Morning all. I had an interesting thought about money in football last night. We are all told that the premier league is delivering football of a better standard than we've ever seen before, players are fitter and more technically proficient. Also all these foreign players are there because they are better than the British lads. The knockon of this is that it makes me think that in the 80's, the quality of the first division must have been roughly what the standard of todays championship is (based on the assumption that if you removed every foreigner from the English leagues tomorrow, most championship players would be in the premier league). Since my own football memory only goes back to 2000/01 (first match I can remember watching by design is England v Finland), I'm wondering if those with a longer football memory can help out. Have we really never had it so good in terms of football quality? Were top flight games in the 70's just a glorified punch up between overweight League one standard players on a peat bog? In the 60's did the midfielders all get neck ache because they were watching the ball fly over their heads for 90 minutes? Personally in the ten years i've been watching football, the only thing that's changed is the wages and the fact that nobody seems to be able to cross a ball anymore.
The levels of skill and creativity in the 70s and 80s were, imo, the same as they are now. The real difference was in levels of fitness and athleticism. All players are required to be athletes now, whereas before there was room for the likes of George Best, Frank Worthington, Stan Bowles, Charlie George etc to do their training on the pitch, and spend half the week in the bar. Nowadays the game is faster, players have a lot less time on the ball, and the pitches are far better, but the players, apart from being fitter, are not noticeably better, at least not to my eyes. Also, in the 70s players were approachable, just ordinary blokes who happened to be very good at football, not spoilt denizens of a parallel universe like today's premiership players.
This is a hard question to answer. If you had said are cars better today I would have said mechanically they are much better and more reliable but that they lack a great deal of character which is why manufacturers have produced cars along classic lines such as the Rover 70 and the Jag as well as the VW Beetle etc. It is also why people buy and restore classic, veteran and vintage cars. I have a feeling that the speed of the game is faster than I recall from the 60s and the 70s but there were many talented players who played intelligent football then. I recall Dave Sexton’s QPR with Marsh, Bowles, Francis, James, etc who played wonderful football. Take a look at the goal against Liverpool with all those passes which involved every player in the side and you can see that technically the game was every bit as good as modern football. The one real difference I think is that now teams have so many good players as we recruit across the world whereas in the 60s and 70s most teams had a core of good players and then some average ones. If anything I would have to say the old Division One in the 60s was a bit like the Championship today while things were moving rapidly to the modern game in the late 70s with a small influx of overseas players. I don’t know whether that has answered your question or indeed if it is possible to as watching football and evaluating teams and players is quite a subjective thing. Take for example the variety of views our fans have on Guly and De Ridder as an example. For me I have enjoyed watching the Saints for over 40 years and have enjoyed every minute of it and would say that my heroes like Steve Williams, Mike Channon, Terry Paine and Ron Davies could more than hold there own in todays top flight game.
There are some wonderfully gifted footballers about nowadays, but then there always have been. My own football memory goes back to the 1960's, where the game was graced by players like Pele, George Best, Franz Beckenbauer, Jonny Giles, Bobby Charlton, and so on. All of those would have shone in the Premier League, just like our own Matt Le Tiss did. I think that the main difference between then and now is the amount of money in the game, which has meant that there is such a huge difference in income between the Prem and the lower leagues that teams simply can't afford to be relegated, and this affects the tactics used. Few clubs, for example use genuine wingers nowadays, but instead use wingbacks or midfielders who have to drop back and help out in defence. So there are few occasions when a player will get to the byline and cross, like Terry Paine or John Sydenham would do for Ron Davies and Martin Chivers. Instead they cross from nearer the halfway line, which makes a completely different problem for centre forwards, who have to deal with crosses coming from behind, and are therefore at a disadvantage to the defence. Not sure if that answers your question Wise one, and sorry for the rambling reply!
No worries about the rambling reply, I'm genuinely interested in this. My Dad always used to say he enjoyed football more in the 70's and 80's, and my Grandad used to always wonder what the fuss was about Beckham and Giggs. He said that in the 50's and 60's every team used to have wingers that were as good as they were.
