Back in the original incarnation of TV’s Fantasy Football League, which was hosted by comedians David Baddiel and Frank Skinner, they had a segment called 'Old Football Was Rubbish'.
A mx of old Pathe news clips combined with quirky, plum English commentary, jerky footage and crowds reflecting the times, all suits and rattles. This combined with the Harry Enfield "Charles Charlie Charlies" sketches, exacerbating the stereotype and helped to create the impression that old football was indeed rubbish.
But was it? Or despite the money, has the game evolved not into a purer and better form but a product that has lost its soul, identify and is now at possibly its most rubbish.
Football is still a global language. Still unites a planet. But as technology advances, the financial side escalates and the bottom line becomes more important than a bottom drawer full of medals, football is a ticking time bomb.
On the itch, we’ve hit an age of aesthetics over enjoyment. Pep-style overplaying is ultimately dull. Players aren’t players anymore. They are athletes. More importantly, obscenely paid robots.
Anyone who dares display an ounce of quirkiness or personality is breaking all sorts of modern taboos and talked about with hands covering mouths, so a nation of lip readers can’t decipher whether they’re having pasta for dinner again.
They play on carpets and have better diets, with multiple fitness staff looking after them. But they play too many games and they’re tired, bless them. Well lobby UEFA to cut the European competitions to straight knockouts, then. Don’t travel across the world to satisfy sponsors in meaningless friendlies.
PSR, profit and sustainability rules allegedly. More like protecting soccer's rich. In theory, a way of securing stability and fairness is nothing more than a bid to stop the so-called elite cartel from being disrupted.
We can’t be having anyone trying to break the cyclical nature of the game. Anyone daring to break the stranglehold of the so called big six is quickly forced to quash ambition and sell players.
All major leagues are turning into a procession of the predictable. There’s always been eras and dynasties, but the truth is Leicester winning the title was a freak - even though the larger football world loved it. The powers that be deemed it an unacceptable glitch in the system.
Who’s going to win the Bundesliga this season? Bayern Munich. Ligue 1? PSG. La Liga? Toss a coin. Heads Real Madrid, tails Barca. Scotland. Up in Scotland, they’ve engraved Celtic's name on the trophy already.
Technology was designed to make the game fairer but VAR is still heavily flawed, tweaked and basically a waste of time and money. The only thing "clear and obvious" is that it’s rubbish in its current form and responsible for killing more passion than the phrase "not tonight dear, I have a headache".
Goal line technology? Yeah, it has some merit. But only England would spend decades trying to prove our third goal in 1966 didn’t cross the line.
Football is a game of skill, ability and human error. A unique mixture that can conjure up giant killings, hidings, flukes and genius. Controversy without needing to stop frame analyse things to a skewed level.
Off the pitch. Endless kits, over saturation of coverage. The demise of original and creative chanting as we don’t have Top of the Pops as a cultural reference point. Kids holding signs asking for player's shirts, half-and-half scarfs. More tourists than the Tower of London. Really? Is this what the footballing supporters around the world really want?
Even the days of spontaneous protesting seem beyond us. Grumbling and bellyaching as you leave a stadium because you might only catch the end of The Traitors, rather than directing the rightful and deserved ire towards our very own in David Sullivan and Karren Brady.
And finally - back Hammers United. Join the protest march before our home game against Crystal Palace. Boycott Brentford. No more BS.
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