Why has the game that I love gone so wrong?

Sorry, this is once again very long. I will quite understand if those with short attention spans decide they do not wish to read on.

On Saturday, I watched a very average Brighton side take the game that I used to love, and set it in a modern context of diving, play acting and cheating. I saw a referee who knew exactly what was going on, but who refused to put an end to it because he knew that the assessor, who was watching from the stand, would not stand by him if he chose to stamp it out. Frankly the whole scene that I witnessed was distasteful, but what distressed me more was that when Dawson won a foul because he lowered his usual honest standards, he won applause from the lower tier of the East Stand. It meant that even though the home support recognised the fault in Brighton and were only too happy to berate them for it, they were only too willing to encourage the same from their players if it meant that we would win an edge.

I remember the sport when it was violent, when it was played by thugs who tried to take the players with skill out of the game. Some managers encouraged the violence in the players they controlled and actually coached it. They were allowed to get away with it because the referees let them and the supporters wanted to see a high level of physical contact in the British game. It was symptomatic of the violence off the field, both inside grounds and on the way to and from grounds. You knew when you turned up on a Saturday that there would be a black hat, a “baddy”, who you could boo for the violence of his tackling and his utter disregard for the rules of the game, and you knew there would be a white hat, a “goody”, usually clad in red and white who would put everything right by scoring a winner. It was pure theatre and it was great, but it had to end.

In Europe and the rest of the world, a different game had developed. A game without physical contact which was played at a lower tempo, a game where skill was allowed to flourish. It was a game in which ball retention was all important, even if that meant that the ball went backwards away from goal in order to do so. When British football came into contact with this foreign game, the British way of exchanging possession at regular intervals and getting the ball forward quickly in order to create more penalty area action was defeated as much by the failure of the British football philosophy, as it was through the application of standardised world codes of refereeing which penalised of the more robust British style. We had invented and codified the game, but the world had told the British that our version of the game was too violent. If we wanted to continue to play on the world stage, our game had to change. Our game had become too violent, and in many ways, the world was right.

Not that the changes in the application of the rules have extended everywhere. I still hear the regulars at Oakwell as they castigate our back four for playing tippy-tappy football as the try to retain possession of the ball. I still hear them turn on Kennedy as he fails to take every opportunity to hit the ball aimlessly down the channel that no longer exists to a centre forward who would be better employed if he stopped wandering down the wings and remained central. I still see the lack of patience that results in long, aimless head high balls being hit towards forwards who have little hope of controlling the ball and building any serious attacking intent. I still see no indication that the majority of the crowd have realised that the days when effort was any substitution for pace and skill have long gone as they continue to yell from behind me “get stuck in” and other expressions from days gone by that hark back to simpler and in many ways better times, when Sepp Blatter had never been heard of and Sir Stanley Rous ruled the footballing waves.

But the home crowd is right to ask if this new brand of sanitised sport is not an over-reaction to the excesses of the past. If the game has not gone too far in protecting those with pace and skill from the Neanderthals who formerly exploited the British public's love for physical contact and if the game has not gone too far and is now being exploited by those who are seeking to exploit the rules through play acting and cheating. Just as before, the rule makers and administrators are complicit in the ruination of the game because they dictate to the men in black (or men in purple as they were on Saturday) exactly how the game is officiated. The referees are closer to the action and they know what is going on. They know that they are being conned. But they also know that unless they officiate the game according to the currently applied standardised view, they will not be officiating for very long. The crowd bellows at a referee who they see as incompetent and complains about the general standards of refereeing but does not make the connection as to why this situation has come about.

I find myself falling out of love with the game, a game that I have love for most of my 63 years. There is much wrong with the structure of the game as a result of the imbalance that was created by the Sky TV money coming into it, an imbalance that is particularly prevalent in the Championship. It is not helped that my club has become a victim of this imbalance. However, the cynical way in which Brighton exposed the worldwide problem of endemic on field cheating has left a bitter taste in my mouth. If anyone wants to look at an example of how that cynicism is ruining the game as a spectacle and as an entertainment, then they only had to be at Oakwell on Saturday. There used to be an expression that cheats never beat. Well the cheats got a point on Saturday and the sending off of Etuhu very nearly gave them the ultimate reward for their actions. Once again the game needs to clean up its act if it is not to lose its appeal to the paying public.

