So,
the English football season has once again begun. All four divisions kicked off last
Saturday. Not that you’d notice. A visitor from another planet could be forgiven for
thinking that the programme that began last weekend was confined to the premier league and
a handful of first division clubs only. For all the coverage the rest of us received, we
might as well have not been playing.
I suppose it’s always been that way to some extent, but the advent of
the premier league and the subsequent successful marketing of football as cool has tipped
the scales of media coverage towards the top clubs now more than ever before.
‘Football’ and ‘the premier league’ are now seen as synonyms. To say
one is to imply the other. So it was that every single match that took place in the
premier league was given extensive coverage, with match reports, pictures, statistics and
whatever else you may desire, just as it is every weekend. From the tackiest of tabloids
to the most broadminded of the broadsheets, every premier league game, no matter how
unpromising or pointless, is covered in unstinting detail and thereby paid the complement
of seeming important.
The rest of us can forget it. A brief mention in a round up on a results
page is the best we can hope for. Most weeks we’re lucky to get that. Starved so
often, we’re pathetically grateful for these crumbs from the table. On odd occasions,
when there’s no ‘proper’ football to cover, we’re patted on the head
with a patronising report. Some junior hack will turn up, scan the programme for a player
he’s heard of, recycle some ancient cliches about cobbled streets and Bob Lord and
hit the motorway home ASAP. I can honestly say that some of the worst journalism I have
ever read has been written about Burnley.
No, the premier league is everything these days. Even any first division
games that are covered are presented through its prism. We read of sides that are trying
to get there, or sides that have just fallen from the heights. (Although, it has to be
said, I immensely enjoyed reading of Port Vale’s point at Deadwood Park.) In the
light of this, I am disappointed that the Nationwide League, after some years when it
attempted to present itself as a competition distinct from the premier league, and with
attendances continuing to rise, has now seen fit to ape the premier league in every
respect, with squad numbers, five subs and goal difference.
The FA are just as bad. Though charged with responsibility for the whole
of English football, they call off the premier league then blithely schedule England
matches for three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. After all, it’s not as if
there’s any real football to worry about, is there? Thus the clubs of the other three
professional divisions must scramble around and shift fixtures to Friday nights or Sunday
afternoons. Whether they move the games or not, crowds go down and they lose money. If
this is looking after the clubs, I’d hate to see what they might do if they really
set out to have a go at us.
A lot of people watch football in three divisions of the Nationwide
League. The season’s opening day fixtures revealed good crowds at a number of games.
It would be nice if the media at least acknowledged this fact, and tried to provide
coverage in proportion to the number of supporters Nationwide clubs have. There are a lot
of us out here. If you read the papers, you wouldn’t think we exist.
Oh well, modern football’s whole basis is one of profound inequality,
so I don’t suppose there’s any point now in asking for a level playing field.
And in any case, the deliberate elitism of the premier league is now moving to its
inevitable conclusion, with the growth in dominance of a tiny and glamorous super elite. I
caught a report on the news of Man Utd’s opening game against Everton. You’d
hardly have known Everton had played. This clash of two sides starting as equals on a
football field was illustrated, of course, with the Man Utd club crest.
Makes you glad we’ve got the internet to put our point across,
really.
