World Cup
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If you send me your email address here, I will forward it on to you.
Wez, so accusing someone of trying to whitewash racism and violence is somehow an act of true comradeship?
If it’s sauce for the goose, it’s sauce for the gander.
It’s interesting that the only thing to counter the facts, figures and examples I gave, is to say that the pubs used to close on Saturday when there was a home game in Cambridge (presumably that doesn’t happen now) and then accuse me of some kind of personal deficiency. I think the paucity of your reply speaks volumes. No attempt to counter, or offer supporting evidence, just some vague historical anecdotal evidence.
You feel comfortable to sum up the various experiences, relationships, enjoyment and endeavours of millions of million people and call it “football culture”.
If an individual condemned the culture of black people because of the misdeeds of a very small number of black people, they would be quite rightly described as racists.
Yet you are branding millions of people who participate and enjoy many aspects of football as being sick, racist, atavistic and violent based on the evidence that the pubs used to be closed down on Saturday afternoons a couple of decades ago.
You just compound the stupidity of your original statement.
BD – It seems to me that you’re in denial about the history of football culture in this country. Are you saying there’s absolutely no substance to my criticisms? My father was a football coach/manager in the 1960s and I was dragged along to most games. He was successful and they won several titles so I had a pretty comprehensive knowledge of a game that I had no interest in. I could tell you many horror stories about what happened. When my old man died I thought I’d contact his old club to see if a representative would like to attend his internment – I was ignored, that’s football. Many years later I was in a pub where the local team were celebrating a victory and one of them was actually bragging about how many fouls he had committed – that’s football. Your rose tinted view of the game bares no resemblance to the reality I lived. What actual experience of the game do you have?
Wez – What I hear is the sound of someone clutching at straws.
You say that I am saying that “there’s absolutely no substance to my criticisms“. Can you point to me the point where I had stated that football is beyond criticism, I think you will find that is not the case.
You know, as I know, that you are using very well honed rhetorical devices and sophisms to try and get me to defend the behaviour of a minority of people who are involved in the world of football, good luck with that.
I didn’t say that all aspects of the game are beyond reproach, I did say that your prejudicial labeling of millions of people as being part of a “sick” culture was silly and unsupported by evidence. It is not for me to show that all aspects of what you describe as “football culture” are bad, but rather for you to demonstrate that all aspects of that culture are bad.
Let us go back to the beginning
You began by accusing me of whitewashing, what you (not me) described as the “sickest, racist, atavistic and most violent” culture in this country.
As I say, not my words but yours.
If, as you say, it is the sickest culture in the country, then by definition you think that football culture is more sick than say for instance the culture of, Nazism, snuff movies, skin head gangs, gay bashing, fox hunting, paedophilia, drug culture, etc. (I could add more), do you have the brass bollocks to even defend what you have said.
Are you prepared to say that, quoting me, that “the 15.7 million people who play football regularly (including the 3.7 million children aged 5 to 15 who play football as part of organised teams), the 1.4 people who volunteer weekly as part of grassroots football, the couple of million people who attend football matches on a regular basis across all levels of the game” are all part of that “sickest culture”
So, if you are supporting that view, can you explain just how those millions of people are part of that “sickest” culture.
To date, I have to say, you have used the weakest of anecdotal evidence to slur those millions of people.
Were those 15.7 million there when your father’s internment was snubbed, they were also in the pub when a few footballers bragged about the their tackles, and they all agreed with those comments. Or perhaps you are full of it.
In terms of my involvement in terms of football (not that it is any of your business), I played in organised teams from the age of 8. I played from that age, at various levels until I had to give up at the age of 52. I am currently at the age of 65 involved in walking football, which is an inclusive way of involving older people involved in sport.
I was actually part of the NE Branch of the SPGB’s 5 a side team back in the 80’s and without bragging we regularly beat the Militant’s team and the SWP’s team.
I played at the world famous Wallsend Boys club (a sporting facility that was created by shipyard workers on Tyneside that was set up by shipyard workers to provide sporting and leisure opportunities for boys and girls (four players from that team have played in the World Cup)
I have also spent many years working supporting child safeguarding for several Premier League football teams.
