The no camp would have it that football has become like a needy lover. Its desperation to remain in your mind is as if, whilst in a long term relationship, you've gone away for a bit, to get a bit of space for yourself for the first time in many years. You've told your partner you love them and don't worry, you'll be back, but they keep texting you, over and over again, telling you they're thinking of booking a flight and joining you, acting all casual but secretly worried you'll forget them. It's doing it for you, it says. For you.
Every morning you awake to another announcement from some slick, self important suit from the FA or one of the clubs, letting you know - that despite the fact we're living through an unprecedented global pandemic and the one piece of common knowledge we all seem to agree on is staying away from each is the best thing to do - we shouldn't worry because the 'football pandemic science team' have met and the boffins (all dressed in official club lab coats and presided over by an official FA boffin in a black lab coat) decided it's a proper brilliant idea for a load of lads to get together and play some football sometime soon.
We're reassured that they've planned the best possible sciencey methods of staying safe. Doreen will be in for a few extra hours to wash everything down in fairy liquid and the lads will be washing their own kit so there's nothing to worry about there. Plus, each club has been issued with two tubes of VIM powder for any real emergencies so it really is more than covered.
It's also really important that the football player is played by the teams with most money and the players with the most money. This is because (watch out, science bit here) the virus might threaten the immune system but the thought of not knowing who has qualified to play in the Europa League might shut down the nation's limbic system as one. People will literally not be able to manage without knowing if Wolves versus NK Dubrovnik is going to happen.
The yes camp would say that football will be a real boost to national morale. I for one can't wait to see some rich lads doing what I'm not allowed to do. I believe Sky 'the people's game' Sports are also planning to add a channel where people who earn over £17 million a year can film themselves in a luxury ski resort getting paid money to slalom down the piste, before getting one of those big foam showers from an actual irradiated Chernobyl fire engine driven by a schoolkid* This will be interspersed with adverts featuring a reanimated Bing Crosby saying stuff like "don't end up dead like me you mentalist, stay inside and watch this old shite" Westminster sources suggest the whole thing sounds like a 'rum wheeze' and 'exactly the sort of thing we need!'
*Schoolkids can't get irradiated in times of economic necessity. I asked a bloke in the queue at Aldi who had boffin hair so it must be true.
After that's is over we will be invited to watch a national Zoom call where a footballer from each club will be asked to wish happy birthday again and again to the nations newest oldest national treasure but instead will burst into tears overwhelmed by the looming mortality of Captain, Colonel, Lieutenant, Wing Commander, Brigadier, Sir Tom Moore even though he's on the other end going 'I'm not dead yet ffs - get a grip you absolute shower of shite' This will be followed by 17 hours of adverts for how you can spend your way back to happiness.
... before it all starts again with a 9 hour warm up show, for Southampton vs Everton, during which the sound will have to be turned down as Carlo Ancelotti is overheard on the pitchside mics saying 'Duncan, I'm not sure how to zay zis, precisely, but what the fuck are we doing here? I'm fucked if I know!' to which Big Dunc will reply 'aye, fuck knows gaffer' - This game is followed by a 6 hour special on how Sean Dyche has passed his time by reading one of those free downloadable books of ancient Chinese wisdom and is planning to base his philosophy for next season around saying stuff like "Yeah, Alan, 0-3 but as they say, the wind can turn and bring rain or hurricane so till the land when you can and I've said as much to the lads in there, we're not downcast for he who thinks to much about his shoes does not dream of the birds." Which in turn is followed by 17 hours of adverts about........ You get the picture.
I can't wait. It's going to be fantastic seeing some players running round on telly in empty, atmosphere devoid stadiums. I can't wait to hear the hollow thud of the advertising boards as the ball hits it and hear the echoing shouts of players voices on concrete steps and currugated . The total lack of drama or context of the game as a spectacle won't detract from it either. Neither will the palpable feeling that most of the players will have at the back of their minds... 'should I really be doing this?' - it'll be ok, because they're getting paid! Y'see! Paid! In cash money! Imagine seeing the famous moment when someone clinches 9th place and no one cheers. Won't it be emotional when a team gets relegated and just wanders straight off the pitch because there's no one to share the moment with?
The main thing that will please me, is the TV companies will get their revenue and the advertisers get the clothes horses to run around adorned with their brands. That's modern football and people who deny it simply don't like the game. It's not all about kicking a ball about and winning and losing like it was in the bad old days. It's exciting now, because you can follow teams by spreadsheet and read about their sponsorship deals and Far East merchandising opportunities in the FT. That's clearly better than when all you had to keep you occupied was winning and losing football games.
Only cynical luddites would want to go back to that stupid old form of the game and thus, it's the absolute moral duty of every football fan to bung some cash at Sky and ensure the game continues to go from strength to strength.
A cynic would say that football should only return at the point that the game can be played by all. That it's chiefly a thing for and of the people who participate in it directly and create the event. They'd say that it should be only played by anyone at the point at which it's safe to do so anywhere. That whether it's Premier League or Sunday league, the pitch is the same size and the players are in the same sweating, spitting, leaping, close contact, shirt grabbing, grappling proximity whatever the level.
A cynic would say that it's not really the game itself that matters, but the event and the experience of being there. That attempting to create a sense of spectacle from an empty ground is like giving someone a kaleidoscope and calling it an acid trip or letting them smell a bag of chips and declaring them fed, calling half a shandy a drinking session.
A cynic would say, the whole exercise stinks of a desperate attempt to row an overladen boat full of gold to shore, the sailors terrified that their riches will be lost, so risking their lives instead of just bailing out some of the dubloons.
