The English Game?

A green and pleasant land

What the world needs is definitely another blog about the Big Picture proposal.

Here's one anyway.

What this is isn't a 'rescue package' - it's strongarm tactics by a psychotic set of business leaders who happen to own football clubs. 

If you give a shit, give the bail out. If you don't. Fuck off.

Using crisis as an excuse to push through a naked power grab is exactly the act of disaster capitalists. Is it any coincidence that FSG plan to float Liverpool's parent company on the stock market right about the time they come up with this shite?

I don't want to rail at capitalism though. I want to question the national mood. We're all nationalists now, in a moment of national history, about to move into a historical moment of self governance. Taking back control and all that. 

What are we actually waving flags for?

English football is the oldest and deepest structure in the professional game, in the whole world. We should celebrate that. We should unite around that. It's something to be proud of

 

What's more English than football? The game that grew from rural tradition, via both private schools and factory workers to become a global phenomenon. The king of sports. 

Isn't it weird how at the point we're celebrating 'taking back control' as a nation - at exactly the same time - we want to effectively hand over control of football to a small group of owners, led by Americans and consisting largely of foreign business interests who wish to make our league's arrangements mirror European leagues all so a few clubs can compete in expanded European competitions most clubs and fans don't care about in order to please TV markets in far flung places

I mean, we only invented the game, exported it around the world and have the longest established professional structure that is one of the key blueprints for ALL competitive sport the world over. Why would we want to run it, when some venture capitalists and opportunists can do it for us?

I ask again. For what are we waving flags? 

We'll be handing economic control of football to largely foreign interests in order to focus attention away from the domestic stage. Maybe we're not waving flags for the economy. Maybe we're actually all globalists when it comes cash. 

So, by means of elimination, it must be a cultural nationalism that has the St George cross fluttering. What then, is more integral to our national culture? What is more 'English' than football? Yet, we're listening to justifications about 'bringing our league more into line with arrangements in other leagues abroad' and hearing about how a product that has thrived and grown for 132 years and is currently (Covid aside) more popular than for more many a year is suddenly unsustainable. 

We're seeing more or less it divided into quarters like American sport and long standing traditions like kick off times, long established competitions trashed and seeing access to it (whether you're a season ticket holder or armchair fan) limited to paying a premium to a global broadcaster for the privalige. 

It's not exactly cherishing or handling carefully our cultural heritage is it? 

It's like seeing a historic thatched cottage ripped up brick by brick and transported abroad. Like witnessing a beautiful ancient oak being dug up and replanted in the private woodland of a global entrepreneur. It's seeing something that is the very essence of our nation, from thriving cities to backwater small towns, from the north to south and everywhere in between being packaged up, weighed and sold off. 

It's like the Lake District being owned and managed by a Russian or Arabic energy company, it's future decided from afar on the whim of those with no love or understanding of the warp and wheft of history, tradition or identity. It's like Buckingham Palace being occupied by a brassy Texan millionaire, intent on redecorating, throwing the paintings and ceremonial items into a skip or hoyimg them on eBay and telling us 'it's for your own good' 

I ask again. What is all the flag waving actually for? 

It's certainly not been for football if this goes through. 

C.R.W Nevinson - Any Wintry Afternoon in England