So yes, I have had lots of experiences across all aspects of football culture
It would seem that any evidence from my own experience, because it’s not shared by ‘15.7 million people’, is irrelevant and not worth your consideration. Can’t you see that many of your examples of sick cultures in this country have parallels in football gangs? The Party is always wondering why socialist consciousness is almost non existent and that’s partly because 15.7 million are obsessed with a commodity called football that brings out the very opposite of the socialist conscious we are trying to achieve – TM’s ‘bread and circuses’. If you can’t see that then you’re at a level of denial that rational debate can’t reach. And why is asking you about the nature of your involvement with the game ‘none of my business?’ Actually my accusation of you ‘white-washing’ football culture was a tongue in cheek joke but it seems it was true. At least I got you to admit, that ‘I didn’t say that all aspects of the game are beyond reproach’ – truly a magnificent understatement.
Wez, as you well know, I did not say that your individual experiences were irrelevant, I was saying that they are exactly that, as you described, anecdotal and nothing more.
To be very clear, I am saying that you have then attempted to use your slim anecdotal evidence and make a huge generalisation stating that this whole area of people’s lives can be condensed into one overarching “culture” which you then describe as being (your words not mine) “sickest, racist, atavistic and most violent”
I have said that this is one of the silliest postings I have ever seen on this forum. I stand by that.
I have then provided counter evidence that outlines many of the positive elements of football. I did not say that all elements are positive, just that what you have said, that football is the “sickest, racist, atavistic and most violent” is a massive and ludicrous over exaggeration.
I have explained that what you describe as “football culture” actually includes a
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wide spectrum
of activities that are part of what you describe as “football culture”. I have then provided several examples that are in many ways the opposite of what you describe. One example for instance is the supporter and player initiative “show racism the red card”. An supporter initiative that was further developed following a £50 donation by the Newcastle United Player Shaka Hislop, and which has grown massively and has the stated aim to “combat racism through enabling role models, who are predominantly but not exclusively footballers, to present an anti-racist message to young people and others.”
It is not for me to show that all aspects of “football culture” are good, but to prove that your contention that football is “sickest, racist, atavistic and most violent” culture in this country is nothing of the sort.
I think I have provided ample evidence that what you have said is not correct. As you have used the superlative adjective in your description I have asked you again to explain how cultures such as “Nazism, snuff movies, skin head gangs, gay bashing, fox hunting, paedophilia, drug culture, etc.” are less sick, racist, atavistic and violent than football. If you don’t, then I am able to assume that you can’t.
I note that you have moved the goalposts (sic) from Football Culture to football gangs, desperate back peddling to change the discussion, it won’t work. You talked about football culture, not football gangs. I have not in anyway attempted to support football gangs, but football gangs are a small part of the spectrum of football and a part that seems to be largely dying out
You then in desperation resort to the classic “true Scotsman”device, “If you can’t see that then you’re at a level of denial that rational debate can’t reach.”,, c’mon, your better than that, surely?
Not content to use poor rhetorical devices you return to your old favourite, exaggeration. 15.7 million are obsessed with a commodity called football. No one has said that because you take part in football that you are therefore obsessed. It means 15.7 people play it regularly. They enjoy it, it keeps them fit, they meet people, they cooperate together they form common interests, they set up teams, leagues, tournaments, etc. How can that be the very opposite of socialist consciousness?
How can a children’s football team, set up by volunteers and parents, run at a loss, for example possibly be considered as a commodity. Football is a multi faceted and sport. At the top level of course, it is commodity driven, but the vast majority of football activities are not. Beer is commodity driven it often makes people feel a little bit happier as part of the difficult situations they face due to capitalism, should we all abstain from that, you could say the same about theatre, television, cinema, etc. are you saying we should condemn all of those activities?
If, as you say, Football is such a fetter on socialist consciousness, how it it that I have come across many, many socialists who enjoy or play football. This thread started by Paula posting to say that she was enjoying the football. We have a column in the standard which regularly discusses football. I was at the Durham Miners’ Gala yesterday and of the 9 or so party members that were present 4 of them follow football. Indeed if my memory serves me right, Paula’s dad was a fan of Partick Thistle, and made several comparisons between the plight of the party and the plight of The Jags. How is it that we all escaped the pervasive anti socialist “culture” to develop socialist insight?
