I, like most others in our country I guess, have found it hard to escape from the revelations, tearful partings and kiss-and-tell rumours (and a level of panic akin to an impending invasion by a superior force) concerning the alleged sexual antics, hedonism and alleged greed of the England Captain (now ex-) John Terry.
I ought to declare an interest (or lack of) from the outset: - I’m not a football lover; there, I’ve said it....whew, what a relief...!...although I used to be a very keen follower, so not quite outside the loop, I guess. I’m a Wolverhampton boy, born-and-bred (“So what did you have to be ‘a very keen follower’ of then, Doris?”) and like so many of my council-house pals, I was a regular attendee at the Molineux football ground, home of Wolverhampton Wanderers....yes, I know, “There on your own then were you?” Thank you, heard it all before, thank you... I was a scaff-bar-leaner in the Cow Shed end, took my first girl-friend there to watch a match....romantic or what....and you wonder why the relationship never lasted? That Cow Shed end is now, I believe, the away supporters end, the end near the ring-road, dual carriageway, oh; you probably all know where I mean far better than I do.
Anyway, my time was during the careers of folk like Stan Cullis, Billy Wright, Malcolm Finlayson, the irrepressible Eddie “Chopper” Clamp and games against Spartak Moscow and Honved of Hungary (was Puskas in that team? Would be happy for folk to tell me) and the winning of the league in 58. A move away from Wolves in the early 60’s (63 I think, to Brum of all places, home of arch rivals Birmingham City and West Bromwich!) when I was about 13 or so sort of curtailed my ability to attend Wolves matches as often as I used to. Then rock-and-roll bands (I was a pro-drummer, so now you can work out why I was mad enough to support Wolves) and “girls” came onto the horizon and my footie attendance rate dropped in direct relation to my rising libido. I did pick it up again at the turn of the decade (football, not my libido, you understand) but stopped going when the thugs and tossers took over in the mid 70’s, and although I’ve held an interest in Wolves’ fame and fortune over the passing years (often mis-fortune it has to be said, but, good or bad seasons, you take your home team on warts and all in my view) I have to say that I’m less than their number-one fan and indeed of football in general. My other great sporting love is cricket and you only have to have followed the roller-coaster ride that is supporting the England cricket team over the past ten years to fully understand how I could possibly still be willing to raise a shout for Wolves!
Well, to cut to the chase, I read, with interest, a couple of articles, both in the Independent, one of them by a chap who is a Crystal Palace supporter (I apologise profusely for not being able to recall your name but suffice to say that you’ll know who you are and it was a really well-written article...unlike this rambling discourse; oh, and belated (very) congrats on the game against Wolves that figured prominently in your article by the way. By all descriptions it was a top game and, win or lose, I massage my defeat-face with the knowledge that it takes two teams to make a memorable fixture...and there’s always the next time). Your article discussed, amongst other things, the merits of what football is to the people who follow a team and how the John Terry debacle has skewed the landscape somewhat.
I differ from the thrust of your article here for, in my opinion, football’s landscape has been on a severe tilt for the past 40 years and the concomitant loss of direction and integrity is and was totally and entirely predictable. I can remember all too well the late Danny Blanchflower saying in a radio interview, “The day they take the ceiling off player’s wages will spell the end of football as we know it.” Funny how those inconsequential statements stick in the memory and come back to haunt you, aint it? Anyhow, I reckon he got it just about right and we’re not just talking wages here....although, come to think, it’s a good place to start, but you have to detach yourself, stand outside of it all in order to see the obscenity of such largesse.
I think that was the one thing that startled me in the C.P. article I’m discussing, and I mean ‘genuinely startled me’, and yet the line was written with such innocence;
“The average weekly wage of a Premier League footballer is £23,000”.
I’m showing my naivety here, I know, but I had to go back and read that line another twice and then I still didn’t get it (I can hear the chants of “Who are you?” ringing out now). Even after two re-reads I still thought it was a misprint.....honestly, I did. I even texted a friend (I work in theatre, on the technical side, touring and such) and, if I remember right, I texted the quote then added something along the lines of, “...Even with 35 years theatre experience I can still only make just above the national minimum wage...fucking hell; how could I have got it so wrong?” It’s not that I begrudge them the pay-packet, honest, I don’t, and I, much like you I guess, would take the money and run, but... £23,000.... per week... average pay!!!!!! Jesus! And then we learn that Mr. Terry was making X million in sponsorship deals AND prepared to let his V.I.P. box at the ground out for a price... It’s an old song of mine, as those of you who read my irregular blog (who am I kidding?) will recognise, but I’ll sing it again; how much more than everything can you possibly want? Anyhow, back to more cerebral things.
