. I read the Times i like it. But i have to say the guy writing, he sounds like he's changed and grown up a bit too.
Culture constantly shifts, its doesnt stay still, and i think you need to look no further than the media we are fed, to find out why or where the viles chanting comes from. But yeah, each unto their own.

[dwad]

I am pro free speech in all forms - don't get me wrong - but I can also see that goading Phil Neville about his daughter (who was born physically disabled) is about as low as a human can possibly go. Throw in a few four letter obscenities about her and hey presto, you have an atmosphere that children should probably be banned from. Go football. Yey!

[radge]

yup i get you there,there is nae need, but for some there seems to be. but then again i wouldnt have taken my kid to a football match back in the good old days either, if i was that worried about what they were gonna hear. When i have kids, they can be subjected to any kind of language and obsenities and it wont bother me because im gonna be doing the raising and they will know what the crack is.

[dwad]

Jan 19, 2009 13:06:51 GMT radge said:

yup i get you there,there is nae need, but for some there seems to be. but then again i wouldnt have taken my kid to a football match back in the good old days either, if i was that worried about what they were gonna hear. When i have kids, they can be subjected to any kind of language and obsenities and it wont bother me because im gonna be doing the raising and they will know what the crack is.

In the good old days, little jonny would have come home and asked what a w@nker was or got told off for repeating a swear word. In the brave new world he would ask why Phil Neville's five-year old daughter was f'ing cripple btch with a cnut wohore mother. And let's be aware that while it is only "some people" it is far from one off - it is regular enough to be a well-known problem talked about in national news-papers.

I'm beginning to think you have misplaced your own rose-tinted spectacles - try actually going to a game.

[radge]

Im saying Good old days because thats what it always seems to be the case. just an expression. Um but im wondering how many of the people doing the chanting, would have been smashing heads back in the 80's? the fundamentalists are there and always will be. I just think its a simple fact of life, we all have the choice in how we want to approach things, and verbal abuse from the stands is alot better than physical abuse in the stands. You wont ever be able to make a big bunch of people act in a 100% civilised manner. Like they said in Jurassic Park...Nature finds a way!! and the nature of the beast is if im not smashing heads then im gonna get verbally evil.
but as this all seems Dwad, I dont care about it because thats how ive always expected football to be, you do care cause you now feel alienated by the morons around you when youre at a game. Which is a change.

[dwad]

Jan 19, 2009 13:19:52 GMT radge said:

the beast is if im not smashing heads then im gonna get verbally evil.

Don't believe that's gone away either. I had the misfortune to be in Fulham the evening Chelsea got knocked out of Europe last season and witness first hand chairs being thrown through restaurant windows and such. I'm talking whole new additional joys.

[VikingHumpingWitch]

So if I can scrape together the hundreds of quid necessary to go and see a Premier League game, I might actually find the one last refuge for people who don't want to be surrounded by other peoples' spawn?

[radge]

VHW like the quote