They don't care about us
Why should we even be surprised any more?
The decision to schedule the Scotland v England
match for two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon is merely the latest in a long line of
blows that have been dealt to the bread and butter of the Nationwide League. The process
has come to acquire a routine, ritual look: Premier League matches are postponed in
advance. The international match is arranged for a Saturday afternoon. Three divisions of
professional football are then forced to move their games. The cash-starved clubs of the
lower division have a choice, but it amounts to Hobson’s. They can continue to play
their fixture at the time set out at the start of the season, and watch attendances fall
and lose precious revenue. Or they can rearrange their games, to Friday night, Saturday
morning or Sunday, or to any other time less convenient for their public than the three
o’clock Saturday afternoon slot which they had been expected to occupy. Oh, and watch
attendances fall and lose precious revenue, of course.
Call me old fashioned, but surely it would be
easier to schedule one match for when anyone else isn't playing rather than force three
divisions to move?
How has this persistent and routine betrayal
been allowed to take place? Why has it not been resisted? Until a couple of years ago, it
was unheard of for international football to be scheduled in direct competition with a
domestic Saturday afternoon calendar. That it is now normal says much of the contempt the
game's elite have for the grassroots. Actually, contempt would perhaps indicate more
interest on their part than is the case; they're simply not interested in us. We don't
count anymore.
Once the FA was charged with looking after the
health of the game, from the highest of the high to the very humblest Sunday side. That
always struck me as a noble idea. Now such a commitment exists only on paper. The FA and
its Scottish partner in crime exist to serve the top echelon of football and nothing else.
The rest can go hang.
But we're still expected to get behind our boys,
and cheer them on in a pub when we had been expecting to watch our real team scrap for
three points for promotion.
Inevitably, Burnley have now rearranged our
match. I suppose we should thank heavens for tiny mercies that it is at least to be played
on a Sunday afternoon. From London that effectively means travelling up the day before,
but anything’s better than Friday. But I think there would have been a better time
still to move it: we should have brought the game forward by precisely one hour, to two
o’clock in the afternoon. We should have given the predictable boredom of a
Scotland-England encounter some healthy competition and forced the good people of Burnley
to make a decision about what really matters most. England versus Burnley? No competition!
We all know that we’d trade any amount of World Cup wins for a promotion. I find a
win for the Clarets alleviates the gloom of even the dumbest England disaster. We should
have forced people to declare their loyalties.
Sure, some folk would have stayed away, but
those that went could have considered themselves the only true supporters and everyone
else a part-timer. The club could have handed out vouchers conceding first in the queue
status for tickets for the League encounter at Deadwood Park next season (if they go down,
we’ll just have to make it a friendly).
Flights of fancy maybe, but why should any
supporter of a Nationwide club continue to take any interest in the alleged national side?
In these mercenary times, why don't we ask, what's in it for us? What will the success of
England contribute to clubs at our level? How will it help us? Doesn't everything we know
indicate that it could only ever lead to more riches for them?
They don't care about us. So why should we care
about them?
There are plenty of other reasons not to support
England. There are the hardcore of stupid Nazi fans which no amount of brushing under the
carpet will remove (notice how the Clarets you most want not to get stuck near are the
ones in England shirts?). There are the tabloids, and their pathetic jingoism which finds
a conduit through the fortunes of the team. There are the saps in the office who think
you're a joke for following your club but who jump on the beery bandwagon whenever England
occasionally look good. For us, there is the additional fact that, even when Burnley had
one of the greatest teams in the land year upon year, our players were continually passed
over in favour of those that played for more glamorous clubs in bigger places.
For me, the break came when they started picking
Bastards players. Whoever they represented, I could never wish them well. Of course, those
days are now gone, but I found that once I broke the habit, it was easy not to get back
into it.
Still, the English and Scottish FAs are
convinced that they hold all the cards. Sure, people might gripe a bit about games being
moved, but then they will follow just the same as kick off comes round that Saturday
afternoon. They're probably right. They probably can take you for granted. After all,
we've acted like mugs for long enough now. We've stood by and done nothing while they've
set football on a path that leads to its ruin. Why change now?
It's just I'll be finding something else to do
that Saturday afternoon. Stuff the game. Why not give it a try? Why not get a life on
Saturday November 13th?
Firmo
27 October 1999
