Remember when football was a sport played by millions, watched by millions but didn’t cost millions? I do. I have been a Manchester United fan since the days of the Busby Babes, the late 50s to be exact. I have been through hell and high water following my team. At the top, at the bottom, in between, all over, they were MY team. I would hitch around the country with only the cost of admission in my pocket, in all weathers, sometimes to find a game called off! I have stood in the pouring rain on the Stretford End watching a mediocre performance and getting beat. But over the past decade I have become more and more disillusioned by the whole damn thing.
When United began this remarkable run of success back in the early 90s it was with a nucleus of home grown youth that took on the world and beat them all. When they bought a player it was to supplement an already successful team, not to replace it. Youth too had still managed to force its way into the team along the way. And with the likes of Arsenal chipping at our heels the motivation was always in place, it was never a one horse race, but now?
You can go to Tesco or another supermarket and almost buy a complete team off the shelf and win with it, its called big money, big business. First of all Blackburn, they had a chairman who had millions to spend and he did, he started paying players salaries way beyond their ability. But this attracted the greedy, the so called big star who came not for the honour of the team but the fatness of their wallet. This beat United to the title once, but never regained that impetus and soon fell down the rankings, the Chairman left then the big players left to wallets anew.
Then we had a Russian mafiosi take over Chelsea, or Chelski as they became known. He too had billions he could not spend quick enough and bought whole teams in order to challenge the likes of Arsenal and United, Liverpool and others. They won the title two years in a row with players who also came for mega salaries to play but only for money offered, salaries again went way beyond their abilities.
Now, here were are in 2012, at the end of a long hard season, with Manchester City being the latest to buy success. Two years ago they were cannon fodder, going nowhere fast. Then some arab with oil money dripping out of his dress, bought the club and bought whole teams. They are now on the verge of buying their first title in 44 years, with players of dubious integrity like Tevez and Ballotelli who are brats of major proportions. Tevez ran away like a spoiled child crying to his mommy that they wouldn’t sell him to someone offering EVEN MORE! And Ballotelli, brought at major expense from tantrum Italia to tantrum Manchester. These two will be members of a title buying team (I refuse to say they won anything!). What is UK football coming too? Manchester City’s manager has not had to work to build a team, to watch them grow and mature. He wakes up in the morning, picks eleven players and then dozes off for another couple of hours.
Meanwhile, United are rapidly becoming the second best, clubs with oceans of oil money are going to pass them like speedboats, leaving them in their wake. But I no longer have the fire and commitment that I have had all my life. When Manchester city buy the title, I am quitting all interest in football, totally and irrevocably. The sport I have followed through my life is gone. The fan of today does not care where success comes from, or how much it costs, or the £50-£90 they pay to watch their favourite team of wallets. They have not had the pleasure of standing on the Stretford End, the Kop, Eland Road or Highbury, watching their players slog through the mud and heavy rain for a relative pittance to fight and win honour for themselves and their club. Now they are on manicured pitches, with manicured nails and manicured hairstyles, they have the very best of medicare, spend all night in nightclubs and are spoiled rotten by the illusion of greatness (only because of the media). They drive cars which have wheels that cost more than my car. They are above life, they are not of the real world, they do not know what it is like to be ‘hard up’, to get a bus to the game, carrying boots in a brown paper bag. Bye bye football, I see your death on the horizon ……………………………………