 

very good, well argued rant that!

can't disagree with any of it

 

That is a brilliant appraisal of football in general and in particular to events down at Oakwell on Saturday.

 

Couldnt agree more, well put together, enjoyed reading this post

 

Good write up pal.... Send it to the FA for their consideratio. Whilst I wouldnt expect much back from the FA I think more people should highlight the demise of the honour & sportsmanship in the game!

 

Good thoughtful post. Though most people at Oakwell get annoyed when Kennedy launches the ball aimlessly down the wing not because he doesn't do it enough.

 

Very good points Red Rain. My summary contained elements of the same on Saturday but I was too disgusted with what I had seen to bother putting too much of it down. I applauded my team off at half time and full time, just like many more did, because we had all seen that the team in red shirts had done their best to overcome the other lot. Brighton were not lacking in skill - that is why they are so high in the league - but they more than balanced that with the philosophy their current manager and of Gus Poyet before him.

It's easy for us Anglo Saxon types to have a go at the Latin style of "football". It's been going on since Antonio Rattin showed the world how to cheat and foul his way in the World Cup (1966). That so incensed Alf Ramsey at the time that he actually spoke out against it. Fat lot of good that did. 50 years on and it is still there, in spades, even at little places like Oakwell.

I despair watching English teams adopting those kind of tactics. You could argue that most teams do something they shouldn't several times in every game, but the likes of Brighton take it to new levels. Compare them to our other recent south coast visitors - Bournemouth. A good footballing team with a decent manager (by decent I mean high standards of behaviour). Unfortunately the Brightons of this world will always do well because nobody in authority will ever stop them with their cheating and despicable behaviour. No good asking their manager to have a word in Ulloa's ear. He was probably the same when he played.

 

Fair post that RR, don't think you'll get much argument from anyone on here.

 

Maybe the blind, those who cannot see.

 

What really angers me, is that we know referees can interpret and apply the rules differently from match-to-match.

But how can the referee interpret the rules differently in the same match (as per Saturday versus Brighton)?

It is either blatant cheating or gross incompetence.......and either way, the assessor sat in the stand, must see that?

Players like Ulloa don't make the game harder to officiate, they are clear in the way that they carry on, so should be easy to yellow/red card.

Ulloa and plays like him, will continue to take the game beyond the boundaries, until they are regularly and correctly dealt with. And with referees/assistants like we had on Saturday, I bet Ulloa was pi55ing himself laughing.

 

Brilliant post RR, I totally agree.

I felt depressed all evening after Saturday. A little because we had lost an opportunity to take two more points in our battle to stay up but much more so because of everything you wrote. I'm falling out of love with football a little more with each passing season.

Watching MoTD made it even worse. Yet again a pundit (Robbie Savage this time) talked about a player being 'entitled' to go down because there was 'contact'. What rubbish - if a player goes down when he could've stayed on his feet it's a dive. Simple as that. It's cheating, pure and simple!!! I despair that the pundits don't have the guts to tell it as it is. Or perhaps it's what they really think. If so though, I think they're massively out of touch. I hear so many fans nowadays complaining about it. And yes, I agree with your point about Daws in the second half too RR. His dive was embarrassing.

 

The sport of rugby generally condemns such behaviour, 99.9% of football makes excuses for it. It'll never change.

 

Cracking read, pal. Agree with you on practically all of it.

A little point though on Dawson's 'dives'. I say dives, because he did it twice. Both occasions, he conned the referee. But unlike those fans you refer to, myself and [MENTION=7244]bossman[/MENTION] didn't cheer him on for doing so. We looked at each other, said "never sin a foul", and shook our heads. I can't stand seeing any player do it, especially our own lads.

 

Money money money , spoiling our game, just got my tickets for the charlton game with the free coach but i still had to think twice could i afford it ? in the 70s and 80s i would go everywhere with the old man, portsmouth new years day, southampton night match we wouldn,t think twice, but the valid points in the first post are spoiling the game , its a good job its in my blood, i love our club and will go to watch them and support them till i die, like my old man did this season, but sometimes you wonder why,

 

In terms of Rugby Union there are a million infringements even the keenest of fans can't explain to me... not sure Rugby has all the answers...

 

Nobody said it does, but on the issue of how the game reacts to blatant cheating it's a shining light in comparison to football.

 

£

 

Man of few words Tomi, like it. Bang on too.

 

OK fair point, but just making the point that it is hard to spot the cheating in the first place, as the rules are so obtuse.