A cynic would point out that the football authorities ultimate sanction is the 'behind closed doors' match and now, every football fan who actually regularly sets foot in a ground is being treated like an East European fascist who has unfurled swastika banners and as a punishment are denied their taste of the atmosphere and experience.
A real cynic might suggest that being able to stage matches in neutral stadia, without all the fuss around supporters and travel arrangements and policing and all the other inconveniences, having the broadcaster as the sole stakeholder and only consideration is the end game of football's 30 year metamorphosis from Saturday afternoon pastime to national staged reality soap opera. A sort of 'Only way is Essex' with some action sequences filmed in one afternoon in a megadome. Hell, the players could all live on site and we could bring back 24 hour reality TV!
A total killjoy misery would say: if people at the park can't play the game for public safety, if kids in school can't have a football team, then people in stadia shouldn't be playing either - there's no argument to say otherwise. The game's authorities must face the the fact that they created a situation whereby so many football clubs are vastly overdrawn, living hand to mouth from TV deal to TV deal and they should take responsibility for undoing that instead of force feeding a diet of sterile football in a decidedly non sterile environment through the TV tubes and calling it a public service, when for the last 30 years, would suggest 'public service' is the last thing on the mind of the governors of the English game.
Send your telly money back. It'll be funny watching it all collapse...
... before it all starts again with a 9 hour warm up show, for Southampton vs Everton, during which the sound will have to be turned down as Carlo Ancelotti is overheard on the pitchside mics saying 'Duncan, I'm not sure how to zay zis, precisely, but what the fuck are we doing here? I'm fucked if I know!' to which Big Dunc will reply 'aye, fuck knows gaffer' - This game is followed by a 6 hour special on how Sean Dyche has passed his time by reading one of those free downloadable books of ancient Chinese wisdom and is planning to base his philosophy for next season around saying stuff like "Yeah, Alan, 0-3 but as they say, the wind can turn and bring rain or hurricane so till the land when you can and I've said as much to the lads in there, we're not downcast for he who thinks to much about his shoes does not dream of the birds." Which in turn is followed by 17 hours of adverts about........ You get the picture.
I can't wait. It's going to be fantastic seeing some players running round on telly in empty, atmosphere devoid stadiums. I can't wait to hear the hollow thud of the advertising boards as the ball hits it and hear the echoing shouts of players voices on concrete steps and currugated . The total lack of drama or context of the game as a spectacle won't detract from it either. Neither will the palpable feeling that most of the players will have at the back of their minds... 'should I really be doing this?' - it'll be ok, because they're getting paid! Y'see! Paid! In cash money! Imagine seeing the famous moment when someone clinches 9th place and no one cheers. Won't it be emotional when a team gets relegated and just wanders straight off the pitch because there's no one to share the moment with?
The main thing that will please me, is the TV companies will get their revenue and the advertisers get the clothes horses to run around adorned with their brands. That's modern football and people who deny it simply don't like the game. It's not all about kicking a ball about and winning and losing like it was in the bad old days. It's exciting now, because you can follow teams by spreadsheet and read about their sponsorship deals and Far East merchandising opportunities in the FT. That's clearly better than when all you had to keep you occupied was winning and losing football games.
Only cynical luddites would want to go back to that stupid old form of the game and thus, it's the absolute moral duty of every football fan to bung some cash at Sky and ensure the game continues to go from strength to strength.
A cynic would say that football should only return at the point that the game can be played by all. That it's chiefly a thing for and of the people who participate in it directly and create the event. They'd say that it should be only played by anyone at the point at which it's safe to do so anywhere. That whether it's Premier League or Sunday league, the pitch is the same size and the players are in the same sweating, spitting, leaping, close contact, shirt grabbing, grappling proximity whatever the level.
A cynic would say that it's not really the game itself that matters, but the event and the experience of being there. That attempting to create a sense of spectacle from an empty ground is like giving someone a kaleidoscope and calling it an acid trip or letting them smell a bag of chips and declaring them fed, calling half a shandy a drinking session.
A cynic would say, the whole exercise stinks of a desperate attempt to row an overladen boat full of gold to shore, the sailors terrified that their riches will be lost, so risking their lives instead of just bailing out some of the dubloons.
A cynic would point out that the football authorities ultimate sanction is the 'behind closed doors' match and now, every football fan who actually regularly sets foot in a ground is being treated like an East European fascist who has unfurled swastika banners and as a punishment are denied their taste of the atmosphere and experience.
A real cynic might suggest that being able to stage matches in neutral stadia, without all the fuss around supporters and travel arrangements and policing and all the other inconveniences, having the broadcaster as the sole stakeholder and only consideration is the end game of football's 30 year metamorphosis from Saturday afternoon pastime to national staged reality soap opera. A sort of 'Only way is Essex' with some action sequences filmed in one afternoon in a megadome. Hell, the players could all live on site and we could bring back 24 hour reality TV!
A total killjoy misery would say: if people at the park can't play the game for public safety, if kids in school can't have a football team, then people in stadia shouldn't be playing either - there's no argument to say otherwise. The game's authorities must face the the fact that they created a situation whereby so many football clubs are vastly overdrawn, living hand to mouth from TV deal to TV deal and they should take responsibility for undoing that instead of force feeding a diet of sterile football in a decidedly non sterile environment through the TV tubes and calling it a public service, when for the last 30 years, would suggest 'public service' is the last thing on the mind of the governors of the English game.
Send your telly money back. It'll be funny watching it all collapse...
 |
| Safe |
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| Not safe |
 |
Some money |
There is indeed no logic in close contact sportsmen who love to randomly spit, by the way, playing when no one else can even pass close by. I'm happy to wait.
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