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| 'Dreams' |
The Premier League is over.
Who'd have guessed how it would turn out? It's been such a topsy turvy rollercoaster of a season eh? Thrills, spills and leaden predictability all the way.
I must point out, I don't actually watch the Premier League and post VAR, I'm finding it increasingly hard to motivate myself to listen to it either.
If you do and are fully satisfied as a result, feel free to bury your head in some sponsored sand and tell me I'm missing out or I'm a nostalgic fool yearning for a world of tape cassettes, a much lower bar around what was acceptable casual racism and LA Gear trainers. If you like what we've got, crack on. Give Sky another chunk of your furlough money and consider it well spent. Dismiss my opinion at your leisure. Other football blogs are available and some of them even have heat maps and graphs.
If you harbour a few lingering doubts, read on.
What's actually happened this year? Liverpool were really good and then some teams you'd expect to be relegated got relegated. That's yer lot pretty much. Apparently 'the Golden Glove' is now a thing and as usual some teams got relegated and we all got told it was the end of the world for them. Nothing adds genuine drama to sport like fears of financial implosion. It's the true values of the game.
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| If you want to be a decent keeper, hammer down six Dairy Milks and a box of Creme Eggs. It worked for Fatty Foulkes. |
It's been absolute shit. It's the same every year. It's like looking at the headliners for depressing middle aged festivals with bands who were big in the early 2000s spread across different gigs, just in a slightly different order. I don't know why, but I see the Premier League as appealing to the same people who pile into a gig line up of Faithless, Snow Patrol, Supergrass and the Killers and are as excited about it as they were in 2003. Middle aged peoole reassured by the fact that things haven't changed and they're not going to hear anything that they need to question. It's like the football version of Radio 2 or Smooth FM.
All the classic top 4 with none of that noisy upstart rubbish. All the hits, all of the time.
Who won the League Cup, who will win the FA Cup? Who gives a fuck? Not me. I can't actually remember the league cup winners. I suspect it was Man City. I don't know. I didn't care then and I find it hard to care now. I've heard 'I Can't Get No Sleep' enough now. I'm ready for something new.
Let me tell you something about myself in case you are reading this thinking 'who is this misanthropic cunt who likes the sound of his own voice? Why doesn't he go and play warhammer or write a history of butterfly keeping or get addicted to spice if he doesn't like football this much?'
When I was 7 I read the entire history of the Football League from cover to cover. Then I read it again. Then I read it again and again and again. I often play 'name a town and I'll name the football ground and tell you the capacity' as a way to show of my near autistic savant powers of football recall. I've read books on the pre-professional history of football and books on the global spread of football and books on the relationship between football and culture across the entire globe. I've bought magazine subscriptions and sat reading the stats pages of programmes following the exploits of youth team players I've never even seen.
I once ran my own fantasy league with a friend (who is now working in football) that involved us watching every single game on every single Match of the Day and awarding points based on goals and assists.
I've travelled to games on my own for years, I've watched reserve matches in January. I've watched every single kick of entire World Cups. I've read autobiographies and I've read histories of football tactics. I've listened to podcasts and sat on the edge of a cliff twisting a medium wave radio around in the gloom desperately focussing on the rising and fall of the static and the bursts of occasionally intelligible commentary coming from the Irish Sea.
Let me tell you something about myself in case you are reading this thinking 'who is this misanthropic cunt who likes the sound of his own voice? Why doesn't he go and play warhammer or write a history of butterfly keeping or get addicted to spice if he doesn't like football this much?'
When I was 7 I read the entire history of the Football League from cover to cover. Then I read it again. Then I read it again and again and again. I often play 'name a town and I'll name the football ground and tell you the capacity' as a way to show of my near autistic savant powers of football recall. I've read books on the pre-professional history of football and books on the global spread of football and books on the relationship between football and culture across the entire globe. I've bought magazine subscriptions and sat reading the stats pages of programmes following the exploits of youth team players I've never even seen.
I once ran my own fantasy league with a friend (who is now working in football) that involved us watching every single game on every single Match of the Day and awarding points based on goals and assists.
I've travelled to games on my own for years, I've watched reserve matches in January. I've watched every single kick of entire World Cups. I've read autobiographies and I've read histories of football tactics. I've listened to podcasts and sat on the edge of a cliff twisting a medium wave radio around in the gloom desperately focussing on the rising and fall of the static and the bursts of occasionally intelligible commentary coming from the Irish Sea.
