So what does that say about those of us who can appreciate both footballers and concert pianists?
kevin hassett
3 years ago
Hi Tom, as someone born 2 miles from Anfield into a family of Liverpool supporters – (except for my mother who was always suspected of being a closet Evertonian) and who attended his first match in 1966 and travelled all over England and Europe with LFC I’m sure you would understand that my perspective on the issue of ‘football’ differs a little from yours.
LFC was for me a very local preoccupation which bound me into my community and family. Match attendance was an expression and a performance of a unique local working class culture made special (and to many made dangerous) by its combination of hard won knowledge of the world garnered not from formal learning but from seafaring and a celtic temperament quick to fists but also mercifully quicker to laughter.
Much of this has now been lost although faint echoes are still very occasionally detectable.
Many would argue of course that much has also been gained but i can never wholly reconcile myself to the fact that the support of a football club appears to be an intellectual decision these days the visible manifestation of which is the expensive purchase and wearing of a football shirt bearing on its back the surname of some here today gone tomorrow millionaire.
My first scarf was knitted for me by my granma….
I no longer attend Anfield unwilling to have my heritage sold back to me by slick strangers fulfilling the requirements of a 5 year business plan and don’t get me started on the latest Black Lives Matter nonsense….
So I’ve stopped Sky and BT with their overwrought, hyped up, expensive coverage of what is after all only a game…..but a game it should be said that contained a universe for me invisible to the slick suits and well heeled mountebanks who now control it.
I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled…..
all the best,don’t forget never to walk alone now, I’m off to the park to watch the kids play goalie on the spot.
Andrew Best
3 years ago
F**k football Putting the name and Taking the knee for a woke/cutural Marxist organisation that wants to overthrow the west, destroy the nuclear family, overthrow capitalism and effectively racial segregate the world. Never again you virtue signalling, two faced, subservient, Anti English, middle class, over educated woke idiots
Perfectly encapsulated! To one who knows next to nothing about Football it does seem that the higher the salaries of these prima donna’s, the stupider they are. As to the bending of the knee, why not the full Kowtow?
I love football and still spend much of my life thinking about it, worrying about, watching it, and playing it – even at the age of 54 I play twice a week. Today I am concerned about the fact that Andre Wisdom, who plays for my beloved Derby County, has been stabbed and is in hospital. (Well, he did go back to Toxteth in a nice car – perhaps the nice car that he drove into a river when following the GPS navigation system to his first match at Pride Park).
But as long ago as 1996 I resolved not to put any money directly into British football, the influence of big money and agents etc already being poisonous in my view. And of course these things are 1000 time worse now. So, I won’t pay to watch matches and I don’t have any TV subscriptions (or indeed a TV). I will buy a ginger ale in the pub to watch what our undoubtedly some very good footballers and very exciting matches. That said, I have almost come to prefer half-listening to the commentaries on 5Live while reading, then watching the highlights on YouTube.
And I agree with Andrew Best below that it is disgusting to watch all these idiots take the knee for a Marxist organisation whose stated aim is to destroy our society. The mansions of the footballers will not be sacrosanct should BLM come to power.
Liz Jones
3 years ago
In the late 1960s when ordinary Britons were first able to visit the USSR, I went on a tour with my parents and as a part visited Tibilisi in Georgia. During the bus tour we passed a mosaic depicting a Georgian story ( I can’t remember whether it was history or legend) but the tour chose not to stop to allow a photo. After the evening meal Dad decided he wanted a photo so he and I and another keen photographer on the tour walked to where the mosaic was which took us about three quarters of an hour. As it was dark Dad had brought along his tripod to take a timed exposure. Just as we were nearly finished we were surrounded by a group of about 30 young men. They spoke no English and we spoke no Russian but it was obvious that they were intrigued by Dad’s photographic kit, looking through the viewfinder and examining the tripod and various other bits and pieces. We finished what we were doing but were a bit apprehensive about being able to repossess our equipment when suddenly one of them managed to ask us where we were from. “Wales”, answered Dad and it was not surprising that that didn’t mean anything. At this point the easiest thing would have been to say England as that would certainly been understood, but Dad was a proud Welshman so he explained by using football talk. ” John Charles”, he said naming a famous Welsh international player who was one of the first First Division players to play in Italy. Suddenly they began to smile and named one of their players. Dad knew this game and names flew back and forth until Dad had retrieved and packed away his kit at which point the young men summoned a taxi and with many good wishes told the driver to take us back to the hotel. Incidentally it turned out the journey was free. Ah, the international power of ‘football speak’!
