Is he really going to write a blog about an advertising board for discount carpets? Why, yes he is!
In the latest cutting edge piece of high wire reportage from the leading blog named after an ex Scarborough left back I am going to attempt to dissect the changing face of football and what it stands for in the modern world from the starting point of my favourite advertising hoarding. I'll try and keep it light and frothy, like a cappuccino from a food outlet in one of the mega new grounds in the brave post Bovril landscape of mega moneyball.
Honestly. Christmas has come early dear reader. It's the present you didn't know you wanted...
My favourite advert at Bloomfield Road is the earthy and traditional 'Terry's Cut Price Carpets" board. You know where you are with signage like that. Just in case, you are thinking it's some kind of retro kitsch ironic hipster thing, let me assure you it's not. A man, called Terry wants to sell you carpets. At a cut price. Simple.
There's something gloriously old fashioned about its directness, its basic two tone colour scheme and uncomplicated message expressed in an unfussy font. Whilst as early as the 1920's Edward Bernase was coming up with psychologically manipulative forms of advertising, the football grounds of my childhood were generally simple places with exhortations to call a plumber or buy a second car the only interruptions to the visual landscape of crush barriers, fences and dilapidated corrugated iron roofs.
Terry and his discount wares feels like they could belong in almost any era since advertising boards first appeared around our stadiums. A local business for local people. People need carpets from time to time and cut price ones at that. Just gazing at it, you can smell pies, see ghostly balls getting stuck in the mud and shiver at the omnipresent sense of casual violence lurking down red brick alleyways. It says 'carpets' as a Gary Briggs tackle said 'football' - it's to the point. It does the job.
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| Briggsy, about to tackle the photographer |
What we'd never have predicted even in the sponsored tight fitting nylon 1980s was the level to which football itself has become a brand and the degree to which other brands seek 'synergy' through their endorsement of all things vaguely connected to the game.
My son has just laughed at the name 'The Tony Macaroni Stadium' and naming rights are just one aspect of the onslaught you're subjected too when engaging with football. Watching top level games on feels a bit like Tron as inevitably, you end up slack jawed, dribbling and watching the vivid animated boards around the side of the pitch with their often cryptic branding. More than once I've looked up a phrase or a company just to work out what the hell it is. Job done.
Evil marketing executive 1, Fleshy consumer brain 0. (*)
Sometimes sponsorship baffles even when you do know who the brand is. For years, the champions League meant Clive Tyldsely, Andy Townsend and Gazprom. As, to the best of my knowledge, I don't think I can actually actively buy anything from Gazprom, it seems weird that they spent what must be a pretty penny getting their name in my face. Why? Presumably a demonstration of the power of the Russian state and their importance to Europe's gas supplies.
"Sergai?"
"Yes Dmitri?"
"These western Europeans don't give the motherland the respect we deserve..."
"Let's give them a reminder that we can turn their cookers off anytime"
"How will we do that?"
"Lets buy their football"
Football has become a geopolitical tool in the global marketplace. Got a dodgy state with a poor human rights record? Buy a football club. Everyone loves a football club. Brand the fuck out of it and associate yourself with something positive. Yes, Manchester City, I mean you. Sorry Newcastle. You're stuck with cheap trainers and big mugs for a while longer.
Not that long ago, I listened to a really interesting podcast about the Chinese state involvement in UK football. The gist of it was that whilst the state had encouraged most investors to pull back when it realised that it's a (big) mugs game, money continues to pour into Wolves because with much to be made from upgrading the UK rail industry, Wolverhampton is a very convenient place for a Chinese business with interests in high speed rail to own a football club and possess political and social good will, what with it being the heartland of UK rail manufacturing and all...
Clubs themselves have realised their global potential and one of the strangest sights of all is the self promotion they indulge in during games, when presumably people are watching them because they've already bought into the 'brand' of the club by being there or watching through a TV screen.
"This means more" scrolling around Anfield raises my blood pressure. Nothing makes me want to go a bit Raul Moat more than the self regarding self mythologising belief that somehow Liverpool fans feel more connection, more joy, more pride in their team than any others. In fact, given Liverpool's low proportion of local season ticket holders, if football is an expression of pride in a place or location, you could make a pretty solid argument that "This is a day trip" or "This means less" would be more apt.
What is going on here isn't the promotion of goods or services. There's no phone number, no Terry to speak to about fitting, no call to action. It's not an advert in that sense at all. Instead it's an invitation to believe in an idea. It's a subtle message, reinforcing the experience of the consumer, suggesting that, rather than watching Liverpool swat aside another underfunded club and simply achieving what their bank balance has bought them, we are, in fact, taking part in a quasi religious spiritual ritual.
