The times they are a changing

Football has changed they say. Our national game is apparently now almost unrecognisable from the one played before the Premier League brought us such innovations as inflatable giant wrestlers way back in 1992.

The summer spending sprees of Manchester City and Real Madrid have heightened people’s perception of how much the game has changed. The sums paid for and to players now are astronomical. How can a fan empathise with his hero when that said hero is pocketing £90k per week regardless of whether his crucial penalty goes in or not?

English teams are now awash with foreign mercenaries who care more about their next transfer than where their next goal is coming from. They are charged with stunting the development of good English players, who are seemingly not getting the chance to show their ability at clubs they love and would die for.

Diving and play acting have also spread through the game like a cancer – supposedly shattering the image of England as country where fair play prevails. And football is also apparently less competitive than it ever was. The same four clubs compete for the domestic trophies year on year, whilst only a handful of Europe’s biggest clubs ever get to put their hands on a European trophy.

But let’s put the rose tinted spectacles back in the case and wipe the mist from our eyes for a second. Has the game really changed that much?

If you were to attend a premier league game, knowing none of the players and with only their numbers on their backs to identify them, you would find a game very similar if not almost identical to the one played pre-Sky TV. The backpass rule aside, the rules have barely changed and the game remains a contest between two teams of eleven men trying to score more goals than their opponents.

Most of the changes that have been made have been focussed more on the commercial and administrative side of the game than what actually happens on the pitch within 90 minutes (or 97 if you’re playing at Old Trafford). Many of them, such as improved stadia, have actually benefited football. Some, such as the weekend’s fixtures being routinely split over Saturday and Sunday, have not.

Players are still asked to do the same things on the pitch, regardless of how much they have in their bank accounts. Goals are still scored in the same way as they were, and in the most part, the same fouls are still against the rules.

The changes to the game that really rankle with me are the ones that make very little the actual game. Their objective is not to change the outcome of football matches, nor what actually goes on between the two goal frames for 90 minutes. No, these changes have been made purely to instigate an onset of nostalgia – bizarrely making me hanker for a time when my team played in the second division and fans fought on the terraces.

These are the things that shaped my experience of football. They prepared me for a lifetime of devotion to something I have no control over, and that ultimately leaves me disappointed. They are the things I miss when I think of the game I grew up with:


Really unprofessional non-league clubs in the FA Cup
The third round of the FA Cup was always when the season got interesting. Non-league teams facing top flight opponents really were from different worlds in days gone by. The amateurs would be a rag bag bunch of postmen, milkmen and people from any other profession that involves getting up early. The manager would wear a 50 year-old coat and keep an odd superstition like letting his dog sit in the dugout for every game. These days, their kits are made by Adidas, there’s at least 75% of the pitch covered in grass and the manager talks of “tactics” in his pre-match interview.

Whistling for time
Before the use of electronic boards to let teams know how much injury time was to be played, the fans of whoever was winning or in my own experience, desperately hanging on for a draw, would loudly whistle from 88 minutes onwards to encourage the referee to call time on the game. Once he went past the 90th minute, we were entering the unknown. The next kick could be the last, or there might still be time for your team to snatch a vital victory. You could be playing for a second, or seemingly all night. Nowadays, unless the figure “4” comes up on that board, you instantly know you might as well head for the car.

Cold war football
Whilst communism reigned supreme over Eastern Europe, there was something alluring about football clubs like Sparta Prague, Dynamo Moscow and Steaua Bucharest. We knew nothing of their players, yet suspected everything. They were often very talented teams who played in hostile environments. Muffled commentary would make it seem as though the games were being played on another planet, and the pictures seemed to confirm it. Now, thanks to the exhaustive Champions League coverage, we know all about these teams and to be honest, most of them are actually quite rubbish.

Evening kick offs
Is it me or do we play less games of an evening now? I seem to remember West Ham playing their fixtures during the 89/90 season exclusively at night. Perhaps it was an experiment by the league to see if evening football would create a less aggressive atmosphere for the hooligans get caught up in? Whatever it was, floodlit football seems to now only be the preserve of the Champions League elite and the entrants for the LDV Vans trophy (it is still called that right?).