I've wasted months of my life on football simulations and once spent 41 hours straight in the bedroom of a lad I barely knew in a caffeine fueled football manager marathon. I can't leave matches even when we're 5-0 down. For my 12th birthday, my dad took me and some mates to watch football. It was a Central League division 2 game.
That's how much I care. There are more 'tragic' people than I. I don't claim to be the ultimate fan or the most knowledgeable but I fucking love football. I love it. I always have and I always will.
And yet...
That's how much I care. There are more 'tragic' people than I. I don't claim to be the ultimate fan or the most knowledgeable but I fucking love football. I love it. I always have and I always will.
And yet...
I don't give a shit who won anything anymore. And that makes me sad. It makes me *actually* sad. Not performatively sad like when people get cross about things they didn't care about 5 minutes before on twitter. Not quite 'death of a loved one sad' but sad enough to have spent, what feels like countless hours writing, trying to come to terms with that feeling.
Time and time again, I conclude, that I'm sick to the back teeth of the sterile and predictable trudge to the end of the season where oil money plays oligarch plays investment group and nobody else gets a look in.
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| Death vs Football (ITV4 11pm) - With Matt Lorenzo and Robbie Earle |
I'm equally bored of the pseudo culture that has grown around the game. The fake matey chat and pious nonsense about 'football families' (what family wouldn't lend its family members a few quid in a time of crisis eh @Premier League?) and 'the realities of the game today' and '#banter' as a bizarre version of how media people think actual fans behave
I'm sick of us celebrating mediocrity and calling it 'greatness' and all sitting round not doing anything about the fact our game is stale and predictable. I'm sick of the conclusion that we can all go and watch non league football instead and let them have the game. I'm sick of a society that is so obsessed with money and an elite that so single minded about protecting its power that we can't even countenance sport that is sporting. If sport isn't sporting, then what the fuck is?
We're all so beaten down and wilfully accepting of a world where we live it for someone else and spend our lives sighing wistfully, posting shitty memes and being cynical that it becomes self fulfilling that nothing changes.
I'm sick of us celebrating mediocrity and calling it 'greatness' and all sitting round not doing anything about the fact our game is stale and predictable. I'm sick of the conclusion that we can all go and watch non league football instead and let them have the game. I'm sick of a society that is so obsessed with money and an elite that so single minded about protecting its power that we can't even countenance sport that is sporting. If sport isn't sporting, then what the fuck is?
We're all so beaten down and wilfully accepting of a world where we live it for someone else and spend our lives sighing wistfully, posting shitty memes and being cynical that it becomes self fulfilling that nothing changes.
And whilst football doesn't matter in comparison to some other things that may or may not also require change, that is precisely the point. It doesn't matter so it therefore should be good. What's the point of a pointless thing that is also shit?
And before you start and say 'oh, but it's evolved', or claim it's 'a business these days,' or 'it's got a lot of money riding on it' or 'you're just not being realistic...'
...It's our game and because it's our game, I don't give a shit how many ex pros or dickhead journos say shite like "well, with the sums of money involved these days..." or how many hours boring people spend talking about cunts like Daniel Levy and Roman Abramovich like they were important people.
And before you start and say 'oh, but it's evolved', or claim it's 'a business these days,' or 'it's got a lot of money riding on it' or 'you're just not being realistic...'
...It's our game and because it's our game, I don't give a shit how many ex pros or dickhead journos say shite like "well, with the sums of money involved these days..." or how many hours boring people spend talking about cunts like Daniel Levy and Roman Abramovich like they were important people.
These people don't own the game, these people (the ex pros extending their careers by serving up lukewarm opinion and playing caricatures of themselves, the journos who daren't write the truth for fear of losing access and the aforementioned tycoons alike) haven't got our ambition, our passion or our love. They're just thinking of the next pay cheque. They're thinking of pleasing the sponsors and shilling the product. They own some brand names and nothing else. They don't own football.
So, with the first of what will probably be several rants out of the way - I propose we, the fans, take back control of the game. 'Pull the other one' I hear you say. 'It's got bells on.'
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| This is evolution. Evolution is not when someone applies a self serving financial structure to a sport. That's the opposite of 'evolution' - it's rigging the game to negate its unpredictability and chaos thus making it more financially appealing (providing you are in the elite few who benefit, not the vast majority who it locks outside looking in enviously) |
So, with the first of what will probably be several rants out of the way - I propose we, the fans, take back control of the game. 'Pull the other one' I hear you say. 'It's got bells on.'
