Thatcher was no friend of football

THE FA has demonstrated time and again that it is staggeringly out of touch with football fans but, following the death of Margaret Thatcher, for once, they got it right.

Sir Bobby Charlton, Dave Whelan and John Madejski all called for football to have a minute’s silence for the former Prime Minister – all simultaneously demonstrating how far removed they are from the people in the stands.

Yet the FA ruled that the only silence that could take place on the weekend before the 24th anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster was to pay respects to the 96 who died on that sunny day in Sheffield.

No one in Britain can be blind to how the former Prime Minster divided opinion – that Thatcher received a state funeral (and let’s not pretend it was anything else) while Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead was at number two in the charts spoke volumes.

Yet, following her death, Thatcher was presented as a friend of football – the Daily Mail, laughably, even suggested she saved the game.

History – and the facts – tell a very different story. Thatcher wanted to bring in a draconian football ID card system that Lord Chief Justice Taylor later described as “using a sledgehammer to crack a nut”.

If she’d had her way, EVERY football fan would have been controlled by the state. And anyone entering a ground without a card would have been risking up to a month behind bars.

Then there was the Hillsborough Disaster. Despite the warning signs, despite the Bradford fire – which had highlighted the dangerous condition of Britain’s football grounds – tactics that treated everyday supporters like animals were allowed to continue under her rule.

Fans going to the game during the 80s routinely faced baton-wielding coppers behind them and steel fences in front of them. They were dehumanised and treated like the enemy. It proved to be a recipe for disaster.

The authorities, led by Thatcher’s government, failed the 96 supporters who died in South Yorkshire as a result of the lethal mix of incompetence and negligence.

Even in death, those fans continued to be let down. Thatcher’s press secretary Bernard Ingham was soon spreading the myth that a ‘tanked up mob’ was the cause of the disaster. And Tory MP Irvine Patnick was a key source that led to the infamous ‘The Truth’ headline on the front page of The Sun.

The Prime Minister herself turned a blind eye when presented with the Taylor Report, which pointed the finger at police and attached “little or no blame” to Liverpool fans.

Thatcher did nothing for football or its fans. It was wrong to ever suggest that they should do something for her.

PUT VIOLENCE INTO CONTEXT

IT made for a good story but those hailing the return of hooliganism after a couple of highprofile incidents need to get a grip.

Millwall sold about 30,000 tickets for their FA Cup semi-final with Wigan. And while bloodsoaked fans swinging punches at each other didn’t make for pretty viewing, there were 50 people at the most involved.

Similarly in Newcastle, when a fan throwing a punch at a horse hit the headlines, 29 fans were arrested after disturbances following the TyneWear derby – a game attended by 52,000. Hooligans need to be tackled but tarring all fans with the same brush is a dangerous practice – just ask any supporter who attended a match in the 80s.

GIVE US OUR GAME BACK

HARDLY a week seems to go by these days without more evidence that football as we once knew it is dying on its arse.

Many traditional match-goers – those that have clicked through the turnstiles for two decades or more – are becoming increasingly disillusioned.

There are a myriad of reasons for that – the price of tickets, kick-off times, the treatment of supporters, the ineptitude of the football authorities and the type of fan the game now attracts.

Add the constant moralising in the media, the crisis-hungry coverage and the Premier League’s PR machine telling the world everything is all right, and it’s no wonder that so many of the fans that have made the clubs into what they are today are calling time on attending games.

When Liverpool played Everton at Anfield, stallholders sold half and half Liverpool-Everton scarves. The same happens at Man City v Man United and Arsenal v Spurs. Worse, people buy them.

The Premier League and the clubs that play in it are delighted that people from all over the world are flocking to the grounds a few times a season to buy this tat while filling stadiums.

Meanwhile, the man on the street – the working-class supporter who once paid a fiver to watch their side is left looking at tickets priced up to £62 and deciding enough is enough.

Clubs don’t want the loyal fan – they want the rich fan; the daytripper and the corporate mob. And that’s a big factor in why many of the grounds of the traditionally big clubs now resemble libraries rather than the cauldron of noise they once were.

The nowand-then fan doesn’t invent songs, make banners and generate the atmosphere that clubs are so quick to market to those that lap up the British game abroad.

And the next generation of traditional fan – they’re being priced out of the chance to fall in love with the game like their dads did.

Football without fans is nothing.Yet seemingly no-one – not the FA, not the Premier League, not the PFA, UEFA or FIFA – cares a jot.

They’re happy with the short-term approach – if the coffers are full now what’s the problem?