What I am sure of is that John Terry isn’t an intrinsically bad man (I bet he’ll be so pleased to realise that I think so well of him, make his day, I’ll bet?!?!) just as George Best, Paul Gascoine, Eric Cantona, Zidane Zinadine or Maradonna weren’t intrinsically bad men.......oh, ok, stretching it a bit with that last one; sorry, but the rest still stand, and the reasons are known to us all. What footballers have is levels of expectation resting on their shoulders that would crush mere mortals such as us, much of it self-sought and self-inflicted I have to say.
They kick off with the thousands of fans that follow both them and the team, and who expect a win at every game...that’s ‘every game’. They have a level of pay that far outweighs their worth, and in many cases the ability to manage such sums ‘well’ and ‘sensibly’ is lacking too (yes, I know, ‘a cliché, Doris’; still a fact though by ANY measure and if you can’t see that then it’s about time you averted your eyes from the mirror and took a look around). They have a gang of corporate fucktresses (a sponsor by any other name) leaning on their every word, milking and bleeding them to remain corporately on-message, and which the individual players willingly go along with because, after all, £23,000 a week is so little to manage on, isn’t it? They have a posse of whoremongers (PR people) who monitor their every facial expression, nuanced comment and social observance and are ready with cover-up story, excuse and reason at the drop of every bollock, and a gang of hangers-on to fetch drinks, girls, coke, cars, whatever, and a group of calques who laugh loudest, “WOW” with most gusto and who, under normal circumstances, would drive anybody of even average intellect to distraction (am I the only person to believe that, the moment some arse in the audience begins to whoop out loud, the event switches from “wonderful artistic/sporting endeavour” to “ALL ABOUT ME!”?). These players are followed at every twist and turn of their lives by an army of reporters, spenders, hookers, tossers, pushers, pullers, good-timers, coke-liners, freeloaders, miscreants, sycophants, gofers, echo-chambers, whiners, chimers, chanters and wankers, all of them watching this individual walk the tightrope of THEIR dreams but the vast majority of them unwilling to hold the safety net too tight...because that’s what we want isn’t it? We want our heroes to be fallible and fall otherwise we can never aspire to be them; they are what we made them and that’s how it’ll continue.......unless we change it...?
With that as the challenge, I’d like to offer below my “Ten Solutions to Sorting out English League Football” with explanations (some of these options are more radical than others; forgive me if I wax on the dictatorially brutal side). What I am sure of is that what follows should in no way reduce the thrill of what everyone keeps telling me is “the beautiful game”. If what the players, managers, supporters and general hangers-on say is true and it’s not about the money then here are a few ways for us to prove it, and I also believe that English players of the calibre of Wayne Rooney, Paul Gasciogne and George Best would still have happened even with my draconian rules in place! What just might happen is we will stop the headlong rush into oblivion that money, big business and all-round greed that football is diving into: - (my prediction - by 2012 Manchester United will carry a sponsor’s name in their title and by 2015 will be playing out of Dubai.). OK, here we go:
1) All clubs allowed only one (1) overseas player at any one time on their first team and only a maximum of two overseas players in the squad. These overseas players can only be on contract for two years maximum before they have to be released and replaced.
Don’t know about you, but I’m sick of watching a football team from, well, anywhere really, that professes to be the team of some Town-City-Wanderers- Albion-Palace but where I can’t pronounce a quarter of the names of the team.
2) The rest of the squad to be made up of players drawn only from the county in which the club’s home ground is situated. If there are more than two clubs in any one county, then a player who is desired by more than one club has to go to the club closest to his home address for the first three years of his contract. After this he can choose which “county” team he plays for.
This will be a real step forward in encouraging English talent, of giving local youngsters a real opportunity to play first-class football for their team.
3) All wages to be level and equal across the board in all clubs and should reflect the wage levels present year-on-year in the country
We are striving to get the same level playing field system as far as pay and conditions are concerned in all aspects of work. The usual measure is equal pay for equal work. Well, they all play football, don’t they? At present the average weekly wage is £489. Not satisfied with the wage? Don’t play then. I am constantly told that the opportunity to play for your home team is payment enough and a real privilege; well, you now have that opportunity to prove it, and the wage level of £489 is a very decent weekly pay-packet too.
4) All advertising in and around football grounds to be stopped. No rolling signs, scrolling signs, billboard signs, or flags with signs on either in or around the bloody pitch.
Trying to watch a football on the T.V. is now an ocular challenge as the ball and players are continually lost in the fog of revolving adverts around the boards at pitch level.
5) No player to receive any pay for any product endorsement, direct or indirect. No walls of advertising behind T.V. interviews and definitely an immediate end to the wearing of those stupid baseball caps with a peak the size of a pelican’s bill and carrying an advert for some electronics company, Viagra manufacturer or alcohol brand. (Cricket and motor racing will also be included in this blanket-ban.....oh, and tennis players too; let it be known, THEY DO NOT DRINK CUPS OF COCA-COLA IN BETWEEN GAMES OR SETS; TRUST ME, I KNOW THIS FOR A FACT).