Yes, I had a similar experience on New Year’s Eve in Russia, 1991. Sledding with a bunch of people outside the hotel I communicated by recalling the names of Russia footballers like Kuznetzov, Blokhin, Yashin etc.
mrkclln
3 years ago
Excellent article on football supporting but I’m somewhat unsettled to find the views expressed here about BLM. To start again, from reality this time: it’s not a single movement, it’s not marxist, and it’s not aiming to come to power. The full kowtow? What disturbed world do you exist in? Are you afraid of what might become of your own fragile status if the status of others is also recognised?
David Smy
3 years ago
I was born and brought up in West Ham. My Dad took me to my first game when they were promoted to Division 1 back in 1958 and we beat Aston Villa 7-2. That was a high point and for 60 years since, unlike Tom, my weekends have been blighted by defeat. Over the last couple of years I began to question why this irrational association mattered to me, especially as there is little local representation in any of the premier league teams. I have gradually managed to close myself down to the weekly scores,although not enough to hide away from the probability of relegation this year. I do agree with Tom’s point about the sheer pleasure there is in watching sports people perform at the highest level but, of course, there isn’t much of that at West Ham. Perhaps that is why I am winning my battle to wean myself off professional football.
The obsessional attachment to a particular club can be damaging, especially when the core objective of the club is to take money off you.
Chris Mochan
3 years ago
“A goal blasted in from 30 yards is impressive, but I think if you want to show someone the aesthetic beauty of the game, the best thing to show them is the way a footballer uses their body to control the ball.”
This really gets to the heart of why so many consider Messi superior to Ronaldo. Ronaldo is brutally impressive, freakishly effective at getting the ball into the net as often as possible. But Messi does 2 or 3 things every match that defy logic. Subtle movements, touches and passes that leave you wondering how a human managed that. He’ll take a touch of the ball that’ll make you laugh out loud in disbelief. I don’t think football would be the international phenomenon it is if it didn’t have that dimension to it, something that goes beyond simply winning and losing.
I agree with you. I thought the interplay of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta in the wonderful Barcelona team of a few years ago was just a joy to watch. I think Guardiola crafted perhaps one of the greatest teams ever. Shame he went to Abu Dhabi.
So what does that say about those of us who can appreciate both footballers and concert pianists?
Hi Tom, as someone born 2 miles from Anfield into a family of Liverpool supporters – (except for my mother who was always suspected of being a closet Evertonian) and who attended his first match in 1966 and travelled all over England and Europe with LFC I’m sure you would understand that my perspective on the issue of ‘football’ differs a little from yours.
LFC was for me a very local preoccupation which bound me into my community and family. Match attendance was an expression and a performance of a unique local working class culture made special (and to many made dangerous) by its combination of hard won knowledge of the world garnered not from formal learning but from seafaring and a celtic temperament quick to fists but also mercifully quicker to laughter.
Much of this has now been lost although faint echoes are still very occasionally detectable.
Many would argue of course that much has also been gained but i can never wholly reconcile myself to the fact that the support of a football club appears to be an intellectual decision these days the visible manifestation of which is the expensive purchase and wearing of a football shirt bearing on its back the surname of some here today gone tomorrow millionaire.
My first scarf was knitted for me by my granma….
I no longer attend Anfield unwilling to have my heritage sold back to me by slick strangers fulfilling the requirements of a 5 year business plan and don’t get me started on the latest Black Lives Matter nonsense….
So I’ve stopped Sky and BT with their overwrought, hyped up, expensive coverage of what is after all only a game…..but a game it should be said that contained a universe for me invisible to the slick suits and well heeled mountebanks who now control it.
I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled…..
all the best,don’t forget never to walk alone now, I’m off to the park to watch the kids play goalie on the spot.
F**k football
Putting the name and Taking the knee for a woke/cutural Marxist organisation that wants to overthrow the west, destroy the nuclear family, overthrow capitalism and effectively racial segregate the world.
Never again you virtue signalling, two faced, subservient, Anti English, middle class, over educated woke idiots
Perfectly encapsulated!
To one who knows next to nothing about Football it does seem that the higher the salaries of these prima donna’s, the stupider they are. As to the bending of the knee, why not the full Kowtow?
?
!
