1. Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!

Why football's not coming home !

Discussion in 'Watford' started by colognehornet, Jul 8, 2021.

  1. colognehornet

    colognehornet Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 16, 2011
    Messages:
    14,579
    Likes Received:
    4,646
    This may be a little provocative this - but the song always makes me laugh and grimace at the same time. Allowing that the roots of professional football place it alongside weekends in Blackpool, working men's clubs, clog dancing and many other cultural activities of the northern industrial working class of the 19th Century - hence why the original football league was composed almost solely of northern clubs. The 'homeland' of football was a place where footballers were seen as part of that industrial working class, and were mostly paid factory type wages. That was the 'homeland' of football - a place to escape to from the pits and foundaries. So football can never really 'come home' - in fact England (through the creation of the Premier League) has done more to drive football away from its homeland (ie. the working class) than any other country. Actually by a strange twist - Germany is closer to football's roots than England is, with its 51% club ownership rules, standing areas in stadiums, fan friendly policies, frugal spending, and a league which only became professional in the 1960s.
     
    #1
  2. Chris 13

    Chris 13 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 20, 2011
    Messages:
    2,870
    Likes Received:
    1,152
    Organised football started in the UK back in the 1880's or earlier, that is the premise and we're sticking to it as I am to my lucky pants until after Sunday's final!!
     
    #2
  3. Bolton's Boots

    Bolton's Boots Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2011
    Messages:
    31,726
    Likes Received:
    10,504
    I think you're giving too much credit to the northern working man, cologne. Whilst it's true the rules were originally laid down in Sheffield, they bore as much resemblance to the game that grew and grew as the rules of any other ball sport. For the last 160 years or so they have been subjected to continual change - a job taken over by FIFA in 1904, if I'm not wrong. So what was created back then bears little similarity to what is played now.

    Apart from that, it is well documented that the original clubs in England relied heavily on Scottish players - mainly because professionalism was outlawed in Scotland at the time. In fact it was the Scots who changed the way the game was played by moving away from the English style rugby pack chasing the ball together to a more refined passing game. The very first World Football Championship was played at Tyncastle Park in Edinburgh between Hearts and Sunderland. Whilst Sunderland won the match 5-3, their entire team consisted of Scottish players.

    So, if football is going to 'come home', I contend that it can only do so by coming to Scotland - but given the state of the game here, I'd say that's unlikely to ever happen.

    Alternatively, it could go the China, where organised football - known as Tsu' Chu - was being played around 2500 years ago. :)
     
    #3
  4. colognehornet

    colognehornet Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 16, 2011
    Messages:
    14,579
    Likes Received:
    4,646
    Most of the Scottish players who played in England came from the industrial lowlands of Scotland and so were technically 'Northern working men' <laugh> We can establish that football was a working class thing so 'coming home' must mean it's coming back to the working class (what's left of it) and away from the oil barons and speculators. If that's what the song means then I'll sing it louder than anyone. But it doesn't. In Germany it was the same - the birth of football there was in the Ruhr area - so if football went home there it would be to Essen or Bochum and not the Lederhosen upstarts of Munich <doh>
     
    #4
  5. NZHorn

    NZHorn Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 13, 2011
    Messages:
    5,162
    Likes Received:
    1,533
    I thought that the first recorded games of kicking a ball were in China so I very much doubt if it is going to that home. Also, given the state of England presumably it could be said to be going to a home (for the...)
     
    #5

Share This Page