Sorry Keano But You Are Wrong
Red Dread
Is football losing its soul?
Yes says United legend Roy Keane.
“Has the game lost its soul? I wouldn’t disagree with that,” he complained. “The game is changing and its probably a lot colder. Football is not the game I knew 10 years ago. It’s changing and it’s sad to see.
“Football has lost its soul. How do you get it back? I’ll get back to you on that.That’s why I don’t really miss the playing side of it.”
The Sun newspaper this morning rushed to fill in the gaps. “Keane reckons a lack of Saturday 3pm kick-offs, spiralling ticket prices and a diving culture among over-paid players have all contributed. He also feels the top flight has become far too predictable and says the usual top four will grab the Champions League places again.”
Now when Roy Keane speaks, I usually stand to attention, listen and nod solemnly. He’s always been my favourite United player and I’m rooting for him to become boss of the club some day soon.
But for once, I’ve listened to RK and I beg to differ. Football has changed but mostly for the better. Let’s take Keano’s arguments one by one.
The lament that football has lost its soul is as old as the hills. How can a sport that carries the hopes of billions and attracts increasing numbers of spectators be accused of lacking soul. Football remains one of the few subjects that connects people. A world without football…now that would be like 80’s pop group Curiosity Killed the Cat - soulless!
On a day when there are just two matches, the criticism of the lack of 3pm kick-offs will resonate. But again its ridiculous. When most people worked from 9am to 5pm from Monday to Friday, Saturday kick-offs were an escape and were ordained because Sunday was for church and rest. Now, in the godless age, it’s all very different. In today’s hectic, 24 hour society, football’s flexibility mirrors other social and professional trends.
Where Keane has a point is on ticket prices. United have certainly priced out the lower income bracket and other clubs are doing pretty much the same. But here again, football cannot stand Canute-like and charge a shilling a game and hope to progress. German football fans are treated to some of the lowest entry prices available in Europe. But they do not have entertainers of the calibre of Ronaldo, Torres, Drogba or Fabregas. You get what you pay for. Ticket prices may be used to fund Glazer’s pipe dream at United but elsewhere the money is used to pay the salaries of the mega-stars who make football from this country the most watched in the world. It is expensive to go to football. Equally, it’s not cheap to go to the movies, a concert or even the supermarket. That’s life in a free-market society.
Is the moan about diving a thinly veiled dig at the presence of so many Johnny Foreigners in the Premiership? This debate will continue until the end of time or at least until England win a tournament. Non-British players do have a reputation for feigning injury and the Times has a fabulous resumé of some of the worst crimes seen on a football pitch. But what is wonderful about English football, is how quickly these players become assimilated and gradually forego the dark tricks. No better example exists than the career of Cristiano Ronaldo.
I’ve already touched on football’s billion pound finances. The wages of the top stars are fabulous but so is the entertainment they provide. Why should football stand alone from other professional activities, trapped because of sentiment into being a relic of the past, or some kind of workers’ cooperative? Matt Damon is brilliiant as Jason Bourne and gets £17 million for his labours because those paying him know just how much he is worth. Led Zepplin will make a killing from their one-off reunion gig because fans desperately want to see them. That’s the law of the market. Money follows talent.
Of course, there are those who would say that before the foreign invasion, English football was in rude health. Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa shared out the European spoils over half a decade in the 70’s and 80’s. There was little of the angst now proclaimed about the future of the national teams of England and Scotland. What is also true is that football now is immeasurably better than it was even in those halcyon days. Peter Schmeichel caused a storm when he said that the 1998 United team would beat the 1968 team of Law, best and Charlton 10-0. The protests could not camouflage the fact that he was undoubtedly right. The current United team would beat the 1999 team 4-2 because footballers now are of a higher standard. They need to be fitter and more technically able to survive at the top level. Don’t believe the hype. Progress is inevitable.
Keane’s last canard is that the league is too predictable. Twas ever thus Keano, as any student of United’s wilderness years will remember. Back in the 70’s and 80’s, discussions about the eventual winner of the First Division title centred only on the question of by how many points Liverpool would win the league. The Scousers were so good that in 1979, they conceded 16 goals in a 42 game campaign.
Thankfully Fergie dragged United back form ignominy and made them competitive. United have money and can afford the best players. Personally, I have no problem with that. Let the Premiership become a procession for all I care, so long as United are the parade kings.
Money isn’t making the sport boring or predictable either because the amount of cash now sloshing around the world - thanks to the stupid war on drugs, financial speculation and rising property values - means other clubs might soon force their way into the party. Manchester City might be run by a fugitive thief trailing allegations of human rights violations behind him but ‘Frank’ has put £30 million into the club and has a top manager at the helm. City are back. The same should happen at Villa, Spurs, QPR and might even happen at Birmingham City in the future. It’s also a bit rich for Keane to criticise the sporting order that money brings given just how important cash investment was to Sunderland’s promotion cause last year.
What Keane doesn’t say and what is apparent from the past grenades launched against United’s prawn cocktail brigade is the Irishman’s class antagonism. The middle class has driven the working masses from their sport and this sits uncomfortably with the man from Cork.
Class warriors are something of a rare sighting now. Footballers with mock-tudor mansions and seven figure bank balances are not usually counted among the dwindling ranks of the Socialist Workers Party but Keane is not alone in his contempt for football’s nouveau riche arrivistes who lack passion and knowledge in equal measure.
But here again, Keane is raging pointlessly against modernity. For the last 20 years, Britain has experienced a profound social revolution. Most of us are richer than our parents. More and more of use own our own homes and fewer of us take up the type of occupations that used to give identity. How many miners or steel and factory workers do you know?
The middle class no longer sees football as a thug’s game and has moulded the sport in its own image. Corporate boxes are here to stay. Catering facilities are now as important as stadium car parking and those considered NQRC - not quite our class - have been made to feel unwanted by the move upmarket. Football is now the new cricket.
Keane might not like it but I do. There, I wrote it! I like the fact that the Neanderthals are now counting their ASBO’s instead of causing mayhem on match days. As a child, I was desperate to go to football and be a part of what men do. My dad took me to Old Trafford and a love affair was born. But I wanted to go on my own and so at 14, I returned with some friends. It was also an unforgettable experience but for all the wrong reasons. Thatchler was in power and racism had not been outlawed in football stadia. I watched black players get showered with abuse and came in for some myself. As you will imagine, I was not over-keen to repeat the experience. A generation or two of black and Asian football fans felt the same and made the sport an armchair experience.
It’s all so different now. Political correctness, or as my friends call it, simple decency, means that going to matches is the inclusive, pleasurable occasion it should be. I get a deep jolt of happiness about being British and loving football every time United are televised and the camera pans over to the dugout. Lord Ferg is there, chewing the cud and anxiously studying his watch. So too is the inscrutable Carlos Queiroz and just to the right, are two stern-faced Sikh season ticket holders, sitting in the crowd. For me, that is the changing face of Britain over the past 15 years. By any standard it represents terrific progress.
So sorry Keano, football may have its problems and some of them may never be resolved. But for this United fan, you can keep your sepia coloured 70’s fantasies. Give me football as it is now. Even more so, give me the future.
READ: Football’s Last Taboo
