It’s a tough job sticking up for football.
The charge sheet against the so-called beautiful game is long. Indeed, at our
DISCUSS debate on Wednesday the 15th of January, Dr Annabel Kiernan
outline a fairly chunky list of reasons why she was arguing for the motion that
it is the beautiful game no more. Football has sold its soul.
In his quite stunning oratory against the
motion Professor Tom Cannon of Liverpool University didn’t actually try and
argue that it was in fact still beautiful, rather that it never was. We’ve
become seduced by nostalgia and a sepia toned view of the past, that has
allowed us to forget the crooks that ran football, Arsenal, Manchester United
and Liverpool in the olden days.
But winning the emotional argument was TV’s
Graeme Hawley, actor and Coventry City supporter who delivered a heartfelt plea
for the motion based on his own club’s perspective – playing 35 miles away in
another city – something the FA had done nothing to prevent.
Like I said, the job of defending all of
this was left to Colin Bridgford of the Manchester FA. Fair play to him for
evoking the schemes in the community. The great transformative things that the
influx of money has enabled football to do.
But there remained an elephant in the room
– the Premier League with all its money, pricing out the fans, accepting
foreign owners with no respect for what matters to fans – well, the audience
weren’t having it. Colin got a hard time when the questions came – and from all
kinds of supporters.
In the end the motion was carried – some
waverers were won over. But it was a mountain to climb, despite a plucky and
audacious opening the odds were against an upset. Rather like the one the
Blackburn Rovers team faced in the second half of the game that followed the
debate. There was only ever going to be
one outcome.
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