League trophy or fascist occult ritual vessel?

It's not entirely clear to me whether the symbolic value that things possess is innate or culturally generated. Are our aesthetic values fundamental or contextual?

Is a Porsche beautiful because it's a design classic or because it resonates with wealth?

Is a Fender telecaster an object of desire in its own right or because it's fundamentally linked to the birth of rock and roll and thus played its part in forging a culture of individual expression?

Are they objects of genuine beauty or cultural fetish?

I don't know. You could probably write a long book about it, I'm sure people have, but I can't be arsed reading it and there'll just be another book that says the opposite. I like my opinions to come in 144 characters, or better still in the form of a meme. I just count the likes on opposing opinions and work out who is right.

When has the crowd ever been wrong eh?

Bear in mind therefore, as you read the following article, that I am aware that my ire at the design of the object may in fact simply be ire at what it represents.

What object do I refer to? (if you haven't worked it out from the title and the whacking great big picture, then perhaps give up here.) I speak of the ultimate prize in English football. No, not the Marsden Lancashire Cup or the Makita Trophy but the one and only official FA Premier League Trophy.

I was there!

What's wrong with it?Isn't it just a trophy?

Well, for a start, it's not the actual league trophy that was perfectly usable for 102 sets of league champions then demoted to the League below when it was decided that the new league (which to all intents and purposes was the same as the old league) was better than anything that had gone before. I'm not a conservative in many aspects of my life, but given England's historical significance in the development of professional football, you'd think the trophy that symbolised that unique history would be more highly valued.

The actual league trophy is graceful and reeks of wood panelled rooms, it speaks of men with moustaches, pipes and games played out against a backdrop of smoking chimneys and the clank of looms. Let's not romanticise a world of rickets and industrially shortened life expectancy but equally, let's not deny that it was that world that gave us football as we know it.

On its body is depicted a goalmouth scene played out in front of netless goals on what looks like a pleasingly muddy field. It's burnished beyond any amount of tarnishing, a beautiful filigree history that speaks of Steve Bloomer, Dixie Dean, Alex James and countless others, right up to (and indeed beyond) that Michael Thomas goal that has never been equaled since for drama. The scale is perfect. Look at pictures of the trophy being lifted by the champions of yesteryear. It just looks right. Looked at nestled in the crook of a victorious arm. It's perfect.

Now, I don't just hate the Premier League Trophy for not being 'the lady' - I think I'm quite clear that it lacks the charm, class and elegance of its predecessor, but it's not what it isn't that makes me despise it.

It's what it is and what it is, is ugly, and completely without imagination. It's not just lacking in charm, it's entirely charmless. It doesn't beguile or bewitch with its ornate carefully worked embellishment or whisper quiet stories of long gone heroics in your ear. It's just a fucking horrible great lump of metal with a garish crown on top.

If you start to critique the design, before long, you start feeling contempt for the people who made it. As John Lennon didn't sing, all you need is hate and as John Lydon did, anger is an energy, so lets feed on some of the good stuff and lay into the big old pile of shite.

It looks like a cup that a kid would design. If you gave an 8 year old a packet of felt tips and few pictures of the European Cup and said 'design a football trophy but don't do anything clever or imaginative' then they'd come up with the Premier League trophy. When they'd finish, if you suggested drawing an aggressive looking crown on top, they'd probably give you a funny look and say 'that would be rubbish'

It's not entirely without character, but what character it has is a two dimensional marketeers idea of what football means. It's ENGLISH and thus it has LIONS. LIONS because, like, THREE LIONS. Because that's what English football is. It's lions and nothing else. Loads of lions wandering about doing big lion shits everywhere and mauling their captors and then having a right good kip. Did you know big cats can't purr? Good job too because purring would be soft and ENGLISH LIONS aren't soft. They're hard as fuck.