It's an invite to 'Reds' across the globe to stick with the brand, from Dublin to Dubai because like Coke triumphs over all other brands, there's something uniquely authentic about the Liverpool experience. It's not for those who live in the shadow of Anfield or are familiar with Merseyrail yellow. It's for the global floating supporter, reminding them that Anfield is Mecca or Lourdes and thus just bathing in the cathode rays beamed from L4 is like a draft of holy water.
All clubs have their versions of this. My own twitter header (above) is me, buying hook line and sinker the rebranding of my own club. Because, for everyone, watching your own team does indeed 'mean more' and all stadiums are the Theatre of (someone's) Dreams. Even Priestfield.
TV football isn't just scrolling adverts pitch side. It's a 24/7 business these days with rolling news and endless speculation on what will happen next. Why is this? Why are we all invited constantly on multiple channels to wonder about 'the implications' of everything? Why are things that have always happened in football, that are inevitable effects of playing the game, from thigh strains to management changes, from fluctuations in form to the minor details of team selection now subjected to so much scrutiny?
It's impossible to consume football just about anywhere without an invitation to bet. You can bet on just about anything and gambling has become intertwined with the game like an invasive plant chokes a previously well kept garden. Once it's there, you can't get rid of it, without pulling to bits the rest of the foliage.
What does gambling need to encourage people to take part? Information. Gamblers are desperate for a tip, an insight, a sense of the inside track and all throughout the media (often on platforms sponsored by gambling companies) 'experts' spew data, opinions and hunches relentlessly. Whilst having a flutter is the one vice I don't find remotely tempting, I can think of the many that I do and wonder what effect it would have on me if the simple escapism of football was so completely bound up with something that tempted me. I've had mates and family that gambled too much for their own good and whilst I don't want to be a puritan, I'm not sure gambling companies have these people's best interest at heart to say the least.
It's a vicious circle. Football needs the money from gambling companies to maintain its aura of elite glamour. Without it players wouldn't be paid as much and then the big money investments from abroad wouldn't seem so attractive. Somehow, in an alternative universe where the game was still funded in a 1970s style, I can't imagine Etihad Airways adorning the front of an eggshell pattern Manchester City kit, not the same logo featuring on the bizarre paisley style pattern of their third kit which seems to solely exist as a fashion item, such is football in the endtimes.
"Sergai?"
"Yes Dmitri?"
"These western Europeans don't give the motherland the respect we deserve..."
"Let's give them a reminder that we can turn their cookers off anytime"
"How will we do that?"
"Lets buy their football"
 |
| "Hi, I'd like to buy some...er...Gaz?" |
Football has become a geopolitical tool in the global marketplace. Got a dodgy state with a poor human rights record? Buy a football club. Everyone loves a football club. Brand the fuck out of it and associate yourself with something positive. Yes, Manchester City, I mean you. Sorry Newcastle. You're stuck with cheap trainers and big mugs for a while longer.
Not that long ago, I listened to a really interesting podcast about the Chinese state involvement in UK football. The gist of it was that whilst the state had encouraged most investors to pull back when it realised that it's a (big) mugs game, money continues to pour into Wolves because with much to be made from upgrading the UK rail industry, Wolverhampton is a very convenient place for a Chinese business with interests in high speed rail to own a football club and possess political and social good will, what with it being the heartland of UK rail manufacturing and all...
Clubs themselves have realised their global potential and one of the strangest sights of all is the self promotion they indulge in during games, when presumably people are watching them because they've already bought into the 'brand' of the club by being there or watching through a TV screen.
"This means more" scrolling around Anfield raises my blood pressure. Nothing makes me want to go a bit Raul Moat more than the self regarding self mythologising belief that somehow Liverpool fans feel more connection, more joy, more pride in their team than any others. In fact, given Liverpool's low proportion of local season ticket holders, if football is an expression of pride in a place or location, you could make a pretty solid argument that "This is a day trip" or "This means less" would be more apt.
What is going on here isn't the promotion of goods or services. There's no phone number, no Terry to speak to about fitting, no call to action. It's not an advert in that sense at all. Instead it's an invitation to believe in an idea. It's a subtle message, reinforcing the experience of the consumer, suggesting that, rather than watching Liverpool swat aside another underfunded club and simply achieving what their bank balance has bought them, we are, in fact, taking part in a quasi religious spiritual ritual.