Yes - I know. It's the thing ALL fanzine writers or angry bloggers ask for. Bear with me though. This is going to be different. It's not going to take any effort at all and we're literally going to rewrite the rules. And they won't be able to stop us.
If you've read this far then I assume you are at least a little bit with me, so let's remind ourselves who we are...
We're the people who will still be here when the money runs out, the people who don't really care if we get relegated or not because we'll watch anyway, the people who, if the bomb dropped, would watch a game between two sets of irradiated mutants, kicking the plastic head of a child's doll towards the burnt out shells of two cars at either end of a wasteland.
The game comes from us. It comes from railwaymen, from millworkers, from coal miners and churchgoers. It comes from social clubs and works teams and the professional game grew from loose and diverse beginnings, to become possibly the UK's greatest global export. Why should we sit by and let it be run in a corpulent, flabby and lazy way?
Let's be clear. It's not nostalgia.
If you've read this far then I assume you are at least a little bit with me, so let's remind ourselves who we are...
We're the people who will still be here when the money runs out, the people who don't really care if we get relegated or not because we'll watch anyway, the people who, if the bomb dropped, would watch a game between two sets of irradiated mutants, kicking the plastic head of a child's doll towards the burnt out shells of two cars at either end of a wasteland.
The game comes from us. It comes from railwaymen, from millworkers, from coal miners and churchgoers. It comes from social clubs and works teams and the professional game grew from loose and diverse beginnings, to become possibly the UK's greatest global export. Why should we sit by and let it be run in a corpulent, flabby and lazy way?
Let's be clear. It's not nostalgia.
I'm not advocating giving kids rickets and putting opium on general sale just for an authentic Victorian vibe. We won't be bringing back brown leather balls. I'm not suggesting we need heavy cotton shirts or that we replace lightweight boots with workers steel toe caps accesorised with nails as studs. I'm even happy to pay players more than 5 shillings a week.
All I'm suggesting is, football, with all the skill, the tactical innovation and contemporary focus on 'trying really hard to win games by doing stuff like not drinking 40 pints a week and eating stuff other than Lorne Sausage baps with loads of ketchup' could be even better with one simple metric at its heart. A metric that concerns the very stuff that made English football great. The foundation stone that it was built upon:
Competition.
The Football League was convened largely because of a concern that the nascent professional clubs weren't providing spectacle attractive to spectators often enough to break even.
All I'm suggesting is, football, with all the skill, the tactical innovation and contemporary focus on 'trying really hard to win games by doing stuff like not drinking 40 pints a week and eating stuff other than Lorne Sausage baps with loads of ketchup' could be even better with one simple metric at its heart. A metric that concerns the very stuff that made English football great. The foundation stone that it was built upon:
Competition.
The Football League was convened largely because of a concern that the nascent professional clubs weren't providing spectacle attractive to spectators often enough to break even.
With friendly and cup matches often involving huge mismatches and thus walkovers that bored the crowd, the basic idea was to get the 12 best teams together and play each other home and away. These sides would, in theory, be equally matched enough to provide the attendee with some thrills and spills and thereby ensure they remained engaged. Consequently the clubs would be able to function professionally as a result of the revenue from the turnstiles.
Granted, it didn't go that well initially, with Pr£$ton going an entire season unbeaten but before long, the professional game had established itself well enough to ensure a competition developed that would become the blueprint, not just for professional football, but arguably for professional team sport the world over.
This isn't intended as a pompous history lesson or an attempt to turn the clock back.
Granted, it didn't go that well initially, with Pr£$ton going an entire season unbeaten but before long, the professional game had established itself well enough to ensure a competition developed that would become the blueprint, not just for professional football, but arguably for professional team sport the world over.
This isn't intended as a pompous history lesson or an attempt to turn the clock back.
It's just an interesting reminder that in 1887, one of the core concerns was apathy around one sided games.
That apathy seems to be part of how many modern fans feel, but of course, in 1887, those convening the league, didn't have the pull of many years of history, tradition and routine keeping people watching. They had to do something about it and they did. They recognised that competition was in both their self interest and the collective interest.
The Premier League today, feel to me at least, like a series of exhibition games, played between mismatched teams. The 'rest' are like the weaker Victorian sides, dragged out to play against the lions of the early professional era and summarily dispatched 9 times out of 10. The majority of the teams are there simply to make a fixture list happen. Yes, of course, Liverpool vs City is good but there's simply too many games that aren't.
