Fear of unknown leading to football becoming homogenous
Ken O’Connor
March 10 2005
We live in an age of war. Whether it is the escapades of the madcap southern god-botherers in Iraq or the relentlessly puerile antics at the other end of this island, the appetite for conflict in these rudderless times is alltoo apparent. And in such situations, the first casualty is always rationality.
If the person is smart, then people as a society are not and this truth is magnified when something is contested. It seems that all it takes for something to become established as a fact is for it to be repeated just enough times for it to be slightly less than ubiquitous but nonetheless instantly familiar.
Propaganda is, of course, a well-established facet of combat and should we subscribe to one single truth, that football is modern-day warfare, (at least for those who accept Darwinism as a fact while those who donít still prefer the traditional method) then it becomes overwhelmingly apparent what an opportunity we have missed to improve everything.
Much has been written and spoken about the gameís ills, but the rather unpalatable truth is that a lot of the damage has been inflicted by the game itself. Football is, ostensibly, a past-time, a hobby, not something that should find itself in such a strictly regimented environment as our game today does.
For all the talk of a ridiculous surplus of money, greedy players with their agents in tow and even too many games, what is slowly but irreparably gnawing away at the game’s soul is its inability or lack of desire to countenance what is different.
In this regard, the reaction to Jose Mourinhoís gesture to the Liverpool supporters during the recent League Cup final was wholly disturbing. Now, this column had little interest in such a competition and, thus, paid little attention to the game, but when such a vitriolic response seeped out of the Liverpool contingent gathered around the television, it rather gave the impression that something significant had happened.
It was not potentially Steven Gerrardís first goal for Chelsea that horrified them, but the simple fact that Mourinho had displayed a remarkable temerity in, round the herds, celebrating a goal in a Cup final. Such behaviour is, of course, unacceptable in the British game.
That is, of course, unless the man doing so was brought up on the mean streets of Toxteth, Guildford, Salford or other such undesirable places immune from criticism in this brave new world. In that instance, it is but a heart-warming story of boydone- good, overcoming obstacles…inspiration for the nation…historic achievement.
However, 10 days ago it was a successful, wealthy, handsome and intelligent foreigner who expressed himself in such a way and so there had to be a reaction of the rather unflattering kind. Mourinho has been castigated for having a personality in the interim, his reluctance to play along with the monotony that still rules the English scene has long been commented on and the comments he made that it was a gesture aimed at the pernickety media was never going to offer a remedy to the deteriorating relationship they share.
Meanwhile, the interpretations of his gesture were being freely offered by people who, seemingly, had nothing else to do. Repeatedly to the point of farce, we were told that Mourinho has ‘a foreign temperament’ and ‘needs to settle into our game.’ Such comments came on the back of erstwhile observations that the Portuguese was a ‘breath of fresh air,’ ‘the new Cloughie’ and ‘arrogant,’ again usually made by the same people.
Is this how far we have come? These sayings are little more than propaganda, an attempt at turning one of the most complex individuals ever to enter Europe’s third-best footballing arena into a caricature, just another of the plethora of onedimensional football figures that so blight the landscape but with which the game is so comfortable.
Every major figure in the English game can be summed up in a matter of words, or at least it would appear. Arsene Wenger is, apparently, the Professor, ëcause he wears glasses and is foreign, like, so he must be all smart and that.
In an ideal world, the Alsatian economics graduate would be spoken of for his genuine achievement in rebuilding Arsenal from the rabble they resembled prior to his arrival (Bruce Rioch, anyone?) through a mixture of innovative psychological and physiological exercises. Rather, because it is simpler to do so, he is just spoken about as the smart Frenchie.
Ditto Sir Alex Ferguson, an avowed socialist who, in a parallel universe, is a leading figure in a genuinely leftist British Labour Party, even if he did take a title from an unselected and unrepresentative monarch.
He is rarely given the chance to air his opinions on, for example, where Tony Blairís motley crew are taking the country as the general perception is that he is just the ‘last of the old school bosses,’ gives his players the ‘hairdryer treatment’ or the man who launched a boot into the eye of uber-football celebrity David Beckham in the most ridiculous story Fleet Street has ever shown an interest in.
There are others too, who find themselves summed up in such insultingly simplistic ways. Graeme Le Saux must, of course, be a homosexual because he reads the Guardian and enjoys the opera. Martin OíNeill does nothing more than jump up and down on the touchline whilst shouting croakily, news which must come as quite a surprise to a former Queen’s University Law student.
Maradona, a Guevara-reading working class hero from the slums of Buenos Aires is nothing more than a ‘cheating Argie,’ of course. It’s not him we should be crying for (geddit?!). Eric Cantona was, remember, a bit ‘funny’ because he read philosophy, Roy Keane is a Bob Dylan fan so it is almost certain that he had deep emotional problems that the rest of the Ibiza-Trance 3-playing nation is immune to and Terry Venables is a great coach because he knows all about tactics and that. This situation does nothing for the gameís wellbeing.
Governing organisations speak of protecting football from unidentified dangers, but the biggest problem is needlessly self-inflicted. When Beckham is held up as an example of a deep individual because his newest ephemeral haircut signifies the moonís position in relation to Uranus (what price the name of Beckham number four?) it becomes very difficult to wonder why we bother.
The reason is, of course, because the game means so much to so many people. With that in mind, every effort should be made to improve it through allowing players and managers to speak their minds, to discuss non-football subjects and to place a moratorium on the use of clichÈs.
Promulgating the notion of one-dimensional stereotypes was acceptable in the war, but that time has passed and it is an insult to supporters when they are drip-fed these characters by a game where many seem intimidated by something different. The person is intelligent enough to hear what someone such as Mourinho has to say and process it and decide for themselves whether they agree with him or not.
Give them the whole picture and let them decide for themselves. If this is not done, then what progress have we really made? Diego Maradona’s faults are well documented but he was still one of the greatest footballers in the world.
