The once beautiful game

I went to the olympics yesterday and saw the triathlon in Hyde park and then the evening athletics session. Before the games I was pretty cynical about the whole event with the view that they had been completely hijacked by big business and it was all about money. While that is true it is only the half of the story. The fact is that the event has been taken back by the athletes, most of whom are unassuming people driven to compete at the highest level for little reward other than the experience and the lasting memory. These are elite athletes in their respective fields who spend their waking hours training and preparing for their big moment knowing that, for most of them, that moment will be fleeting with early elimnation and a return to anonymity. Compare that to our so called top footballers, who for a five or even six figure weekly wage turn up for training at 9:30, spend about 3 hours on the training ground, the afternoon sh***ing their teammates' wives and tweeting insults and moaning about their lot and then go out on the lash in the evening. People like John Terry, Wayne Rooney and Ashley Cole do not deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as these people, let alone referred to as sportsmen.

I have renewed my season ticket and sometimes wonder why. I have come to the conclusion that this has little to do with the love of the modern game but is really down to hanging onto a memory of my youth that I try to perpertuate through tribal loyalty and friends with whom I share a drink and the matchday experience with. If Pompey dies then I reckon my devotion to the once beautiful game will also.

Sorry for the rant, but I needed to get it off my chest!

 

Totally agree, it looks like I'm not the only one who has grown totally disillusioned with football. Not only is there the fact that most of the players are egotistical, self-centred, utterly repulsive idiots, but there's the complete and utter corruption from FIFA to the Football League, the Premier League to UEFA. As well as pathetic fans who are driven by hatred. In fact, I was just talking about this not that long ago in the Southampton forum (in the Olympic Football thread).

The one caveat I would say (and I know I go on about this a lot) is Women's football: much smaller egos, no diving or rolling on the floor 'injured', passion and determination and generally a lot of the worst aspects of Men's football are not there but it's still entertaining. So I strongly think you should give it a try some day.

 

I agree to an extent. Being a young un who has grown up watching prem football, and seeing what it can do to football clubs and what money as a whole has done to the game, makes me think of calling it quits and finding another way of spending £200 on a ST or £50+ every away day.

I think this is why a lot would embrace non league footie if this PFC was liquidated. It would be devastating of course but in non league, the players are just your average people. They've usually got other jobs, at uni or college and struggle to pay their mortgages. They are just us but a bit better at football. Arguably we'd be back to what football was. It won't be for everyone as LFIH has possibly stated but for me I'd say "lets av it". I've always wanted to know what it was like back in the 70's and 80's, standing on a terrace watching real people play the game you love.

The pain of liquidation was hurt for a while but maybe a metaphorical "step back in time" may be just what we need to re kindle our love for football.

 

I heartily concur Mr Fish.

I think the rot set in more obviously when trhe Premier League came into being, along with the megabucks TV deals for the top clubs. The top players are mercenries, not footballers. They will follow the money and don't give a stuff about club loyalty.

Hopefully, if you are attending games and sharing banter with League One fans, your love of the game may be rekindled a bit - you're hardly going to come across any 'plastic' Hartlepool fans for example!

 

Provided we do get the chance to play in League 1 it will be just like the old days, terracing with no or little seating and running through visiting towns and City's looking for suitable watering holes, noisily taking over pubs we have not been to(and some new ones)for many years. Could be quite a laugh actually especially if we get some sort of side together and continue to back the club in substantial supporters numbers both home AND away!PUP

 

I heartily agree with everything LFIH says - BUT - I have never believed that the club will die, even with TBH Chanrai won't let it, he still has too much to lose. I hate the thought of BC coming back but the Trust deal was making me nervous, visions of an immediate drop to league 2. I had a couple of dealings with them and found them rather hard going.

They were late off the starting block and ended up with just 1670 £1k pledges - basically pricing out most of the supporters who just don't have a grand to spare, (and the finance deal was quite expensive). Lampitt becoming their ultimate advisor (as CEO of Supporters Direct) was almost farcical.

However, if they put their minds to it, got a proper plan/strategy in place that the supporters could buy into, they could still get the funding to purchase from Chanrai in a year or two.

Well that's my view, for what it's worth.

 

Like The Hermanator, I have only really known Premier League football, so I have not been fully aware of 70s or 80s footie.

When I go and watch my local non-league team, (in the Ryman Premier Division), there is a nice standard of football, watched by 40 or so people.

On occassions, watching these games is more enjoyable than spending £25-30 on a ticket to watch overpaid, overconfident youngsters kick a ball around.

 

Totally agree with the sentiments above. As some of you may know I have given both Saints and Pompey my support in the past but having watched the Olympics for the past two weeks one realises there's much more to enjoy than watching a footballer paid !100K+ a week diving around (Suarez), faking an injury (Drogba), cheating (Fabregas), gobbing off to all and sundry (Rooney, Terry) out on the lash and smashing up cars (Bendtner and friends), fighting!! So yes, I have taken my support away from the game. Don't think I'll even go to St Mary's this season despite the chance of seeing so-called top footballers! If PFC survive, at least you'll see a more honest type of player! However, I'll only go again when I begin to witness progress with regard to the infrastructure on and off the pitch!

 

Well, with our weather, that's almost 400 overs of cricket in total for the season. Not too bad.

 

As someone who left England in the era of 'honest football' (1973),, and has only been exposed to the premier league on television, the thing that epotomises the mercenary aspect of the modern game to me is how fringe players at clubs like Chelsea and Man U, some of them current internationals, can squander a short career getting 10 to 20 mins football every other week off the bench. If you love the game you want to play it. If they played for lesser teams where they were regular first team members for half the money they would not be going without.

 

Exactly. In days gone by, if some-one wasn't getting a game they'd be after a transfer to a lesser side where they'd be a first team regular. But in the worls we live in, these people are so much better off financially warming the bench at Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge than they would be playing first team football at Carrow Road or St Andrews.

Is it time to have a wage cap?

 

It's an impossibility. Clearly it would have to be enforced globally otherwise talent would migrate to wherever the money is (see rugby), and no league that values it's future would bring one in. A more realistic and sensible approach is a limit as a percentage of turnover which UEFA are at least attempting to set up. In the modern game you need a large squad of players if you want to be competitive, which means some players are going to get paid a lot of money for not many minutes.