It's an invite to 'Reds' across the globe to stick with the brand, from Dublin to Dubai because like Coke triumphs over all other brands, there's something uniquely authentic about the Liverpool experience. It's not for those who live in the shadow of Anfield or are familiar with Merseyrail yellow. It's for the global floating supporter, reminding them that Anfield is Mecca or Lourdes and thus just bathing in the cathode rays beamed from L4 is like a draft of holy water.
All clubs have their versions of this. My own twitter header (above) is me, buying hook line and sinker the rebranding of my own club. Because, for everyone, watching your own team does indeed 'mean more' and all stadiums are the Theatre of (someone's) Dreams. Even Priestfield.
TV football isn't just scrolling adverts pitch side. It's a 24/7 business these days with rolling news and endless speculation on what will happen next. Why is this? Why are we all invited constantly on multiple channels to wonder about 'the implications' of everything? Why are things that have always happened in football, that are inevitable effects of playing the game, from thigh strains to management changes, from fluctuations in form to the minor details of team selection now subjected to so much scrutiny?
It's impossible to consume football just about anywhere without an invitation to bet. You can bet on just about anything and gambling has become intertwined with the game like an invasive plant chokes a previously well kept garden. Once it's there, you can't get rid of it, without pulling to bits the rest of the foliage.
What does gambling need to encourage people to take part? Information. Gamblers are desperate for a tip, an insight, a sense of the inside track and all throughout the media (often on platforms sponsored by gambling companies) 'experts' spew data, opinions and hunches relentlessly. Whilst having a flutter is the one vice I don't find remotely tempting, I can think of the many that I do and wonder what effect it would have on me if the simple escapism of football was so completely bound up with something that tempted me. I've had mates and family that gambled too much for their own good and whilst I don't want to be a puritan, I'm not sure gambling companies have these people's best interest at heart to say the least.
It's a vicious circle. Football needs the money from gambling companies to maintain its aura of elite glamour. Without it players wouldn't be paid as much and then the big money investments from abroad wouldn't seem so attractive. Somehow, in an alternative universe where the game was still funded in a 1970s style, I can't imagine Etihad Airways adorning the front of an eggshell pattern Manchester City kit, not the same logo featuring on the bizarre paisley style pattern of their third kit which seems to solely exist as a fashion item, such is football in the endtimes.
Nothing disrupts the corporate messaging. I there find incredibly hard to understand how people can frame 5 seconds of players ostensibly showing solidarity against racism in a way sanctioned and endorsed by the authorities as some sort of existential threat to society. If its a gesture that is dangerously 'Marxist' surely the FA and the Premier League would be worried that as a result impressionable football fans will be throwing away their credit cards and rushing for a copy of the little red book and demanding gulags, great leaps forward and iron curtains instead of a free bet with Paddy Power (t's + c's apply, begambleaware.com) or guzzling down the latest official coconut water from the clubs official coconut water partner.
When we stop and think about our own ideology, it doesn't need Karl Marx to tell us that something is wrong with the way allocate the resources we have. You can dismiss him completely from your mind but still wonder why global wealth is such that whilst some luxuriate on their choice of inherited yachts and own entire islands, others struggle for fresh water from birth.
Whilst it's melodramatic perhaps to compare football to those circumstances, the global reach of a few 'elite' leagues has undermined the foundations of many leagues the world over. Football thrives in some countries and struggles in others. Wither Eastern Europe and Hungary, the land of Honved and Puskas, wither African football with ever declining crowds as mega leagues strip away player after player, wither the global game and hail more or less the same 8 teams in the Champions League every fucking year. Who is going to chuck money at a league no one watches? Who is going to watch a league with no players of quality? How is that league going to maintain its quality with no sponsorship income? What's round and bites?
Football and gambling justify their own relationship by the same argument that justifies so many things that do harm. It makes money and money makes jobs. It's an 'industry.' Open cast mines in national parks make money, money makes jobs. Chemical factories discharging their waste into rivers maximises profits and to hell with those downstream. Profits secure jobs and people need jobs so we overlook the people getting rich on destruction...
In the same way, the wealth of the game is a good thing, for wealth is good. Who cares that ticket prices rise, the make up of crowds change, the game becomes hidden behind a paywall, fixtures are rearranged and rules changed according to the whims of the TV companies. Who cares, because it makes money and money is everything.