As a neutral, I'm just not interested. Given the majority of money comes from TV and by the nature of TV viewers, the majority of people watching any given game will be neutrals, you'd feel that others might feel similar. Not everyone perhaps, but a goodly number.
The Premier League today, feel to me at least, like a series of exhibition games, played between mismatched teams. The 'rest' are like the weaker Victorian sides, dragged out to play against the lions of the early professional era and summarily dispatched 9 times out of 10. The majority of the teams are there simply to make a fixture list happen. Yes, of course, Liverpool vs City is good but there's simply too many games that aren't.
As a neutral, I'm just not interested. Given the majority of money comes from TV and by the nature of TV viewers, the majority of people watching any given game will be neutrals, you'd feel that others might feel similar. Not everyone perhaps, but a goodly number.
In some senses, the case is even more defined than it was in 1887 - back then, the TV neutral was not yet a twinkle in John Logie Baird's eye. Rupert Murdoch's presbyterian minister great grandfather was 3 years into Australian life, following his emigration from Aberdeenshire. It is unknown whether he preached the virtues of a Scottish passing game to the colonial outpost.
If the past doesn't convince you, then maybe the present will.
There's a saccharine trend on YouTube and early evening filler shows for getting children to talk about important things The idea is, the viewer will sit chuckling at their wide eyed naivety and idealism whilst simultaneously wistfully sighing and going 'If only things were actually that simple' - a position which willfully ignores the fact we could just do what the kids suggest and not make nuclear bombs, plastic shite or fight about who's got the biggest god.
If the past doesn't convince you, then maybe the present will.
There's a saccharine trend on YouTube and early evening filler shows for getting children to talk about important things The idea is, the viewer will sit chuckling at their wide eyed naivety and idealism whilst simultaneously wistfully sighing and going 'If only things were actually that simple' - a position which willfully ignores the fact we could just do what the kids suggest and not make nuclear bombs, plastic shite or fight about who's got the biggest god.
Play the music above and imagine a gap tooth seven year old saying "I fwink people could be pwanting twees and making nice dinners for each other and being nice to animals instead of getting angwy on twitter because then they'd be happier. My daddy cries into his pillow sometimes and he think I can't hear him but I can." Or picture an adorable kid with pig tails saying "I think it's funny when grown ups have wars and shout at each other about what god is the real god. I think there either isn't a god or if there is a god they are clever enough to hide from people - because they know all the hiding places because they made everything - and they're not likely to have it all written down in a book are they?"
I'm going to attempt to evoke the same effect but using words instead of moving pictures. You can leave the music playing or not. Up to you.
Imagine some kids in a school playground or on the rec. There's a big gaggle of about twenty. If it helps, imagine they look like the Bash St kids.
Got that?
Ok, now they decide to play a game of football. How do they pick teams?
They'll almost certainly use the universal rule (which might not be the most 'sensitive' way of choosing sides, but is without doubt the best) of picking two equally matched 'captains' (sometimes but not always the best players) and then taking one player each in turns until everyone is picked.
They'll do this, because at the age of 10, they've worked out, that football is much more fun when it's a good match. They've realised that one side not having to try very hard to win isn't very satisfying.
They're a bunch of random ten year olds. In fact, they don't even exist in any physical sense, as they're a shared concoction between my mind and yours, but yet, despite that literally existential barrier, they managed to govern their ad hoc game of football better than the millions and millions of pounds of EPL salaries have managed in the last 28 years.
Put it plainly. Some imaginary kids are better than the FA at producing meaningful competition.
I mean that as well. Whilst I'm not proposing a 'draft' or a forced redistribution of players for the pro game, everyone who *likes football a little bit* will have played in a game where after 20 minutes, the players have stopped and gone "these teams aren't working, we're having John and you can have Danny" in an effort to rebalance the game a bit. Games on the park involves things like '3 goal head starts' in order to keep it interesting.
The fact that Oasis, whilst surfing on a wave of football credibility were able to cite the phrase 'next goal wins' (lyrics below) as a universally recognised paean to the chaos and closeness of such football speaks volumes:
"The game is kicking off in around the park It's twenty five a side and before it's dark There's gonna be a loser And you know the next goal wins"
"The game is kicking off in around the park It's twenty five a side and before it's dark There's gonna be a loser And you know the next goal wins"
It's notable no one has written a ladz anthem along the lines of
'5-0 up before half time.
The game is boring but that's all fine,
we get to rest the big guns
before Villereal' (la la la la)'
Returning to kids for a brief moment.
