Home of the Beautiful Game?
As I entered the National Football Museum for the first time I got the same feeling, that jolt that I always get whenever I run out onto a football pitch, or emerge from the underbelly of a stadium and find myself surrounded by thousands of fellow fans, or even when a game is about to start on television. It’s a sense of exhilaration that for me is nearly incomparable. I unashamedly love football and could not believe my luck when I received my assignment and saw what it was. The ground floor of the museum is adorned with huge banners depicting some of the sport’s greats, each complete with a word to match the picture. Drama, History, Art, Skill, Passion, Style and Faith. For lovers of the game these are labels commonly associated with it, for its detractors they could probably not be further from the truth. Whatever your stand point, they are certainly open to debate and indeed were touched upon by the two authors, David Conn and Rodge Glass.
Once I had made my way to the fourth floor, resisting the temptation to kick any of the countless balls I passed on my brief journey, I sat down and the event soon started. Michael Taylor, who chaired the talk, informed the audience that the only pieces of ‘football theatre’ that would feature were his original Subbuteo baize that was draped over the table at the front and a toss of the coin to decide which author went first in their reading. Rodge Glass called correctly and kicked off the proceedings.
He read two extracts from his novel ‘Bring Me the Head of Ryan Giggs’, the story of a fictional footballer, Mikey Wilson, who was part of the same Manchester United youth team as Giggs, Scholes, Beckham, but suffered a very different fate to those esteemed players. Glass, a United fan, was lively and boisterous during the first reading, providing the audience with laughs and even an impression of Alex Ferguson. His second extract, whilst losing nothing of the initial energy, was in a far more cynical tone, highlighting the myriad clichés that surround football and exposing the tired interview scenarios where a stock presenter’s stock question is provided with a stock answer by a stock player who can’t really say anything interesting or original. When asked about using real people in his book, he casually joked about Giggs’ litigiousness regarding a certain superinjunction taken out by the United legend. Suffice to say he was surprised he hadn’t received a call from someone’s lawyer.
David Conn then took to the floor. His book, ‘Richer Than God: Manchester City, Modern Football and Growing Up’, is in a very different vein to Glass’. It is a work of non-fiction, using how Conn’s support of City has changed in relation to the evolution of the club to comment on the modern state of the game. His is an emotional journey from a fanatic youth on the terraces of Maine Road in the seventies to a hardened cynic having wine with members of the Abu Dhabi royal family in the present day. The conflict he feels was clear to all.
Both men were easy to listen to, witty by turns, and obvious lovers of the beautiful game. As Glass said, ‘you have to love football in order to write about and critique it’. And critique they did. This certainly wasn’t a 90 minute love in of football and all its merits. Both men lamented what is has become. The central and reoccurring issue was that football clubs are no longer really clubs, they are money making businesses that have the owners’ best interests at heart. Much was said about whether continuing to support, both financially and emotionally, such massive corporations was worth it given that you are essentially lining the pockets of the ‘high ups’, as Conn referred to them.
Despite this they were unanimous in their belief that football can still be a force for good. One only has to look at the support given to Fabrice Muamba, who collapsed during a game last season and was ‘dead’ for over an hour, to witness this. The unity that was shown then by the football community was touching and genuine. If the names of some of the clubs, Manchester United, Newcastle United, aren’t enough to realise this is a game that brings people together, then one look at my fellow audience members certainly was. One couldn’t have asked for a more diverse group of people: young, old, male, female, black, white, all sharing and participating in a discussion which, whilst grounded in football, went far beyond just the game and brought up some far reaching and very relevant issues.
At 3 o’clock next Saturday I shall doubtless be watching the game but for this week, when the international break deprives us of our weekend glut of football, this talk provided an informative and entertaining alternative.