I love football and still spend much of my life thinking about it, worrying about, watching it, and playing it – even at the age of 54 I play twice a week. Today I am concerned about the fact that Andre Wisdom, who plays for my beloved Derby County, has been stabbed and is in hospital. (Well, he did go back to Toxteth in a nice car – perhaps the nice car that he drove into a river when following the GPS navigation system to his first match at Pride Park).
But as long ago as 1996 I resolved not to put any money directly into British football, the influence of big money and agents etc already being poisonous in my view. And of course these things are 1000 time worse now. So, I won’t pay to watch matches and I don’t have any TV subscriptions (or indeed a TV). I will buy a ginger ale in the pub to watch what our undoubtedly some very good footballers and very exciting matches. That said, I have almost come to prefer half-listening to the commentaries on 5Live while reading, then watching the highlights on YouTube.
And I agree with Andrew Best below that it is disgusting to watch all these idiots take the knee for a Marxist organisation whose stated aim is to destroy our society. The mansions of the footballers will not be sacrosanct should BLM come to power.
In the late 1960s when ordinary Britons were first able to visit the USSR, I went on a tour with my parents and as a part visited Tibilisi in Georgia. During the bus tour we passed a mosaic depicting a Georgian story ( I can’t remember whether it was history or legend) but the tour chose not to stop to allow a photo.
After the evening meal Dad decided he wanted a photo so he and I and another keen photographer on the tour walked to where the mosaic was which took us about three quarters of an hour. As it was dark Dad had brought along his tripod to take a timed exposure. Just as we were nearly finished we were surrounded by a group of about 30 young men. They spoke no English and we spoke no Russian but it was obvious that they were intrigued by Dad’s photographic kit, looking through the viewfinder and examining the tripod and various other bits and pieces. We finished what we were doing but were a bit apprehensive about being able to repossess our equipment when suddenly one of them managed to ask us where we were from. “Wales”, answered Dad and it was not surprising that that didn’t mean anything. At this point the easiest thing would have been to say England as that would certainly been understood, but Dad was a proud Welshman so he explained by using football talk. ” John Charles”, he said naming a famous Welsh international player who was one of the first First Division players to play in Italy. Suddenly they began to smile and named one of their players. Dad knew this game and names flew back and forth until Dad had retrieved and packed away his kit at which point the young men summoned a taxi and with many good wishes told the driver to take us back to the hotel. Incidentally it turned out the journey was free. Ah, the international power of ‘football speak’!
Yes, I had a similar experience on New Year’s Eve in Russia, 1991. Sledding with a bunch of people outside the hotel I communicated by recalling the names of Russia footballers like Kuznetzov, Blokhin, Yashin etc.
Excellent article on football supporting but I’m somewhat unsettled to find the views expressed here about BLM. To start again, from reality this time: it’s not a single movement, it’s not marxist, and it’s not aiming to come to power. The full kowtow? What disturbed world do you exist in? Are you afraid of what might become of your own fragile status if the status of others is also recognised?
I was born and brought up in West Ham. My Dad took me to my first game when they were promoted to Division 1 back in 1958 and we beat Aston Villa 7-2. That was a high point and for 60 years since, unlike Tom, my weekends have been blighted by defeat. Over the last couple of years I began to question why this irrational association mattered to me, especially as there is little local representation in any of the premier league teams. I have gradually managed to close myself down to the weekly scores,although not enough to hide away from the probability of relegation this year. I do agree with Tom’s point about the sheer pleasure there is in watching sports people perform at the highest level but, of course, there isn’t much of that at West Ham. Perhaps that is why I am winning my battle to wean myself off professional football.
The obsessional attachment to a particular club can be damaging, especially when the core objective of the club is to take money off you.
“A goal blasted in from 30 yards is impressive, but I think if you want to show someone the aesthetic beauty of the game, the best thing to show them is the way a footballer uses their body to control the ball.”
This really gets to the heart of why so many consider Messi superior to Ronaldo. Ronaldo is brutally impressive, freakishly effective at getting the ball into the net as often as possible. But Messi does 2 or 3 things every match that defy logic. Subtle movements, touches and passes that leave you wondering how a human managed that. He’ll take a touch of the ball that’ll make you laugh out loud in disbelief. I don’t think football would be the international phenomenon it is if it didn’t have that dimension to it, something that goes beyond simply winning and losing.
I agree with you. I thought the interplay of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta in the wonderful Barcelona team of a few years ago was just a joy to watch. I think Guardiola crafted perhaps one of the greatest teams ever. Shame he went to Abu Dhabi.