Can you think of a bigger knobhead when you were a kid, than the lad who insisted all the decent players were on his team? Maybe it was his ball and you had to play his way. The one who carried on celebrating when it was 9-0 and even his own team had long since given up enjoying it...
I can't think of any bigger knobhead, in that context or many others. Twat.
It was palpably evident, the only reason he wanted to play, was for his own self aggrandisement. That he wasn't interested at all in the enjoyment of others, the quality of the game and crucially, not interested in testing his ability in an actual battle.
It was palpably evident, the only reason he wanted to play, was for his own self aggrandisement. That he wasn't interested at all in the enjoyment of others, the quality of the game and crucially, not interested in testing his ability in an actual battle.
All he wanted to do was win and he didn't care if it was easy or not. That, dear readers, is an image I'll leave you to ponder for a moment, when you think of the way the league is structured financially.
To be explicit, I mean the way that the richest clubs who already have the best players and whom already win most their games and often *fairly easily* but who start each season with yet more money and steal the good players for their team from the opposition thus moving even further away from the rest of the league.
It's as if the pro game is actively administered in the interests of this knobhead and because the few think it's their ball, then we all have to play along even though it's much less enjoyable than it could be.
I'll end this section with the words of a Man City fan describing why he stopped bothering to go to the Etihad. 'It's like going to the cinema and watching the same film every week'
In short, even the winners are bored.
It's as if the pro game is actively administered in the interests of this knobhead and because the few think it's their ball, then we all have to play along even though it's much less enjoyable than it could be.
I'll end this section with the words of a Man City fan describing why he stopped bothering to go to the Etihad. 'It's like going to the cinema and watching the same film every week'
In short, even the winners are bored.
All that money and it's actually boring.
Something countless generations of kids figured out how to solve in the playground, but that seems to be beyond the wit of the finest minds of English (and indeed most, if not all, major European leagues) to solve.
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| Better than the FA, EFL, FIFA and UEFA combined. |
What are we going to do?
Let's start with what we're not going to do
- write petitions
- carry banners
- symbolic protest where we 'turn our back' whilst handing over £30 for the privilage
- grovel and beg for concessions and crumbs from the table of those who think themselves football royalty.
- ring phone ins and get platitudes and a pat on the head from presenters
- write letters to newspapers to assuage our feelings
- shout into the ether on thinly read football blogs
Fuck that. We've been asking nicely for 28 years if we could possibly have a say, if it's not too much trouble, thanks and the answer is resolutely: NO!
Change is good, change is bad. The rough comes with the smooth.
Let's agree on ONE thing. The fundamental problem with football isn't the length of shorts, it isn't the fact players are athletic male grooming models or that managers are increasingly resembling cultish self help gurus with a contract for a clothing company specialising in hipster dads.
Even Nigel Pearson is in on that and if the makeover culture has reached Nigel then there's no turning back.
The fundamental problem is not that it isn't 1992 or 1976 or 1953. It's that football has lost its competitive edge.
So, with their deafness in mind, we need to do something far more effective and far less taxing than protest. We don't waste our breath appealing to the non existent better nature of the sociopathic business people who run the game.
We take over the Premier League instead.
How do we do that you might ask. The answer is very, very simple and unlike anything the actual FA dream up, it costs nothing but a bit of time.
We do it using a spreadsheet and a bit of maths. Things freely available to anyone with a Google account. Hell, the fucking computer will even do the sums for us. All we have to do is use a few facts we know and the game as it is and we can launch the entire concept of football anew.
We'll present competition to them whether they like it or not.
Put simply, we'll publish an alternative league table, every week. tracking the performance of teams according to a metric that will equalize the haves and have nots.
We'll call this PPP (pounds per point ) and the idea is simple enough. We take the existing fixtures and the actual games and we apply a metric to them which is the equivalent to the playground rules of '3 goal headstart' or 'swapping a player when it gets too one sided' - the more money you've spent on wages, the less your points are worth. It's that fucking simple.
If you've tried to buy the league, you'd better be fucking good because each game you win will be worth less than the side whose squad you pillaged with your free money from UEFA.
What we also can't do is sit around, moping, sharing pictures of crumbling terraces and playing tapes of Brian Moore and Barry Davies to get us to sleep. The past is a comfort blanket. It never changes and so it poses no risks. Stop sucking your thumb to a lullabye of 80s terrace violence and address your helplessness. This is not the Simon Bates golden hour.
