Not really HCAFC but in the wider scheme of things we're all affected.. http://sport.uk.msn.com/football/news/margaret-thatcher-killed-football-allardyce Discuss..
Probably because all the playing field had been sold off, so there was no point as there was no where to play.
Some probably were but most European countries do not have the luxuries that our schools have/had in terms of their own playing fields. Neither is it the schoolteachers who do the coaching. Big Sam rent-a-quotes I'm afraid.
I wasn't around during the Thatcher years, she was out of power by the time I was born, or near enough, but surely there are still football pitches where kids can play sport on. They haven't all been sold off or built on. The money and the premier league itself is the biggest threat to sustainable football in the modern era, but I don't see him whinging about that.
A quote from ex-Orrell RUFC player and 80s PE teacher Ian Wilkinson.. "She stopped teachers being paid for extra hours???? No one was ever paid money for that. I had practices and matches every night apart from Fridays. Teachers withdrew their 'goodwill' in '84, I think it was, which meant I couldn't run any teams. When that was all over, no one was willing to help any more with the extra workload of the National Curriculum coming in. It wasn't just football. Also our school closed. Don't think Fat Sam is correct but she didn't help..."
Bullshit for me, latin kids play in a pitch no more than 30 metres big and usually with a concrete floor.. bone idle kids whod rather play xbox and the like is the answer..
whatever your views on Thatcher the argument he presented is ****e. I think the answer may be young kids staying indoors in the increasingly sedentary lifestyle, the enormous pay packet that robs drive and motivation from people, the introduction of the playoffs and three getting relegated (before, so many teams could not achieve relegation or promotion with a lot of games left, and so kids got thrown in all the time for experience) and the fact that 'Big Sam' bought foreign players by the barrel full ALL THE ****ING TIME.
Big Sam is complaining that somebody else stopped players having time to practice their skills? Not at all self serving as a way of justifying hoofball to the West Ham fans who live in the past when they produced skillful players then. (and no doubt they will again when they have a manager that wants players like that)