Meanwhile, those that do go to the game continue to be dragged into the doledrums by more and more examples of their unimportance to those at the top of the game.

Take the rules plucked from the dark ages imposed on Crystal Palace and Brighton & Hove Albion fans when their teams met in the Championship play-off semi finals. They included requiring two forms of ID to enter the ground, only season ticket holders being allowed to buy tickets and yearlong bans for anyone passing a ticket on to someone else.

Take the football out of the equation and have a think about it. Would theatre-goers, or people attending a cricket match tolerate that kind of treatment?

Football has lost sight of what it should be. And, more and more, fans from rival clubs are coming together to discuss how they can take the game back.

Change is needed and a growing band of supporters are pushing for it. For those at the centre of the protests for cheaper tickets and better treatment, groups like the Football Supporters’ Federation, the model held up on high in Germany.

For reasons why, look no further than this quote from Borussia Dortmund chief executive HansJoachim Watzke: “When you give the supporters the feeling that they are your customers, you have lost. In Germany, we want everybody to feel it is their club, and that is really important.

“Here, it is our way to have cheap tickets, so young people can come. In England it is a lot more expensive. Football is more than a business.”

Supporters DO feel like customers. English football has lost – it IS just a business. And if the game wants the people who have made it special for decades back involved and interested, it needs to change. Fast.

SO WENGER WAS RIGHT... AGAIN

ARSENAL fans cry-arsed all season about Robin Van Persie so it was no surprise Arsene Wenger’s plea for a dignified response to the striker's return to The Emirates fell on deaf ears.

But what was it they were so upset about that it required the comedy boos? Such feelings were conspicuous by their absence when Champions League qualification was secured by Wenger yet again.

Aged 29, the Manchester United switch was probably Van Persie's last chance of a big move and a crack at winning something.

He’s now got a Premier League title-winners’ medal to his name.

Meanwhile, Arsenal trousered ￡ 24million for a player that wanted to leave and cut £5m off their wage bill.

With the dough banked from selling RVP and Alex Song, Wenger bought Santi Cazorla, Olivier Giroud and Lukas Podolski. And the savings on wages allowed the Arsenal gaffer to tie down Theo Walcott – who Liverpool were convinced they had lured to Anfield – in a deal worth more than ￡ 100,000 a week.

Take away the frustrations about where Arsenal lie in football’s pecking order these days – it’s nine years since they last won the title now – and there’s not too much to moan at Wenger about regarding Van Persie’s departure.

It's a case of hate the game, not the manager. Money talks loudest and business rules. It’s tough to take as a fan but Wenger can point at the facts.

The Frenchman has steered The Gunners into the Champions League spots for the SIXTEENTH successive season. Celebrity Gunner (sigh) Piers Morgan has been tediously tweeting about ‘Van Pursestrings’ all season. Well Piers, you're not Tweeting any more....

HOU'S A GENIUS?

NOW that Harry ‘Houdini’ Redknapp has taken QPR down, can we finally put this idea that he’s some kind of football genius to bed?

Minutes after The Hoops dropped out of the league with a whimper in their 0-0 bore draw with Reading, Redknapp was courting TV cameras to tell them about signing players for next season and ‘not breaking the bank’.

Might have been an idea to think about that THIS season, Harry. Let’s not forget, Redknapp spent ￡ 12.5m on Christopher Samba, forking out wages in excess of ￡ 100,000 a week. He also brought in striker Loic Remy for ￡ 8m on an ￡ 80,000 a week deal. And all that after coming out with this corker in December: “There are a lot of players at this club who earn far too much money for what they are; far, far, far too much money for their ability and what they give to the club.

“You shouldn't be paying massive wages when you've got a stadium that holds 18,000 people.”

Er….

GET YOUR TEETH INTO SUAREZ REPORT

THE FA’s written reasons for dishing out a 10match ban to Luis Suarez for his arm-munching madness made for a cracking read.

I could almost hear the voice of Alan Partridge as I thumbed through the stuffy justification for a punishment that bamboozled and baffled in equal measure.

Classics included highlighting Suarez as “trending on Twitter worldwide” after the incident with Branislav Ivanovic. Watch your back, Justin Bieber.

Seriously though, is it too much to ask that the FA reviews its rules so it doesn’t come across to the wider world like they are making it up as they go along?

After all, it had dealt with biting incidents previously. Jermaine Defoe got a yellow card and Chester defender Sean Hessey received a fivematch ban.

It’s hard not to agree with Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers that the FA punished “the man and not the crime”.