Football changes. It adapts. That is fine. The back pass rule is good. It's so good, it took Liverpool 30 years and several billion quid to get over it. Goal nets are great. Crossbars are all the better for not being tape anymore. WIthout change, we wouldn't have that fantastic combination of a twang and a thud when the ball hits the bar. Even VAR isn't new, the 1890s saw a swiftly abandoned experiment with an eye in the stand giving a second opinion. We can't expect football to be our own personal time capsule, forever the way we want it to be.
Of course, some change isn't good, but it's too easy just to wallow in a bath of your own filthy memory bemoaning that the world turned and suddenly what was hip is now charity shop drek, feeling lonely, torpid and sorry for yourself as a result.
Football changes. It adapts. That is fine. The back pass rule is good. It's so good, it took Liverpool 30 years and several billion quid to get over it. Goal nets are great. Crossbars are all the better for not being tape anymore. WIthout change, we wouldn't have that fantastic combination of a twang and a thud when the ball hits the bar. Even VAR isn't new, the 1890s saw a swiftly abandoned experiment with an eye in the stand giving a second opinion. We can't expect football to be our own personal time capsule, forever the way we want it to be.
Of course, some change isn't good, but it's too easy just to wallow in a bath of your own filthy memory bemoaning that the world turned and suddenly what was hip is now charity shop drek, feeling lonely, torpid and sorry for yourself as a result.
Change is good, change is bad. The rough comes with the smooth.
Let's agree on ONE thing. The fundamental problem with football isn't the length of shorts, it isn't the fact players are athletic male grooming models or that managers are increasingly resembling cultish self help gurus with a contract for a clothing company specialising in hipster dads.
Even Nigel Pearson is in on that and if the makeover culture has reached Nigel then there's no turning back.
The fundamental problem is not that it isn't 1992 or 1976 or 1953. It's that football has lost its competitive edge.
It's that the financial wherewithal of some clubs makes it not only impossible to beat them *this season* and that the money has become so extreme that to challenge them *next season* or *the season after* is beyond the economic realms of possibility for all but the most outlandish of financiers.
When it's nigh on impossible to imagine your own club (wherever that may be) being funded from local or even British business, then we're really through the looking glass.
When the wonderland we reached with Leicester was funded by Thai billionaires and we had to believe that was a fairytale because we had nothing else to believe in, then we know we are clutching at straws.
These are all points I've made before and many others have done so at greater length and with more authority on more revered tomes than my backwater blog. Yet here we remain.
When the wonderland we reached with Leicester was funded by Thai billionaires and we had to believe that was a fairytale because we had nothing else to believe in, then we know we are clutching at straws.
These are all points I've made before and many others have done so at greater length and with more authority on more revered tomes than my backwater blog. Yet here we remain.
I could live with crap plastic seats, stupid kick off times, wankers talking about XG and the myriad of other things that no one asked for but we get told we want, if it was worth it. If all of that was just the annoying packaging of a great product it would be ok. But it isn't. It's layers of crap around something that is fundamentally disappointing and stale.
This is not news. It's a view that is increasingly mainstream and yet the football authorities seemingly blind to anything we say, promising to solve any problems with bigger prizes and higher wages year on year, piling on more precarity and shoring up the stasis against the wind of chance.
This is not news. It's a view that is increasingly mainstream and yet the football authorities seemingly blind to anything we say, promising to solve any problems with bigger prizes and higher wages year on year, piling on more precarity and shoring up the stasis against the wind of chance.
So, with their deafness in mind, we need to do something far more effective and far less taxing than protest. We don't waste our breath appealing to the non existent better nature of the sociopathic business people who run the game.
We take over the Premier League instead.
How do we do that you might ask. The answer is very, very simple and unlike anything the actual FA dream up, it costs nothing but a bit of time.
We do it using a spreadsheet and a bit of maths. Things freely available to anyone with a Google account. Hell, the fucking computer will even do the sums for us. All we have to do is use a few facts we know and the game as it is and we can launch the entire concept of football anew.
We'll present competition to them whether they like it or not.
Put simply, we'll publish an alternative league table, every week. tracking the performance of teams according to a metric that will equalize the haves and have nots.
We'll call this PPP (pounds per point ) and the idea is simple enough. We take the existing fixtures and the actual games and we apply a metric to them which is the equivalent to the playground rules of '3 goal headstart' or 'swapping a player when it gets too one sided' - the more money you've spent on wages, the less your points are worth. It's that fucking simple.
If you've tried to buy the league, you'd better be fucking good because each game you win will be worth less than the side whose squad you pillaged with your free money from UEFA.
