Fifty Years Ago (writng from the Socialist Standard )

Socialist Standard (est 1904) Official journal of the Socialist Party a companion party of the World Socialist Movement www.worldsocialism.org/spgb 100 years for socialism-> -> Standard Online->->Connecting with->-> socialists->-> worldwide February 2005
Contents Editorial Here COVER STORY Aftermath of the Tsunami:Querying "American Values in Action". $350m for tsunami aid,.$150b for war in Iraq,just what aer the Whte House priorities?John Bissett examines US values in the global arena Here FEATURES Floods of Tears Here A 'Free'Press Is it really possible to have a free press in capitalism,or will the' independant' media always and inevitably dance to the tune of vested interests?Steve Trott investigates Here Reform ,Revolution and the Left Most people can think of aspects of capitalism that they'd like to change.Individual changes can theoreticallly be made,but does reformism work as an overall strategy for real change? Here Should the Left consider Socialism? Everybody's a socialist these days but only becaus the meaning has been taken out.Richard Montague looks at what's Left. Here A 'Socialist' Leader Bertie Aherne calls himself the last 'socialist' in Irish politics,but the media don't take him seriously and neither argues,Kevin Cronin,should we. Here REGULARS Editorial Here Pathfinders Here Red Snapper Here + Newsflash Cooking The Books 1...+ Cooking The Books 2... Both on... ...Here Reviews Meetings...Here 50 Years Ago...Here Greasy Pole...Here Voice From The Back...Here with Free Lunch		50 Years Ago Looking at Football SPORT FOR PROFIT Once competition was on its feet, professionalism was the inevitable outcome. Watching competitive games became a popular recreation in the northern industrial towns, and success-hungry teams used the obvious means to get good players to join them. In 1885 professionalism was recognized; in a few years football meant Preston, Blackburn and Sheffield instead of the Wanderers, Royal Engineers and Carthusians ( . . .) . The biggest changes were still to come. However skilful its play, a losing team has few followers—that is, its income falls. The huge partisan crowds at football matches in the ‘twenties were prepared to see only their own sides win, and applaud any sort of play to that end. The Arsenal introduced the “stopper” centre-half, a player whose business was to obstruct the opponents and nothing else. The method caught on because it was successful; it still dominates football. The units in the pattern of today’s teams are the rough, destructive centre-half, the fast-chasing wingers and the hard-kicking, opportunistic centre-forward ( . . .). A footballer’s maximum wage is fifteen pounds a week in the playing season (many clubs pay nothing like the maximum). Players receive bonuses of two pounds for a win and one pound for a draw, and a few of them are famous enough to make a little more by writing newspaper columns or advertizing. Thus, a first-class player is lucky if he take £700 in a year. Certainly his earnings are not to be compared with a jockey’s, and his playing career usually ends before he is thirty-five (though every footballer understates his age). A small number become managers, coaches and so on, but obviously there is not room for more than a few to do so. Football combines some of the best things games can offer—physical exercise, skill, co-operation with others. Commercialism has shaped it along certain lines, making success more important than enjoyment. Watching it played well can give us much pleasure as a ballet or a symphony. More often, however, it is a weekly relief from tedium or a source of vicarious satisfactions ranging from dreams of fame to revenge fantasies. Nor can too much be said for commercial football from the players’ point of view. It would be wrong to suppose they do not enjoy it (even the ones who say they play just for money). All the same, it is their bread and butter, and only the exceptionally skilful plays can afford not to help the fair means with some of the other sort (so you can see the same nasty little tricks aped in schoolboy games, too). A professional footballer has several years with play instead of work and a great deal of adulation, and afterwards he is turned into a workaday world almost completely unprepared for it. It seems a pity that a good sport should be tarnished by the profit system. But then, what isn’t? (From an article by R. Coster, Socialist Standard, February 1955)