The ugly side of the beautiful game Channel Hopper
DISPATCHES CHANNEL 4, TONIGHT, 8PM
ANYONE old enough to remember football in the 1970s and 1980s will know that it was a vastly different game to the one we see today – and not just in terms of the tactics, tackles and fitness. Terrace violence had become a way of life. Racist abuse was common and the likes of the National Front deliberately targeted football fans to entice them into their odious ranks.
But that’s all changed now, hasn’t it?
After all, the terraces have gone, replaced by family-friendly stadiums and, much to the chagrin of the average fan, corporate boxes now predominate and crowds are keenly policed to ensure no offensive chants are made
Well, that’s the theory. But anyone who goes over to England for matches will know that violence and hooliganism have made a creeping return to the game, and while most of the fights take pace in prearranged venues outside the ground, many regular attendees have noted an air of menace creeping back into the game.
Tonight on Dispatches (Channel 4, 8pm), reporter Morland Sanders explores the issue of racism and homophobia in grounds and, following a weekend when James McClean was verbally abused and had lighters and coins thrown at him while playing for West Brom as a response to his decision not to wear the poppy, today seems like a perfect time to examine if the beautiful game is once more being infected by the ugly stain of mob stupidity.
Any fears that Curb Your Enthusiasm (Sky Atlantic, tonight, 10.10pm) may have lost its mojo after being off the air for the last six years have been well and truly dispelled.
If anything, Larry David now seems even more intent on hunting down every sacred cow he can think of and gleefully joking them to death.
So far this season, Larry has managed to attract a fatwa from the Ayatollah in Iran and become friends with a surprisingly game Salman Rushdie, while last week’s episode saw him bring a veteran with PTSD to a civil war re-enactment – with predictably winceinducing results.
This has been a brilliant season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and it’s nice to see that, if anything, David has become even grumpier and more socially toxic than he was before his long hiatus.
With a few honourable exceptions, most adaptations of Stephen King’s work have been pretty shoddy affairs, but not only does Mr Mercedes (RTÉ1, tomorrow, 10.15pm) do justice to the source material, it is probably better than the book.
Brendan Gleeson has been playing the role of his life as a retired detective haunted by a mass murderer who comes back to taunt him and it really is truly splendid stuff.