I have posted a similar answer to a different question in the past. It relates to a change in mentality rather than quality as when I first started watching football regularly, you could be certain that both teams would at least try to win the match. After Man Utd and Arsenal's initial spell of dominance in the PL, coupled with the cash cow that is the UCL cementing a genuine "Big 4", we started to see a change in approach. Smaller teams started to concede defeat before kicking off against the "Big" sides and upsets were less common than they had been. Then managers started to talk about a league below the "Big" 4. Then they started talking about leagues within that league. Well, that kind of talk only impacts the psychology of the individuals or team and I believe that this is possibly the most important factor in sport. If you believe you will finish last, you will. I think that the last couple of seasons in particular (although I accept that other examples could be cited) have demonstrated what happens when you disregard that nonsense and go for the throat. What Norwich and Swansea did last year was superb as, to a lesser extent if you simply measure points, was Blackpool's run the previous year. Let's hope we adopt the same approach this year!
I am not of a "certain age" myself but it's an interesting question. One thing that I am fairly sure about is that the game today is nothing like it was 30 or 40 years ago, so saying things like "who is better, Messi or Pele" is meaningless in my view. To say that the players of the past were 16 stone alcoholic cloggers is probably equivalent to saying that modern footballers are all diving whingers - a bit of an exaggeration. Who would win a match between a good 1970's team and a good modern team? I imagine it would depend which rules we played under. You have said what I think better than I could. The game is certainly more athletic and an unfit player, however good, is going to struggle to touch the ball once in 90 minutes now. I don't think that footballers are necessarily more fit people, just that there is a vastly improved sports science aspect to the game now.
I honestly think the current Saints team would beat any previous one but a lot of that would be down to fitness. I was saying last year that the Championship was probably as good as Division One (i.e. the Premier League) was in the 70's. If it wasn't for all the overseas players, most of those English guys in the Championship would indeed have been playing in the Premier. Every team in the 60's and 70's seemed to have a number of skilful players and, as has been said above, 'characters'. But for every Best there was a 'Chopper' Harris for every Bowles a Norman 'Bites Yer Legs' Hunter. Those guys couldn't exist in the modern game. As such it has allowed the general level of ability to flourish (albeit seemingly not the English players). Having said that, Terry Paine is still the best passer of a ball I have ever seen. He was someone who started as a 'get to the byline' winger but later retreated more to a right midfielder. Seriously, if you think Beckham can cross a ball, Paine was better and that is not rose tinted glasses talk.
I think the game was kind of faster in the 60's, 70's and 80's even into the 90's than it is today. The teams in their heyday like Liverpool and Busby's teams at united were very fast and kind of steamrollered the opposition. How ever it is true that players are more of a technician today and are expected to play in more than one area of the pitch. They are fitter but in the last few years the game has slowed in the sense that the passes are more purposeful and other than breakaways or counter tactics, is slower as teams try and keep possession. Teams like Arsenal try the "modern" way by almost walking the ball into the net and are very successful at it. International teams like Spain and Italy have tried to play this way for years. To the question re the pre 50's and 60's mid field used to get a crook in their neck watching balls go over their heads. The answer is no.... the battle for mid field used to go on between the two 25 yard lines inside forwards fetched and carried the wingers stayed on the wing. So a different kind of skill perhaps was needed although you all had your area of the pitch to look after. You had your tough tacklers in the mid field area "Norman bites your legs" Hunter comes to mind here. Then you had your centre forwards. Many of you will have perhaps heard a few of us oldies talk about with passion Namely one Ron Davis.....There were others like George Kirby, Ted Macdougal,Charlie wayman etc, but for Saints fans Ron Davis has to be the king of centre forwards. These guys had a type of skill rarely seen in today's football. If a ball was in the air in the penalty area they would somehow get on the end of it as high as 95% percent of the time. Yet they were not of Peter Crouch's height most a tad over 6 ft.... 6ft 2 perhaps. So I would have to say for excitement it had to be in the earlier days as in every game their seemed to be penalty area incidents continually. Maybe it is because I am an oldie....perhaps I'm a bit biased.......