If you've prised away the best player in a provincial club has had for a generation with promises of trebling his wages and then stuck him in the reserves to rot, thereby stalling a career and strangling the joy of a whole set of fans - just because you can - then you'll pay for that in points.
We'll build an alternative media around this notion. We'll celebrate and commiserate according to our results. The ones which are weighted to reflect the truth -, the universally known but rarely acknowledged truth that football requires evenly matched teams to be entertaining - We reject a set of rules that allow a few sides to walk all over everyone else as boring and anti football.
Y'know what. We'll even all chuck in together and buy a trophy at the end of the season, and we'll present it to the team who win our version of the league. It'll be a nice trophy as well, not an ugly statement of blunt power like the actual Premier League trophy. Sweet Mary, Mother of God, we'll even get the stats fans on board and we can work out top scorers and best midfielders and all of that according to the true value of the player.
We'll give all the overblown, vapid content churned out by the EPL and it's willing patsies in the media a run for its money, simply by measuring the league by a different metric.
We'll build an alternative media around this notion. We'll celebrate and commiserate according to our results. The ones which are weighted to reflect the truth -, the universally known but rarely acknowledged truth that football requires evenly matched teams to be entertaining - We reject a set of rules that allow a few sides to walk all over everyone else as boring and anti football.
Y'know what. We'll even all chuck in together and buy a trophy at the end of the season, and we'll present it to the team who win our version of the league. It'll be a nice trophy as well, not an ugly statement of blunt power like the actual Premier League trophy. Sweet Mary, Mother of God, we'll even get the stats fans on board and we can work out top scorers and best midfielders and all of that according to the true value of the player.
We'll give all the overblown, vapid content churned out by the EPL and it's willing patsies in the media a run for its money, simply by measuring the league by a different metric.
Who gives a flying fuck whether it's the fourth time United has played Norwich on a Tuesday when one of the player has had the suffix 'son' in their surname? I don't. What I do care about is United are paying somewhere between 12 and 30 times more (depending on which source you check) than Norwich for their players wages.
Listening to a lot of Premier League analysis is a bit like watching a race between the two cars above and then hearing the commentator comment on the weather or the fact one of the drivers favours open backed versus string backed gloves as if that's a revelation that allows us to understand what is going on and why the first car is 12 laps ahead.
By pointing out that one car has a market value of 100k and the other about 4k, we begin to understand that the skill of the driver might not be everything in the outcome of the race.
Let's take a simple example from the Premier League. Whilst Klopp is rightly lauded as a very good manager (he's one of the few elite managers I think could do it anywhere, regardless of budget,) Chris Wilder has done something incredible with a budget less than a tenth of Klopp's.
Wilder has literally created a new formation that no one* in the 132 year history of professional league football has thought of. Mobile centre backs who are part of the way the team attacks.
*I stand ready for some absolute freak to say 'actually Wilder is obviously influenced by the ideas of Dietmar Rhieghal and his legendary exploits in the Israeli second division as any fool would know'
What's more, he's done this with what, without his influence, might otherwise have been bang average players. What is Wilder's reward? 8th place and a pat on the head, because despite reimagining the way football teams can be laid out, he can't overcome the overwhelming quality and strength of the sides who are already rich and powerful.
It's like he's kept up with the Porsche in the Wagon R which is a minor miracle. Is anyone out their who really believes that Guardiola, Lampard or the 50 yr old schoolkid at Man U would have achieved what Wilder has done in the same circumstances?
It's not that I think any of the above are bad or even over rated. It's that I'm bored of a world where the achievement of the other teams is capped at 'maybe if you are lucky getting into the Europa League' or people saying 'Maybe Wilder needs to move on to a bigger challenge?'
Fuck that. Sheffield fucking invented professional football and a system whereby it seems impossible to imagine that city winning stuff, even taking into account they do actually have some exotic backing behind them is clearly broken.
Here's the table from this season created by Nick Harris (@sportingintel) that demonstrates an alternative universe in which the skill of the driver matters more than the car they are driving. I found this after thinking of PPP and was very pleased to see that someone else had developed PPPPP.
Before anyone gets too heated and starts pointing out the flaws in my plan, it's clearly a piece of whimsy - an invitation to think about the game in a different way. A reminder that it is us that own the game really and if we want to reward sporting merit over financial muscle we can. A reminder that it's the national game. It doesn't belong to oligarchs and kleptocrats and investment experts. They *think* they own it and it's true they have considerable sway over the way it's presented and governed but while it's unlikely we can change that in the short term, they can't stop us cheering whatever we want to and if we wish, we can pronounce Sheffield United champions.