Why are lions synonymous with Englishness anyway? I'm not about to go on a big Guardian hand wringing rant about English character and conclude by explaining why lion imagery oppresses the rights of transgender folk and must be stopped now! ... But there are some cracking actual English animals that are bob on. Imagine a trophy with silver adders coiled around the handles or some otters popping their adorable little heads out when you took the lid off. What about a Kestrel or something. Nothing is more English than a Windhover above a motorway verge. Or a fox rooting in a bin. Or a vole. Or, the Vendace, a fish literally only found in two places in the Lake District. That would be English.

Not satisfied with adding the most predictably lazy image you could possibly imagine of 'Englishness' the trophy makers then added a crown. Cos England has QUEEN. With a CROWN. Do you see? LIONS/QUEEN/CROWN = England. Fucking genius. Why not add a Beefeater and Spitfire to it for the lols?

How long did that design them take? Ten minutes? Who came up with it?

Was it a marketing executive who had pencilled into his Filofax (remember, this is being dreamt up in about 1991) 'Soccer trophy ideas, brand synergy, England, glory, trophy, Big, statement, bold, trophy, English, England, Soccer'' then underneath 'Fuck it, Lions and a crown, it's only football, they're all thick as fuck anyway'

Was it the FA themselves?

Picture them brainstorming, over a boozy lunch, congratulating themselves on having finally cashed in on Thatcher's Britain after so many years in the wilderness, presiding over a game that resolutely refused to yield to the future whilst pits and steel works were razed, football had stayed stuck in a timewarp, with only the sponsors names on the shirts and the nylon in the kit telling you that it wasn't the 1970s anymore.

"It's got to have Lions Bert. Lions on it. Lions, like the England Shirt"
"Yes Graham, lions is good. What about a crown? Like the Queen. The Queen and Lions"

"That's good Bert, shall we have port?"
"Yes Graham, I think we've earned it"
*chuckle about duel meanings"

In case you doubt my interpretation, here's an excerpt from the official Premier League website

"The design of the trophy is based on the theme of "The Three Lions of English Football".

Two of the lions are above the handles on either side. When the captain of the title-winning team raises the trophy, and its gold crown, above his head at the end of the season, he becomes the third lion."

What the actual fuck is that?

The whole thing is just unsubtle. It's ugly and crude and speaks volumes of the mid to late 80s and early 90s (when the Premier League was dreamed up) - It's garish and speaks of no ideals other that shininess and making a statement of wealth. It's the sort of trophy you could imagine coming from the mind of someone who thinks Trump Towers is fabulously decorated.

"I want shitloads of silver topped with shit loads of gold. And big. Make it big. And put spiky bits on it. And extra handles it doesn't need."

It's too big. It just looks uncomfortable. Look at this picture of former Seasider Gary Ablett (RIP) and then compare it to the pictures below. It's clear the former is better, not least for its ergonomic design.

The thing looks horrible to hold.

If you took the crown and ribbons off, sanded away the 'Premier League' engraving, stuck it in a museum and said it was a vessel used by Nazis in one of their weird occult Nazi rituals then people would probably buy it. It has the air of borrowed grandeur as a statement that German architecture of the 1930s possesses. Dictatorships make things that are bigger than they need to be. Albert Spier evoked classical reference points in the way the Premier League evoked the European cup.

To return to the old trophy for a moment. This article might be a bitter nostalgic swipe at the all pervading, all powerful influence of the Premier League. I don't care, I am bitter and I am nostalgic. I'm nostalgic for a football where competition was prized and the game hadn't been reduced to "which multi billionaires have bought the best players this year"

When you look at the old trophy (or as I'd have it, the real trophy) you can see the game is being played out, not in a stadium but in front of a picket fence, with a backdrop of trees. This is a low key game of football being played by normal people. It's not an elite match played in billion pound stadium by thoroughbred atheletes.

The imagery isn't that of power or an aggressive statement of pseudo identity - it's just a picture of a football match. It's a trophy that is awarded to the best team, but at the same time, acknowledges all the teams, acknowledges the universality of the sport.

It is a trophy for the whole pyramid.

In the unlikely event that I am ever the captain, manager or owner of a Premier League winning side I'd refuse that monstrosity of a trophy and not allow the ceremony to take place until they brought me the real one.

I'd rather have the Canon League one. It's that bad.

UTMP

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