Responsible, truthful, honest, selected product endorsement will be allowed, but only such products as are used by the club in the pursuit of their business. 70% of the paid money for such advertising is to be ploughed straight back into the club and its facilities. The other 30% of all such monies is to be used to train and nurture young talent through the setting up of a Schools Training Scheme and out-of-school clubs and practice pitches. All such money spent this way is not subject to any tax.
6) A blanket ban on individual ownership of any club in any division.
Football club ownership to be divided 5 ways; 1) 50% to registered fans distributed through the registered supporters club by means of a subscription that gains the supporter a given number of shares and voting rights and an opportunity to buy further shares should they be released for sale in order to raise further funds. These shares are owned by the named individual and will be listed as “Family Shareholdings” and, as such are the total amount allowed to be held by any one family. No “Family” to hold more than 5% of the whole share issue available to that group; 2) 25% owned by playing/ground staff but no individual player or ground staffer to hold more than 5% of the whole share issue available to that group: 3) 10% owned by local business but no individual business to hold more than 5% of the whole share issue available to that group; 4) 10% to single individual ownership outside of the above categories but no individual to hold more than 5% of the whole share issue available to that group: 5) 5% to local schools but no individual school to hold more than 5% of the whole share issue available to that group.
Anyone found in breach of these share division rulings to be banned for life from the home ground and to be placed in the stocks every Saturday afternoon for a month, then, on completion of their stock-locking ordeal, be dragged by ten horses through the city streets, tied to a gun carriage wheel, have sixteen lashes with a bullwhip and have raw salt rubbed into the wounds.
n.b. All shareholders must return their share holding back to the club if they leave or are dismissed from the club and these shares are then offered for sale to interested club parties (subject to the above levels of holding). Any money made on these shares is to be given over to the individual who placed them in the “for sale” box, whether they leave of their own volition or not, unless criminal proceedings ensue, in which case the club gets all profits and such profit is added to the “Football Educational Funding” kitty.
7) Football strips to revert to the original strip that the various clubs first started out with when they joined a league. Home and away football strip to be exactly the same and remain unchanged throughout the team’s existence. If there is sufficient similarity between strips of competing teams then the oldest club will be allowed to maintain their strip and the other team required to find a new strip that is different to all others.
These strips will only be allowed to carry the player’s name and number on the back and the name of the club they play for on the front. No “Sponsor’s Message” allowed to adorn the chests of any player or official and none of those stupid fuckin’ baseball caps with a peak the size of a pelican’s bill...oh, I’ve done that before; sorry...
8) All areas of the ground to be seated and mixed in gender, age and supporter use.
As in our House of Commons pairing system for votes, all away supporters attending a ground will be required to have a home supporter vouch and sign for them to ensure good behaviour on both sides, and that home supporter be responsible for that away fan throughout the away fan’s time in the city or town of the football ground they are attending. This will be a requirement before a ticket for an away game can be purchased by an away fan.
9) Behaviour of a violent, insulting or socially obnoxious nature will be dealt with by the authorities in charge of the town, city or other urban environment where the game takes place.
Each town/city will supply and build a one acre, metal-fence-surrounded, holding pen at some point within the city/town limits (funds for this construction cost divided four ways: 30% from the club, 25% from the Police, 25% from the local council and 20% from local business). Any violence, racist behaviour, obscene chanting or the selling of weak Bovril will cause the match to be halted whilst those perpetrators are removed from the ground. All fans removed for such behaviour, along with the home or away supporter paired with them (see 8 above) will be incarcerated in the holding pen until they are claimed by their parents or other family member who will have to pay a fine of £200 before release can be effected. If no one comes forward to claim the miscreant then they become the property of the city/town to use as they see fit until such collection and fine payment has been made. After a period of six months, any unclaimed miscreant can be sold on the open market to the highest bidder.
n.b. If, due to bad behaviour, any match runs more than four hours long then that match will be deemed abandoned, no points given to either club, and a fine/levy of 50% of that match’s gate receipts, split 50/50 and to go direct to the council and police force taken.
10) On payment of an agreed fee to the given club, all football clubs will have at least one match televised during the season and no team shall be allowed to have more than two matches televised in any one season (not including international matches).
All money gathered from the televising of any football match will go into a central pool and be divided as follows: 50% to go direct to the participating clubs and split 50/50. 40% to pay for a newly formed, football ruling body (all twelve members of such ruling body to be on an “unpaid-expenses only” 2 year contract and selected by ballot and in equal parts from players, supporters and ground staff). 10% to be added to a “National Football Programme” for the promotion of fairness and sportsmanship within the game.
That’s it. Problem solved....along with how to gather Unicorn sweat and how to educate Leprechauns......... Oh, and whoever invented round shoe-laces should be strangled with a pair of them. Byee!
