2011-12 Match Reports CCFC v WATFORD

9.4.2012

CCFC 1 V 1 WATFORD

‘The natural state of a football fan is bitter disappointment, no matter what the score’.Nick Hornby

We’ve recently had the 20^th anniversary of the publication of Hornby’s Fever Pitch, a book credited with / blamed for delivering The Beautiful Game to the middle classes. Traditionally the preserve of the working class - all cloth caps, fags, rattles and rosettes - the fortunes of the sport reached a nadir in the 1980’s when blighted by hooliganism, crumbling stadiums and clueless administrators the game was described as ‘a slum sport for slum people’. Hornby’s book coincided with the post-Hillsborough Taylor Report (which led to all-seater stadiums) the advent of the Premiership and satellite TV. Suddenly ‘soccer’ was cool; marketable.

Hornby’s next book Hi Fidelity dealt with his twin obsession, rock music, again a grassroots cultural phenomena hijacked and changed beyond recognition by the industry that built up around it until it became so overblown, pompous and ostentatious that it descended into self-parody (all Prog Rock bands had their Spinal Tap moments) and tedium. In the Silver Jubilee year of 1977 Punk rescued rock and provided a new context. (Where’s this going? Stick with me...)

The last 20 years has seen huge improvements in the game, on and off the pitch. And there’s a reasonable argument for saying that fans have been always been treated with contempt by their clubs but there can rarely have been a greater disconnect than there is now.   

And so, as we embark on another Jubilee Jamboree the call goes out for a new grassroots movement to rise up and wrest control of our sport (‘The Game That Ate Itself’) back from the excess, the oligarchs and megalomaniacs who seem to think football is like any other business; there to be exploited. But it’s not like any other business. If we the consumers don’t like the product we can’t shop around for a better one. We have no choice in the matter, we’re tied to our club from birth (or from when we were Born Again) for life. Our allegiance cannot be traded in as it is part of who we are and we’ll always be prepared to make sacrifices to retain the connection. This the owners know only too well.

The time has come to ask ‘Can we have our game back please?’ Perhaps the Occupy movement can help. ‘Occupy Footie’. It has a good ring to it. ‘God save our team (from) a fascist regime’ whether Russian Squillionaires, Libyan Chancers or Malaysian Burgermeisters. Call out the instigator because there’s something in the air. We’ve got to get it together sooner or later. Haven’t we?

Perhaps not. Not in a country where warm beer, uneven pavements and Michael Gove are tolerated and engaging in the political process means petitioning to get a knighthood for Brucie. Football for the people, by the people. It could happen. But it won’t.

“Not for the first time in my life, and certainly not for the last, a self-righteous gloom had edged out all semblance of logic.” Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch.

The Watford game? Bitterly disappointing.