There
seems to be a lot of debate (on the radio and the sodding press and the telly
and on the forecourt and on the internet) about the disconnect between
professional footballers and those numbskulls who enjoy watching them play it.
I guess the World Cup is the trendy thing to discuss so they’re having to milk
it as much as they can. Consequently those of us who couldn’t give a flip and
would like to avoid it are having to endure having something connected to it
rammed down our throats on every channel that doesn’t have the rights to
broadcast it. And so it was that I got stuck in the office listening to a
normally intellectual discussion programme lowering itself to the common
denominator and talking about ‘The Beautiful Game.’
So I
learnt that back in the 1950s and 60s, the pros used to travel on busses and
sit in pubs with the very fans who used to go and support them, whereas
nowadays they tend to be hidden behind PR executives and security fences.
My
own conclusions, based on what I heard and a few conversations with Ted and his
family, are these:
People
supported them because they were just like us, but in a position to do the job
we’d love to do ourselves. Now they’re nothing like us – they get paid
extraordinary amounts of money to play a game we’d love to play ourselves,
while the rest of us get to pay extortionate prices to watch them do it.
No
wonder people get pissed off with them.
RC 19-6-18
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