Where does the money go? Where does all this wealth that pours into the game end up? All the money from the fixed odds machines on high streets in towns where there's little else to do? All the money from the exploitative multinational brands that line up to stick their name on anything that moves to distract from their supply chain? If this money is an inevitability can we not think of anything better to do with it than ever increasing wages and ever more absurd transfer fees?
Just as the chemical company doesn't need to care about the dying fish, withered trees and poisoned water it leaves in its wake till eventually the law forces them to, the elite football leagues don't need to care about their impact on the global game or the parlous state of grassroots football. It's not their job to do so. Wealth is good. People need jobs. Etc. More adverts. More money please. Bigger stars, more money, more adverts. Wealth is good. Repeat.
There's no doubt room to expand the allegory but you don't have to look far beyond the football pitch to see the ideology the game rests upon. One that is, as I've written about at length before, designed to keep the finances flowing in the same direction, whilst giving just enough of a hint of opportunity to keep everyone else interested. It's a construct maintained by careful messaging and reinforced through the overlapping messages of brands who share the same interests in maintaining a status quo. As I said, this allegory could run and run...
If 'there's no room for politics' in the game, it's going to be a long old road to strip away everything ideological and leave us with just the football. The football pitch has become a blank canvas for the mega rich to sketch their values upon. Not everything ideological is so considerate as to label itself as 'political'
I just want to watch some lads kick a ball about and hope my team wins.
When we stop and think about our own ideology, it doesn't need Karl Marx to tell us that something is wrong with the way allocate the resources we have. You can dismiss him completely from your mind but still wonder why global wealth is such that whilst some luxuriate on their choice of inherited yachts and own entire islands, others struggle for fresh water from birth.
Whilst it's melodramatic perhaps to compare football to those circumstances, the global reach of a few 'elite' leagues has undermined the foundations of many leagues the world over. Football thrives in some countries and struggles in others. Wither Eastern Europe and Hungary, the land of Honved and Puskas, wither African football with ever declining crowds as mega leagues strip away player after player, wither the global game and hail more or less the same 8 teams in the Champions League every fucking year. Who is going to chuck money at a league no one watches? Who is going to watch a league with no players of quality? How is that league going to maintain its quality with no sponsorship income? What's round and bites?
Football and gambling justify their own relationship by the same argument that justifies so many things that do harm. It makes money and money makes jobs. It's an 'industry.' Open cast mines in national parks make money, money makes jobs. Chemical factories discharging their waste into rivers maximises profits and to hell with those downstream. Profits secure jobs and people need jobs so we overlook the people getting rich on destruction...
In the same way, the wealth of the game is a good thing, for wealth is good. Who cares that ticket prices rise, the make up of crowds change, the game becomes hidden behind a paywall, fixtures are rearranged and rules changed according to the whims of the TV companies. Who cares, because it makes money and money is everything.
Where does the money go? Where does all this wealth that pours into the game end up? All the money from the fixed odds machines on high streets in towns where there's little else to do? All the money from the exploitative multinational brands that line up to stick their name on anything that moves to distract from their supply chain? If this money is an inevitability can we not think of anything better to do with it than ever increasing wages and ever more absurd transfer fees?
Just as the chemical company doesn't need to care about the dying fish, withered trees and poisoned water it leaves in its wake till eventually the law forces them to, the elite football leagues don't need to care about their impact on the global game or the parlous state of grassroots football. It's not their job to do so. Wealth is good. People need jobs. Etc. More adverts. More money please. Bigger stars, more money, more adverts. Wealth is good. Repeat.
There's no doubt room to expand the allegory but you don't have to look far beyond the football pitch to see the ideology the game rests upon. One that is, as I've written about at length before, designed to keep the finances flowing in the same direction, whilst giving just enough of a hint of opportunity to keep everyone else interested. It's a construct maintained by careful messaging and reinforced through the overlapping messages of brands who share the same interests in maintaining a status quo. As I said, this allegory could run and run...
If 'there's no room for politics' in the game, it's going to be a long old road to strip away everything ideological and leave us with just the football. The football pitch has become a blank canvas for the mega rich to sketch their values upon. Not everything ideological is so considerate as to label itself as 'political'
I just want to watch some lads kick a ball about and hope my team wins.
 |
| In retrospect the main mistake I made was not buying a mid ranking championship club, one with Premier League potential... y'know Derby, Watford, that sort of team... |
(I also need a new carpet.)
Happy Christmas.
(*) full credit to the ever fantastic SAFCBlog for the 1 game emergency loan of the scoreline involving things that aren't football to illustrate a point technique.
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