And finally as a last escape route you explain that, it was all a joke, all a bit of tongue in cheek repartee. If that’s the case has it taken so long to say, it was all a joke. Is saying that a comrade is attempting to whitewash the sickest, racist, atavistic and most violent culture in this country your idea of witty banter? If it is, I would suggest that stand up comedy is probably going to be a future career
Wez, in my last comment, I actually meant to say that “stand up comedy is probably not going to be a future career”
There is no doubt that football promotes rivalries between groups and individuals and is an instrument of tribalism, sometimes grotesque in its manifestations. It is an integral part of the money/profit system and of the distraction mechanism that is the so-called entertainment (or ‘bread and circuses’) industry. To see the paroxysms of fans at the current world cup matches is both sad and sickening and a show of how alienated people are from their own lives and capabilities. And this also applies, if to a lesser extent, at lower levels of the game, right down to park football for kids with the ‘performances’ it stimulates in some of the watching parents. However, it’s not all one-sided. I’m actually a football fan myself, I always have been and I do regard it as a ‘beautiful game’ for the skill it encourages in those who play it – and that despite the often ugly context in which that skill is practised. So what’s wrong is the spirit in which football takes place, mimicking and reinforcing as it does the spirit of the system it exists in. But, as I’ve implied, that spirit is less present in the game at a lower level, where there’s a good deal of volunteering, community activity and social connection, which socialists should see as positive. In any case pointless our getting hot under the collar about all this, which ever way we look at it.
BD – You ask for evidence – have you never seen Danny Dyer’s documentary series called ‘The Real Football Factories’? Football gangs have long been associated with all kinds of criminality. When I started this post I did indeed think that nobody, especially a socialist, could possibly whitewash the notoriously criminal and violent history of football culture – but here you are. Your attempts to ridicule anyone who points out the reality of this history is just living in a cloud cuckoo land. I get that it’s your religion but get real and answer me this – why has no other sport been associated with such levels of violence and criminality? Football culture is obviously a barrier to socialist consciousness.
No other sport been associated with such levels of violence and criminality?
I suggest you read the social history of boxing. There are many classic works on this. Especially Gerald Horne’s The Bittersweet Science: Racism, Racketeering, and the Political Economy of Boxing.
The classic film, based on Budd Schulberg’s novel, The Harder They Fall, is worth seeing. It’s a Bogart masterpiece. There is also Champion, with Kirk Douglas and Arthur Kennedy, and The Set-Up, with Robert Ryan.
This debate displays the stark division between Marx and the utopian socialists.
Utopia was desired by people like Thomas More who relied on idealism and benevolence. An imagined perfect society created top-down by a wise, paternalistic ruler (King Utopus) who simply imposes a rational blueprint onto the population and tough if football didn’t fit in (a bit too tribal)
Scientific socialism is the outcome of the class struggle NOT a blueprint nor perfectCapitalism forces us to go to war with workers of other countries, the workers respond by playing games like football with their fellow workers abroad. Let the revolutionaries encourage football not war.
To tarnish all these worker using the action of a few is what the capitalist media does to blacks, gays, Asylum seekers and other minorities and it is disheartening to see it on this forum.
Yes the Right and the Money Men have become involved but thats capitalism and we can sort that out with revolution.Playing football not war should be encouraged. Let it continue into the new society.
PS:
Perhaps you prefer polo, rowing, sailing/yachting, equestrian events (dressage/show jumping), golf, tennis, and country sports like hunting ?
.1936 Berlin Olympics. 1939 war. One could argue the sports got them ready for the war.
I do hope there will NOT be fox hunting in your vision of socialism? Putting it on a par with the games you list is somewhat disturbing.
It also brings them with national flags, and I could be wrong, but I don’t think they socialise much.
I mentioned above when the Falklands War and World Cup were on, how waiters I was working with were talking in the same breath about beating Spain and then beating the “Argies.”
Granted, I am glad for football gradually replacing (too gradual for me) bullfighting in Spain and France, although certain football boots are made with kangaroo skin (the joeys left to die after their mothers are shot and skinned for the beautiful game.
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