NEIL JENSEN
IS DEMOCRACY TAKING OVER?
Roving reporter reviews a depiction of a footballing class divide
WE ALL like to think that football is more than just 22 young men kicking an object around an oblong field – if only because it elevates our interest beyond obsession to something that is more deep and meaningful! In that process, journalists fantasise, marketing and advertising folk commercialise, romantics eulogise and academics intellectualise the importance of the game.
Joe Kennedy’s fascinating slim volume, Games without Frontiers, published by Repeater, adds to the growing library of work that takes a cerebral look at the game’s reason for being. It’s thought provoking, even if you don’t necessarily agree with some of the underlying sentiment. Football is many things, but “inherently political”? – I am not so sure.
Most football fans do not see the game as a political expression, although politically-motivated people will see things that others do not. The recent incident at Celtic regarding the Palestinian flag did show, however, that in some quarters, the game and politics overlap.
Aspiration
Politics seem to be creeping into Non-League football these days with some supporter groups expressing their feelings through flags, banners, smoke and songs. It’s an incredible sight if you’re used to seeing a few dozen fans dotted around a ramshackle ground.
Some see this upsurge of new-found enthusiasm as a passing phase, while others view it as a reaction to the football world we are living in. It is not difficult to see why young people, excluded from paying the ludicrous ticket prices at some clubs, might seek solace and comradeship in Non-League football, a relatively benign environment that is currently not over-regulated, overpoliced or – generally – over-priced.
As Kennedy says in his book, modern football may be “a dystopian expression of late capitalist commodification” – a “free-for-all”. Football, at the highest level is now a game of aspiration, of style over substance and a world dominated by intermediators.
Rarely, in Britain, though, has football been a vehicle for political or social change. Certainly, the government has never appeared to see the value in embracing the sport as a passport for public acceptance.
Football has been a reflection of society’s fluctuation, driven by a number of influencing factors – discretionary spending, togetherness and the desire to be taken out of the daily struggle.
Britain’s own economic struggles contributed to the decline of football and it is likely that without the 1990s transformation, spurred by Italia ’90, the Premier and Sky, the game would have fallen even further than it did.
The old working class cloth-cap nostalgia model, which had been tarnished by hooliganism and discouraged by poor facilities, not to mention a club-fan relationship that was not unlike the capital versus labour dynamic of mill owner and downtrodden worker, had sent English football plummeting.
Passion
The old audience – what Kennedy refers to as its “working class constituency” – dwindled and was marginalised by extortionate ticket prices and the gentrification of the game. At clubs like Arsenal or Chelsea we have seen that season tickets are no longer a means to an end, but something material, perhaps a currency, suggesting wealth and confident self-indulgence. They are a product of capitalism!
If there is democracy out there, it won’t ever be found in the Premier or Football League. Kennedy, in his book, focuses on a club that has experienced a rise in popularity through a quasi-political/social movement that makes fans genuine stakeholders – Dulwich Hamlet.
Actually, the famous old club are one of a handful that are striving to combine the passion and engagement of the European flare-wielding “ultra” while sporting some left-wing attitude. Not everyone is totally comfortable with this in Non-League circles but some have it more right than others.
A few rungs down from the Football League, the Game of the People still prevails, after all – the question is, is this a genuine social statement that will become contagious? We will all watch with interest, and a little hope. For anyone who has yet to witness it, it’s worth taking a look, perhaps taking along Joe Kennedy’s book for half-time.