UGH!!.. I hate that description. Football, for me, was and is sometimes beautiful. But 'The Beautiful Game' is a media driven conception based on the need of flowery, soft as butter writers and commentators to indulge in pseudo psycho-babble about art forms and the search for perfection.
Confession - I was one of them. To a point. I was a journo for 40 years, most of that time spent covering all levels of soccer including a quarter of a century reporting on Manchester United and Manchester City. My reports were often a bit flowery and always contained a fair amount of babble (not psycho babble - just babble) but, hopefully, I never came across as a fan of 'The Beautiful Game'. I don't believe in 'The Beautiful Game'. I believe in football. As a writer, but more importantly as a fan.
I was a United fan. Crazy with it. From so long back that I actually watched the Busby Babes, that superb team which twice won the Football League Championship in the mid 1950s and seemed destined for even greater achievements before they were wiped out in the Munich Air Disaster. I followed the Reds closely through the 1960s, their FA Cup and League triumphs, saw from Old Trafford's Stretford End the coming together of the Charlton, Best, Law triumvirate, and celebrated their European Cup success. Then my personal fairy tale came true - I started reporting from the Old Trafford Press Box.
Many years later, during a process in which I learned a lot more about myself, I found myself distanced from Old Trafford, even though I was still working there and living close by. Eventually I did the unforgiveable and switched to supporting Manchester City. I know, I know - what sort of fan could do that? Hopefully you will let me explain myself as this blog progresses.
Now, happily retired, I can look back at 55 years of watching and writing about the game. Some great memories. But I warn you...I'm angry. I still love football but action is required to keep it alive not as 'The Beautfiul Game' but as a game of passion, excitement, and genuine physicality. Sometimes it resembles an expanded form of 5-a-side where you're not allowed to touch an opponent and, if you do, he is allowed to collapse to the floor pretending that he has a fractured skull.
Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. In football terms it was first coined, I think, to describe the great Brazil side which won the 1970 World Cup and, perhaps, more precisely the team which whacked Italy in the final. They played superb football. As did the Netherlands during the 1970s, France 20 years later, and more recently Spain.
 |
| Brazil celebrate after winning the World Cup in Stockholm in 1958. Note the most influential member of the squad - no, not Pele. Extreme right, in suit and glasses, is the psychoanalyst Dr Carvaelho who calmed the team's volatile nature and played a big part in selection. |
But 'The Beautiful Game' stemmed from the way those and other teams attacked. How they knifed through defences, or teased them to distraction. This emphasis is understandable - we all enjoy goals and the way they are created. However such 'beauty' often has its ugly side, one which is often conveniently swept under the carpet by a media besotted with style.
Spain, for example, do not rely merely on creativity. Their success is built on the foundation of a solid defence, tough, uncompromising. And the whole side has a work ethos which would win them starring roles on The Apprentice. No-one slacks. Barcelona gave United a lesson in the European Cup because, claimed the enchanted media, they had so much skill on the ball, keeping possession and using it intelligently. Ok. But Barca were more impressive OFF the ball, closing United down, refusing to concede an inch of space. And Barca weren't afraid to 'get a foot in'. This wasn't 'beautiful' - it was systematic, highly focused and sometimes strongly physical team-work.
Even so Barca's physicality was child's play compared to some of the teams of old. Even the Manchester United of Charlton, Best and Law stuck the boot in more than any modern side. Those who remember Don Revie's Leeds team and even Bill Shankly's Liverpool will know what I mean. Football then was rarely 'beautiful'. But it was passionate. I think the passion has diiminished for a variety of reasons. I want to retain that which remains - which is partly the motiviation for writing this blog.
But I also want to write about what it was like being a fan before all seater stadia and prawn butties and instant world-wide communications. And what it was like being a reporter in that era. And what it was like being a traitor to the cause. A Red Traitor.
