A Gentleman's Game

As little as I like Manchester United, I was happy to read this morning that they have knocked Chelsea out of the Champions’ League. It had to be this morning, you understand, because apart from football reportage in the papers, I have concluded the season is over for me at least. My nerves cannot take the inevitable crash and burn that is my team, Wolves, as they spiral toward relegation to the Championship. I was briefly encouraged by a string of reasonable to good results, but that run was stopped dead by the break for the international games.

Anyway, I digress. I have no love for Manchester United. I don’t hate them per se like a lot of people claim to do, but I am bored by their apparently eternal dominance of domestic football. Plus, I really do not like Alex Ferguson, insofar as it is possible to dislike someone I have never personally met.

For all that, I loathe Chelsea Football Club. I loathe their very existence. As a rule I would never want any club to disappear from the face of the earth; I like my footie and you need teams, obviously and you also need local rivalries and so on and so forth to help make it interesting.

There is a reason I despise Chelsea Football Club quite apart from the fact that they represent pretty much all that is wrong with the modern game: owned by a billionaire with no patience, who inflates prices in the transfer market, inflates agents’ and players’ fees and shows no concern over the operation of club he owns – Chelsea for example are a financial mess as a business (not that I care in this case) and are propped up entirely by Roman Abramovitch’s personal wealth. My loathing for them goes all the way back to 1978 (or 1979), when I was a season ticket holder at the Molineux, forever hopeful for and forever thwarted in my hopes of footballing glory in Old Gold and Black.

1978-79 (or 1979-80) season started off pretty much as usual, with the Wolves starting badly and getting worse. So three games in, we were already settling in for another relegation dogfight. This game was at home to Chelsea and as usual, a bunch of us regulars were standing behind the goal at the north bank end bemoaning our luck in choosing to support a bunch of no-hopers. In other words, business as usual (I doubt that any of my US or Canadian friends –Cubbies fans excepted - will have any concept of the tribalism of British football, or the fact that people can attend game after game, year after year, hopeful beyond experience of something going right just once). With ten minutes left in the game, we were losing 3-1 and showing no signs of improving on that when we noticed that the away supporters’ section over the far end of the ground on the south bank had inexplicably emptied.

We didn’t have to wonder long. Within five minutes the north bank, where we were and which was the traditional place for granddads to take grandsons to watch the game and for families to turn out generally, was suddenly swamped by a mad sea of screaming west London thugs decked in the blue and white of Chelsea. These brave lads had decided to celebrate their victory on the field with a beating of pensioners and small kids in the home family enclosure, with the rest of us rather bewildered by this unexpected invasion. I managed to get away with but the loss of my scarf as we spilt out onto the football pitch and the game was halted and the police restored order.

This was the beginning of mob rule at English football grounds and anticipated the fencings in that followed in the dark days of the 80s, when domestic football plummeted to its nadir and which only ended after a number of disasters occasioned by the authorities’ ham fisted knee-jerk (to mix metaphors) attempts at crowd control.

I have never liked Chelsea since (though at one point in the dark days, Wolves had their own contingent of brainless thugs, too) and that is why I was happy as ever, to see them pitched out of the Champions’ League.

A Gentleman's Game

As little as I like Manchester United, I was happy to read this morning that they have knocked Chelsea out of the Champions’ League. It had to be this morning, you understand, because apart from football reportage in the papers, I have concluded the season is over for me at least. My nerves cannot take the inevitable crash and burn that is my team, Wolves, as they spiral toward relegation to the Championship. I was briefly encouraged by a string of reasonable to good results, but that run was stopped dead by the break for the international games.

Anyway, I digress. I have no love for Manchester United. I don’t hate them per se like a lot of people claim to do, but I am bored by their apparently eternal dominance of domestic football. Plus, I really do not like Alex Ferguson, insofar as it is possible to dislike someone I have never personally met.

For all that, I loathe Chelsea Football Club. I loathe their very existence. As a rule I would never want any club to disappear from the face of the earth; I like my footie and you need teams, obviously and you also need local rivalries and so on and so forth to help make it interesting.

There is a reason I despise Chelsea Football Club quite apart from the fact that they represent pretty much all that is wrong with the modern game: owned by a billionaire with no patience, who inflates prices in the transfer market, inflates agents’ and players’ fees and shows no concern over the operation of club he owns – Chelsea for example are a financial mess as a business (not that I care in this case) and are propped up entirely by Roman Abramovitch’s personal wealth. My loathing for them goes all the way back to 1978 (or 1979), when I was a season ticket holder at the Molineux, forever hopeful for and forever thwarted in my hopes of footballing glory in Old Gold and Black.

1978-79 (or 1979-80) season started off pretty much as usual, with the Wolves starting badly and getting worse. So three games in, we were already settling in for another relegation dogfight. This game was at home to Chelsea and as usual, a bunch of us regulars were standing behind the goal at the north bank end bemoaning our luck in choosing to support a bunch of no-hopers. In other words, business as usual (I doubt that any of my US or Canadian friends –Cubbies fans excepted - will have any concept of the tribalism of British football, or the fact that people can attend game after game, year after year, hopeful beyond experience of something going right just once). With ten minutes left in the game, we were losing 3-1 and showing no signs of improving on that when we noticed that the away supporters’ section over the far end of the ground on the south bank had inexplicably emptied.

We didn’t have to wonder long. Within five minutes the north bank, where we were and which was the traditional place for granddads to take grandsons to watch the game and for families to turn out generally, was suddenly swamped by a mad sea of screaming west London thugs decked in the blue and white of Chelsea. These brave lads had decided to celebrate their victory on the field with a beating of pensioners and small kids in the home family enclosure, with the rest of us rather bewildered by this unexpected invasion. I managed to get away with but the loss of my scarf as we spilt out onto the football pitch and the game was halted and the police restored order.

This was the beginning of mob rule at English football grounds and anticipated the fencings in that followed in the dark days of the 80s, when domestic football plummeted to its nadir and which only ended after a number of disasters occasioned by the authorities’ ham fisted knee-jerk (to mix metaphors) attempts at crowd control.

I have never liked Chelsea since (though at one point in the dark days, Wolves had their own contingent of brainless thugs, too) and that is why I was happy as ever, to see them pitched out of the Champions’ League.