That might not be 'reality' but neither is their product with its layers of marketing and false premise of competition.
Lets have some fun and forget their vision. Let's turn their game into our game and flip thing round. Let's rig the game the other way. Let's do it for a laugh but also because it's serious. Let's take the piss and really mean it.
Let's remember that the inequality is structural. That the reason why the second-hand Wagon R is racing the Porsche is because the league is designed to be like that. Let's at least introduce a tiny bit of Wacky Races spirit.
We're the fans, we're the supporters of all the also rans and clubs who weren't at the top table at quite the right time, the low ranked teams who now can't even dream, the mid ranked clubs who are stuck forever in the doldrums or the big clubs being punished for decades for having had a go at keeping up with the giants. We're even the fans of those giants who are bored out of our skulls watching them stamp on the minnows ever other week.
Let's remember that the inequality is structural. That the reason why the second-hand Wagon R is racing the Porsche is because the league is designed to be like that. Let's at least introduce a tiny bit of Wacky Races spirit.
We're the fans, we're the supporters of all the also rans and clubs who weren't at the top table at quite the right time, the low ranked teams who now can't even dream, the mid ranked clubs who are stuck forever in the doldrums or the big clubs being punished for decades for having had a go at keeping up with the giants. We're even the fans of those giants who are bored out of our skulls watching them stamp on the minnows ever other week.
We're the fans and they're the few who stole the wealth of our game, so we'll fucking well measure them on that if so we wish.
Here's the 2010/11 Premier League Table with a basic form of PPP applied. I made this. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't proud of it. Others may think turning old football tables into spreadsheets isn't a great use of our short time on this world but I beg to differ.
Here's the 2010/11 Premier League Table with a basic form of PPP applied. I made this. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't proud of it. Others may think turning old football tables into spreadsheets isn't a great use of our short time on this world but I beg to differ.
I'm suggesting you ask yourself which you want...
...The Premier League as it is, where you would struggle to get a bookie to accept a bet on Liverpool or Man City finishing in the top 3, where a bet on those two plus Chelsea and United in the top 4 would probably pay out about 50p if you wagered a £1000...
...or a league that could be this unpredictable and where you wouldn't be sure who would win.
It's up to you.
It might not be entirely scientifically thought through, but let's be honest, how well thought through is the game in its current form as a sporting spectacle?
We can work on the detail between us
It's up to you.
It might not be entirely scientifically thought through, but let's be honest, how well thought through is the game in its current form as a sporting spectacle?
We can work on the detail between us
- Do we weight goals, award head starts and create an entire alternate set of results or just deal with results as is?
- Do we have an official Twitter feed? (@altprem? @realprem? @aliceinwonderlandfootball?
- Do we find someone with sonorous voice to read out the alternative table every week?
- Do we need an entire alternative set of match reports and media?
- Should we employ someone from North Korea to help us create an impenetrable sense of illusion about the world we've manufactured? Does this make me Kim wossisface? If so, where's my nuclear button?
So many questions...
...but for now, forget such dreary mundanity and just enjoy a world in which the mighty Tangerine Wizards of Blackpool won our first league championship and the Throstles of West Bromwich were our closest rivals. Where Chris Wilder wasn't just a patronised afterthought in an otherwise dull season but a bonafide new Brian Clough.
That all smells suspiciously like a game that would be unpredictable, exciting and most of all... FUN.
That all smells suspiciously like a game that would be unpredictable, exciting and most of all... FUN.
Remember FUN? They don't want you to. It's within you though. It's within all of us. We don't have to be miserable, snarling, serious and sensible. Because this way, there's always next year and the less you have, the better chance you've got of winning.
And yes, I am both taking the piss and being deadly serious at the same time.
What league will you choose next year - Our glorious league in the alternate technicolour world of our own minds or their poe faced, serious route march to the same result where everything matters too much to be joyful and chaotic because it might put at risk the investment of some cunt who already owns more than entire continents of people ever will
As we agreed earlier, football doesn't matter which is precisely why it needs to have some sort of poimt. So ask yourself this.
Is that point:
A) to bring joy to a tiny minority of incredibly rich people who don't even have a pre existing emotional connection to their clubs
B) to be a brilliant, accessible and chaotic game that entertains millions and leaves them dreaming, however unlikely it seems at any given point, that one day, the joy of victory might be theirs?
Over to you.
Here's a stirring tune to see you on your way.
Go well.
UTMP
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